"Proficient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Diable was not in the Sioux lodges. I had been at the encampment for almost a week, daily expecting the warriors' return, before I could persuade the people to grant me the right of search through the wigwams. In the end, I succeeded only through artifice. Indeed, I was becoming too proficient in craft for the maintenance of self-respect. A child—I explained to the surly old men who barred my way—had been confused with the Sioux slaves. If it were among their lodges, I was willing to pay well for its redemption. The old squaws, eying ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... pipe organ which filled the space behind the staircase, and played a little, but she had never been very proficient, and her own awkwardness annoyed her. In the dining room she could hear the men talking, Howard quietly, his father in short staccato barks. She left the organ and wandered into her mother's morning room, behind the drawing room, where Grace ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... studies mapped out for me was much the same as I pursued at Mount Vernon, with a specialty of the first six books of Euclid, and of algebra. Latin was taught but little. From the first, arithmetic, algebra and surveying were my favorite studies, and in those I became proficient. We had an improvised theatre in which we acted plays ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... another long winter. He ground away at the bookkeeping—he was more proficient at it, but he hated it as heartily as ever—and wrote a good deal of verse and some prose. For the first time he sold a prose article, a short story, to a minor magazine. He wrote long letters to Helen and she replied. She was studying hard, she liked her work, and she ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... entered where she was despised by the rest of the family. It may be imagined how great indignation was excited in this man by her refusal, the more especially as, like Dumiger, he thought himself a proficient in science and the mechanical arts, and was one of those who in his way was laboring for the prize so soon to be awarded by the city. If merit was to be the test of success, he had but little chance; but where is that ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... up his London lodgings when he left town at the end of the season, and spare himself the expense of any home as long as he could find friends to entertain him. There are certain items of the cost of living for which the greatest proficient in the art of tick must pay, or he will come to a speedy end;—and a man's lodging is one of them. If indeed the spendthrift adapts himself to the splendour of housekeeping, he may, provided his knowledge of his business be complete, and his courage adequate, house himself gloriously ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... name from its association with hymns to the Virgin. Another is that it was thus called in honor of Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. We may accept whichever theory best suits us, but history records that both Elizabeth and Mary of Scotland were proficient in its use and that it was the favorite instrument of Henry VIII. Items for repairs and for instruction in playing the virginal appear frequently in the royal expense book, showing conclusively that His Majesty ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... at this boyish age, to have been so far a proficient in gallantry as to know the use that may be made of the trophies of former triumphs in achieving new ones; for he used to boast, with much pride, to Miss Chaworth, of a locket which some fair favourite had given him, and which probably may have been a present from that pretty cousin, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... grade of general proves this fact. But his bravery was equal to every proof, and he was a superb specimen of masculine beauty. The pen alone was an unaccustomed weapon to him, and he could hardly use it to sign his name; and it was said that he was not much more proficient in reading. Being colonel of the guard, he found himself one day alone at the Tuileries in an apartment where he waited until the Emperor could be seen. There he delighted himself with observing his image reflected in the glass, and readjusting his cravat; and the admiration he felt ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... all these supply colour. Certain toys seem specially suited to give hand control, e.g. a Noah's Ark, where the small animals are to be set out carefully, tops or teetotums and tiddlywinks, at which some little children become proficient. The puzzle interest must not be forgotten, and simple jigsaw pictures give great pleasure. It is interesting to note here that the youngest children fit these puzzles not by the picture but by form, though they know they are making a picture and are pleased when ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... made to take her degree (sid atang) by taking out a man's liver and cooking it with rice in a new pot; then she and the young woman who is initiating her, eat the feast together; a woman who has once eaten such a stew is completely proficient and can never forget what ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... gymnasium we have been practising, at all odd minutes, how to hold and sight the guns, and how to pull the trigger. Never before coming here had I heard of the squeeze, in which (of another kind) all army men are popularly supposed to be proficient by nature, but which here is technically a special study. The greenhorn naturally supposes that all he has to do with the gun is, like Stephen in the classic rhyme, to "p'int de gun, pull on de trigger." But since the ordinary pull is ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... 'Organizer' for anything of that kind. Mrs. Patterson and I are going to organize the wives, sisters and sweethearts, in Eagle Butte, into a club for the study of 'Scientific and Efficient Management of the Home!' We think we should be as proficient in those arts—and which we believe are peculiarly womanly functions—as the men are in the direction of the more strenuous business affairs in ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... Khallikan, in the thirteenth century, its best player was one As-Suli, famous as an author and a convivialist, who died one hundred and twenty years before the Norman Conquest. "To play like As-Suli" was indeed a proverb. Among this proficient's friends was his pupil, the khalif Ar-Radi, who had the greatest admiration for As-Suli's genius. One day, for instance, walking with some boon companions through a garden filled with beautiful flowers, Ar-Radi asked them if they ever saw a finer ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... handed over the brass rail to Lottie and Marita, who served as waitresses on the Dixie. First there were lettuce sandwiches, rolled. Any girl who can successfully roll bread and lettuce is termed proficient by the cooking teachers, and it was a tie between Belle and Cora as to who did the most and best ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... men made progress by becoming daily more expert in building, and as their ingenuity was increased by their dexterity so that from habit they attained to considerable skill, their intelligence was enlarged by their industry until the more proficient adopted the trade of carpenters. From these early beginnings, and from the fact that nature had not only endowed the human race with senses like the rest of the animals, but had also equipped their minds with the powers of thought and understanding, ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... sportsman, and a good shot with gun, rifle, and pistol, but now he began to perfect himself in the use of the last-named weapon. He arranged the basement of his house in such a way that he could practise with his revolvers, and he soon became very proficient in the accuracy and quickness of ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... thus provided made nearly forty assays, some of which were afterwards checked in Adelaide, in each instance coming as close as check assays generally do. Nowadays one can purchase cheaply a very effective portable plant, or after a few lessons a man may by practice make himself so proficient with the blowpipe as to obtain assay results sufficiently accurate ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... ever-recurring surprise. If the shoulders slope downwards, with the spine bending inwards, the individual 'cannot throw a stone, or handle firearms with dexterity.' When inclined forwards, and well relieved from the body, he may be a proficient in these exercises. A peculiarity in walking is given by the size of the head and neck being out of proportion; and an instance is mentioned of a man being discharged from the army, on account of his conformation rendering it impossible for him ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... been brought into contact with Western education and Western methods. The establishment of English as the official language of the Law Courts and of all public Departments necessarily favoured the Hindus by displacing Persian and the vernaculars in which the Mahomedans were most proficient. At the present day the vast majority of Indians employed in every branch of the Government service are Hindus, and this majority is entirely out of proportion to the numerical preponderancy of the Hindu community at large[11]. According to the last Census Report the Hindus of Bengal ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... before he had become at all proficient in the knife- grinding and umbrella-mending arts; and many a sly laugh and joke on the part of Deborah made him at times half-inclined to give up the work; but there was a determination and dogged resolution about his character which did not let him ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... and she was warm and impetuous. Isabella Vincent had moderate abilities, but a very persevering temper; whatever she had to learn, she laboured at it with her whole heart, and her disposition was placid and amiable. Miss Grey was a clever girl; she had been at an excellent school, and was proficient in most of the minor branches of education. She was fond of exercising her ingenuity to amuse her companions. One evening she had collected a party round her, intending to divert them with ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... cook and wash," said the American miner contemptuously years ago: "he can't work rock." To work rock in mining parlance is to be skillful in boring Earth's stony husk after mineral. It is to be proficient in sledging, drilling and blasting. The Chinaman seemed to have no aptitude for this labor. He was content to use his pick and shovel in the gravel-banks: metallic veins of gold, silver or copper he left entirely to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... he desires from lack of the final and unconquerable resolution. No education in the world will make a man an intellectual glory to his age, even if his powers are great; for unless he positively desires to seize the flower of perfection, he will be but a dry scholar, a dealer in words, a proficient in mechanical thought, and a mere wheel of memory. And the man who has this positive quality in him will rise in spite of adverse circumstances, will recognise and seize upon the tide of thought which is his natural food, ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... was a tedious one, although they tried to enliven it with a game of bridge, in which Uncle John and Louise were quite proficient and the others dreadfully incompetent. Once in a while the volcano thundered a deep detonation that caused the windows to shiver, but the Americans were getting used to the sound and paid ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... genus for our demonstration, because, as has been said, it is so very easy and so certain that an intelligent girl mastered all its eccentricities of structure after a single lesson, which made her equally proficient in those of Dendrobes, Oncidiums, Odontoglots, Epidendrums, and I know not how many more. The leaves are green and smooth as yet, with many a fantastic bloom, and many an ovary that has just begun to swell, rising amidst the verdure. ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... then related some of the events of his life. How he had visited the principal cities of Europe; and how he had studied under the best men, in order to make himself proficient in his line of work. Having heard that many Londoners were competing for the construction of carriages for Russia, he had hastily sent in his estimate. The work was accorded to him, and in a few years time he had amassed a large fortune. He had also opened a large wagon factory, ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... Creamery for three months, so as to become proficient in dairymaid work, and then I thought I could do some good among our own people who could not afford to send a girl to the Creamery to learn her business. Or it might be where there was no girl, and the vanithee-that is to say, the good woman—did her work in her own way, not half pressing the water ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... out at home, but they had been attacked for a long time by the Rumanians, who had caused them endless trouble. If they had succeeded in remaining in power long enough, they would, no doubt, in time have shown themselves proficient in murdering their fellow-countrymen and as skilled in the use of the rifle as the Bolsheviki in Russia, the Spartacides in Germany and the Communists in Bavaria. These four groups of European Socialists of the extreme Left—ruffians, brutes, murderous thugs, ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... was a native of Castilla, and entered the Augustinian order in that province; he was a religious of great attainments in knowledge and virtue. He arrived in the Philippines in 1606, became very proficient in the language of the Pampangos, and was a missionary among them for five years. In 1614 he was elected provincial of his order in the islands. "Thoroughly inflexible in character, he undertook to secure the most ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... Building, Painting, Varnishing are by Charles F. Adams, one of the most successful builders in Wisconsin. The language employed is so simple that any young man of average ability can, in a short time become proficient in all of these useful and profitable occupations. Each chapter is fully illustrated, there being more than 50 drawings throughout ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... this, I became a good proficient in the Latin tongue; but the contempt which my appearance produced, the continual wants to which I was exposed, and my own haughty disposition, involved me in a thousand troubles and adventures. I was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... character, who can read and write and pass the physical examination, may enlist for the term of their minority. They enlist as third- class apprentices, and are given six months' instruction at a training station, and thence go to sea in apprentice training vessels. When proficient they are transferred to regular cruising vessels as second class, and when further qualified are rated first class. All other enlistments are for four years. Recruits must speak English. Landsmen are usually ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to us from the troubadours. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in particular, Provence was filled with rich and populous cities, brilliant feudal courts abounded, and noble lords and ladies not only encouraged song and poetry, but strove to become proficient in the gay science, as it was called, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... in which I had picked up the Irish language, and drew from thence the conclusion that I was not fitted by nature to cut a respectable figure at an English university. "He will fly off in a tangent," said he, "and, when called upon to exhibit his skill in Greek, will be found proficient in Irish; I have observed the poor lad attentively, and really do not know what to make of him; but I am afraid he will never make a churchman!" And I have no doubt that my excellent father was right, both in his premises and the conclusion at which he arrived. I had undoubtedly, at one period ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... completed their term of service on a cruising training-ship. If they have served a year on a cruising ship of war they are considered properly qualified apprentices, and receive $21 a month. As the apprentices become proficient and their services are required, they are transferred to the seagoing vessels. Upon the expiration of the enlistment of an apprentice he will, if recommended, receive an honorable discharge, and if he enlists ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... The house address alone is not enough, for many children surrounded by wealth are denied health rights, such as the right to play, to breathe pure air, to eat wholesome food, to live sanely. Scholarship will not help, because the frailest child is often the most proficient. Manners mislead, for, like dress, they are but externals, the product of emulation, of other people's influence upon us rather than of our living conditions. Nationality is an index to nothing significant in America, where all ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... that these portraits were simply commemorative; and that the presses beneath them contained the books on subjects not suggested by the rest of the portraits, as for example, secular literature, in which Isidore was a proficient. ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... yonder, on the pave, is the celebrated courtezan, Mrs. St*pf**d, of Curzon-street, May-fair. How she acquired her present cognomen I know not, unless it was for her stopping accomplishment in the polite science of pugilism and modern patter, in both of which she is a finished proficient, as poor John D———, a dashing savoury chemist, can ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the country were becoming greatly interested in the practical possibilities of aviation. Mr. Sopwith decided to learn to fly, and in 1910, after continued practice in a Howard Wright biplane, he had become a proficient pilot. So rapid was his progress that by the end of the year he had won the magnificent prize of L4000 generously offered by Baron de Forest for the longest flight made by an all-British machine from England to the Continent. ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... reproducing things which have already come to their development thousands of times over in the persons of its ancestors. It is in virtue of this that it acquires proficiency in the actions necessary for its existence—so far as it was not already at birth proficient in them—much more quickly and easily than would be otherwise possible; but what we call instinct in the case of animals takes in man the looser form of aptitude, talent, and genius. {84} Granted that certain ideas are not innate, yet the fact of their ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... full play for a few minutes with this question. Some recluse, preferring the absolute simplicity of nature, or perhaps wearied with the artificialities of society, had secluded himself here with the company of his only daughter. Proficient as a pathfinder, he had easily discovered some other way of provisioning his house from the settlements than by the ordinary trails past Collinson's or Skinner's, which would have betrayed his vicinity. But recluses are not usually ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... service on Sunday the gates of the city are shut, and neither ingress nor egress permitted; fortunately their liturgy (the Calvinistic) is at least one hour shorter than the Anglican. Balls and concerts take place here very often and the young Genevois of both sexes are generally proficient in music. They amuse themselves too in summer with the "tir de l'arc" in common with all the ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... the great. It earns you the love of men and the praise of a thousand years. Yet I hope the angelical Beldame, all-helping, all-hated, has given you her last lessons, and, finding you so striding a proficient, will dismiss you to a hundred editions and the adoration of ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... cultivated involves the capacity, nay, the necessity of art. And still further, that those nations that have been or are preeminent on the earth, are preeminent in art. Nay, more, that a nation cannot attain to and maintain eminence without being proficient in art; and that to abstract from a people its artists were not merely to pluck the flowers from its branches; it were ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... keeping with this we have seen that all were trained as warriors; yet the great principle of the division of labor was at work. Some filled in their leisure during times of peace by acting as traders; others became proficient in some branch of work, such as feather work, or making gold and silver ornaments. Yet under a gentile system of society, persons practising such callings could never become very rich or proficient, simply because, being members of different gentes, there could not be that cooperation ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... passages of my life—a last resource with most people. But at the period to which I allude I was just, as I may say, entering upon life; I had adopted a profession, and—to keep up my character, simultaneously with that profession—the study of a new language; I speedily became a proficient in the one, but ever remained a novice in the other: a novice in the law, but a perfect master in the ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... himself. And G. Reece seemed not at all jubilant at being relieved. Next time Bernice danced near, Warren regarded her intently. Yes, she was pretty, distinctly pretty; and to-night her face seemed really vivacious. She had that look that no woman, however histrionically proficient, can successfully counterfeit—she looked as if she were having a good time. He liked the way she had her hair arranged, wondered if it was brilliantine that made it glisten so. And that dress was becoming—a dark ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... sacred asylum in the world of illustrious Anandayasas of excellent vows and great energy, and which are celebrated over the three worlds. Here also, O lord of men, the illustrious Etavarna and Avavarana versed in the Vedas, learned in Vedic lore, and proficient in the knowledge of Vedic rites, performed meritorious sacrifices, O chief of the Bharata race! There also is Visakhayupa to which, in days of yore, came the gods with Varuna and Indra, and practised ascetic austerities. And therefore is that spot so eminently sacred. Here also ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... confirmation without question. On the same morning came a letter from Cleary telling him to come at once to town and make the final arrangements before receiving orders to join his regiment. We shall draw a veil over the last interview between Sam and Marian. She was proficient in the art of saying farewell, and nothing was lacking on this occasion to contribute to its romantic effect. They parted in tears, but they were tears of ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... Scriptures, as I read them to my man Friday, I earnestly endeavoured to make him understand every part of it, as much as lay in my power. He also, on the other hand, by his very serious questions and inquiries, made me a much better proficient in Scripture knowledge, than I should have been by my own private reading and study. I must not omit another thing, proceeding from the experience I had in my retirement: It was that infinite and inexpressible blessing, the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, which was so plain and easy to be ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... sometimes to glance at Evelyn, and notice how very thin and delicate she looked, and an anxiety which was almost paternal was over him. He used almost to wish that she was not so proficient in her studies. One day, meeting her in the vestibule when no one was in sight, he could not resist the impulse which led him to pat her little, dark, curly head and say, in ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... proficient canoeist, and will adventure himself with confidence in a canoe of the frailest construction, which he will guide in safety, and with surpassing skill. He will dispel the fears of his disquieted and faithless fellow-voyager (for the motion at times in canoeing ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... Allied pilot who went far back of the German lines used his glasses diligently, in the endeavor to locate the secret aviation field of the Boche. This would naturally be camouflaged in the customary fashion, at which the Teutons had become almost as proficient as the French; but trust an airman to spy out the lodging ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... celestial dancer). And to Ruru also by his wife Pramadvara, was born a son, whose name was Sunaka. He was, O Saunaka, thy great ancestor exceedingly virtuous in his ways. He was devoted to asceticism, of great reputation, proficient in law, and eminent among those having a knowledge of the Vedas. He was virtuous, truthful, and of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... there's virtue in my heavenly words. Who would not be proficient in this art? How pliant is this Mephistophilis, Full of obedience and humility! Such is the force ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... of noble parents. As a boy he had the advantage of the best schools and teachers that Rome could furnish. Later he studied at Athens, under the greatest Greek masters, and became proficient in the Greek language. According to the common practice among the better classes in Rome, he spent some time in travel to complete his education, visiting Egypt, Asia Minor, and other parts of the known world. But Cicero's education can hardly be said to have been "completed" as ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... them proved a failure. The idea among them seemed to be that each should take some part in amusing the company. One would jump from the back of a bench upon which he had been seated, while others were creeping about the floor; another, who deemed himself a proficient in turning somersaults, would be trying his skill in this way, while his neighbor, equally ambitious, would show the teacher how he could stand on his head. Occasionally they would pause and listen to the singing of a hymn or the reading of a little story; then all would be confusion ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... or medical or one of engineering: How successfully dispose of it? Uniformly, in one way. Those problems are successfully solved, if at all, only when their solution is placed in the hands of the most proficient. Judged by the discussions of to-day, what advance has in politics been effected? Do the Outlook and the Commoner imply progress since the Stagirite? Not to any noticeable extent. We are, on the contrary, fumbling and wallowing about where ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... excelled, and showed an extraordinary quickness and agility. Of fencing he was especially fond, and made my two boys proficient in that art; so much so, that when the French came to this country with Monsieur Rochambeau, not one of his officers was superior to my Henry, and he was not the equal of my poor George, who had taken the King's side in our lamentable ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the bookbinder's house; one day courage came to him, and he entered into a compact with his landlord, whereby he was to pay for instruction by a certain period of unremunerated work after he became proficient. That stage was now approaching. On the whole, he felt much happier than in the time of brooding idleness. He looked forward to the day when he would have a little more money in his pocket, and no longer dread the last fortnight ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... father; "I should like to have you a proficient in all manly accomplishments, only don't be foolhardy and run useless risks. I want my son to be brave, but not rash; ready to meet danger with coolness and courage when duty calls, and to have the proper training to enable him to do so ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... in driving or riding them, don't try to ride or drive any of them on a public way at first, but confine your exercise in horsemanship to your own land until you have acquired ordinary skill in their management; for the law requires every driver or rider on a highway to be reasonably proficient in the care and management of any animal he assumes to ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... fatality incurred by those who went into a contest with him. He was famous, too, at athletic sports, but was never known to communicate the secret of the fatal blow; he also taught the sword exercises, at which he was considered to be a proficient. ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... under the gentle guidance of the learned Pasteur, at the classics, literature, and other subjects, while in French he could not fail to become proficient in the company of the talkative Madame and the sprightly Juliette. Nor did he want for relaxation. There were great woods on the hills behind the Maison Blanche, and in these he obtained leave to shoot rabbits, and, horrible to say, foxes. Juliette and he would set out together towards ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... accepted, I am told, even in shorthand, where the pupil acquires the knowledge of a number of signs, only for the purpose of discarding them when he is proficient enough to make an individual system. It is also accepted in music, where only the advanced pianist or singer can afford to play tricks with tempo. And I am sure it should ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... recall images in the various sensory lines; determine in what classes of images you are least proficient and try to ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... spy upon them, it was highly probable he knew English, and if he knew English it was certain the whole of their design was in the Master's knowledge. There was one singularity in the position. If Secundra Dass knew and concealed his knowledge of English, Harris was a proficient in several of the tongues of India, and as his career in that part of the world had been a great deal worse than profligate, he had not thought proper to remark upon the circumstance. Each side had thus a spy-hole on the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Italian, carrying on such conversation as I could with Serafino, and with Mrs. Winchell, who was growing proficient in ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... the great praise of Bernardin de St. Pierre, that coming immediately after Rousseau and Buffon, and being one of the most proficient writers of the same school, he was in no degree their imitator, but perfectly original and new. He intuitively perceived the immensity of the subject he intended to explore, and has told us that no day of his ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... one day be placed like Hal and Ned in a position where they will find it, not merely a matter of entertainment, but exceedingly useful; for trailing is as much an art as is painting or sculpture, and requires the most constant practice to become a proficient in it. ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... belong only to the past," said the girl, reaching up a rounded arm and patting her aunt's thin hand. "And now we will be practical. I fancied the head of the settlement looked worried when he met me, and he is not very proficient ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... or two of the penning of this epistle, Tom realised one of the objects of his young Oxford ambition, and succeeded in embarking in a skiff by himself. He had been such a proficient in all the Rugby games that he started off in the full confidence that, if he could only have a turn or two alone, he should satisfy not only himself but everybody else that he was a heaven-born ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... ignorant about the highest matters? Or is wisdom despised of men and can find no buyers, although cypress wood and marble of Pentelicus are eagerly bought by numerous purchasers? Surely the prudent pilot or the skilful physician, or the artist of any kind who is proficient in his art, is more worth than the things which are especially reckoned among riches; and he who can advise well and prudently for himself and others is able also to sell the product of his art, if ...
— Eryxias • An Imitator of Plato
... tests for the flier—vacuum-chambers, spinning-chairs, co-ordination tests—there need be none of these. The average man in the street, the clerk, the laborer, the mechanic, the salesman, with proper training and interest can be made good, if not highly proficient pilots. If there may be one deduction drawn from the experience of instructors in the Royal Air Force, it is that it is the training, not the individual, that makes ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... circumstances, who, while he was a child, reared him in the midst of vice and license. On this account, and by his own nature, he was quarrelsome and evilly disposed. He would learn no trade, except to commit robberies along the highway, in which he became so proficient, that very soon he had a large following—more than two thousand—of whom he was the acknowledged chief, and came to be feared throughout the whole province where he ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... for his mistrust, - expressed perfect faith in Mr. Fosbrooke's skill - and then lapsed into silent meditation on the various arts and sciences in which the gentlemen of the University of Oxford seemed to be most proficient, and pictured to himself what would be his feelings if he ever came to see Verdant driving a coach! There certainly did not appear to be much probability of such an event; but can any pater familias say what even the most carefully brought up young Hopeful will do when ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... other boys busied themselves in copying what he did. They had seen him make such a stone fireplace before, any way, and some of them had practiced the art in private, being desirous of knowing how to do many of the things the leaders were so proficient in. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... the Anglican Church," by J. H. Parker (1851): "St. Dunstan was not only a patron of the useful and fine arts, but also a great proficient in them himself; and his almost contemporary biographers speak of him as a poet, painter, and musician, and so skilled a worker in metals that he made many of the church vessels in ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... in the affirmative. He had taken riding lessons in the city, and was accustomed to ride, whenever he had a chance, in the environs of the city. He was, in truth, an excellent rider, having taken lessons of an accomplished teacher, who often referred to him as one of the most proficient of his pupils. But when Jasper questioned him he only answered that he rode a little, having ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... visitors, some drawn by curiosity and others by sympathy and good will. The latter were profuse in their attentions. When a lawyer appeared, I related to him the details of our arrest. I did the talking, as Thompson could not speak the language, while I was becoming quite proficient in it. Upon leaving, the lawyer promised to have us free ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... diligent, and her favorite studies were music and poetry. She would spend several hours practicing every day, and her father had the most proficient of masters he could find to teach her the koto (Japanese harp), the art of writing letters and verse. When she was twelve years of age she could play so beautifully that she and her step-mother were summoned to the Palace to ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... was Mr Jay. He was a proficient in his art; and though he might not have been able to jump as high or to spin round on one leg as long as an opera-dancer, he was able to teach us to dance like gentlemen. He was also a professor of fencing ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... driving are accomplishments in which it is very desirable for all ladies and gentlemen to be proficient. To ride well, one must be taught early, and have practice. Like swimming, riding cannot be learned ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... He had known ambition once, it was said, and with reason, for he had studied surgery in Germany for the mere love of the science. After which, making the grand tour in France and Italy, he had taken up that art of being a gentleman in which men became so proficient in my young days. He had learned to speak French like a Parisian, had hobnobbed with wit and wickedness from Versailles to Rome, and then had come back to Annapolis to set the fashions and to spend the fortune his uncle lately had left him. He was our censor of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... who in consequence are invalided home, and those who are separated from the service in the interest of the public good, who return to the United States and get an audience there; while those who successfully adapt themselves to local conditions, display interest in their work and become proficient in it, remain in the islands for long periods during which they are too busy, and too far from home, to make ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... essayists of the two last centuries. He possessed complete sets of the Idler, the Spectator, the Tatler, the Guardian, and the Rambler, and would discourse by hours together on the superiority of such publications to anything which has since been produced in our Edinburghs and Quarterlies. He was proficient in all questions of genealogy, and knew enough of almost every gentleman's family in England to say of what blood and lineage were descended all those who had any claim to be considered as possessors of any such luxuries. For blood and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... countenance, a most extraordinary one; his manner, a mixture of the hero and the bully, of noble dignity and truculent swagger, as if Ancient Pistol had taken the part of Coriolanus, and had not become proficient wholly in his ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... "work was plenty and friends were easily made." But she had found her father living where she could not and would not live. The friends he had made in America she could not and would not have for hers. So when she had grown proficient enough in the factory, she had gone to live in that loneliest of all ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... try Latin?" suggested Mark, who was a proficient pupil in that language. "Latin is a very old language. ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... things in this life have sometimes preferred; whereof not to be sensible when good and fair in one person meet, argues both a gross and shallow judgment, and withal an ungentle and swainish breast. For by the firm settling of these persuasions, I became, to my best memory, so much a proficient, that if I found those authors anywhere speaking unworthy things of themselves, or unchaste of those names which before they had extolled, this effect it wrought with me,—from that time forward their art I still applauded, but the men I deplored; and above them all, preferred the two famous ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... earless desert, does the beginner pass the excruciating interval of his apprenticeship? We have all heard people learning the piano, the fiddle, and the cornet; but the young of the penny whistler (like that of the salmon) is occult from observation; he is never heard until proficient; and providence (perhaps alarmed by the works of Mr. Mallock) defends human hearing from his first attempts upon the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been considered proficient enough to take an active part in the monthly entertainment, but Flossie's name was one of the first on the list. She played the violin remarkably well, better than almost anybody else at Chessington; ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... with a living. For that reason, he periodically left his tiny log house and packed for some survey expedition, or went down to work for a few months at a sawmill. Capable of most determined labor, wonderfully proficient with his hands, he asked no more from life than a little plain food and indifferent shelter. No luxury that civilization could offer would have tempted him to desert ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... possibility that she and Anne might be the subject of unpleasant comment, Grace made up her mind to enjoy herself. She was fond of dancing, and knew that she would have plenty of invitations to do so. David would look after Anne, who was not yet proficient enough in dancing to venture to try ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... enough after her morning's duties were over, for a tramp along the Panipara Jhil for snipe, the sport Honor most enjoyed and at which she was gradually becoming proficient. She would be all alone, that bright January day, as Tommy, her faithful and devoted lover, was prevented by his duties ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... two years had the assistance of an English clergyman and his wife, named Collison, [Footnote: Mr. Collison was not ordained at the time] who came out from England for the purpose of working in the mission field among the Indians. Mr. Collison is studying the language of the Tsimshean Natives, when proficient in it, which he soon will be, judging from the progress he has already made, he will labour among the ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... of the Yellowstone and the Snake. Personally, I knew too little to decide as to the comparative merits of the two arms; but I did know that it was a great deal better to use the arm with which our men were already proficient. They were therefore armed with what might be called their ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... and acrobats of every kind are now so common, that a description of their ordinary performances is unnecessary. They are found on every portion of the globe, some of the most proficient being now seen in China ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... at a young age; in his view it was one of the essentials of education; he had learned it himself at the age of thirteen, and insulted his superior young gentlemen private secretaries by asking them if they knew it. Jane and Johnny, who had been in early youth very proficient at it, had, since they were old enough to know it was a sort of low commercial cunning, the accomplishment of the slave, hidden their knowledge away like a vice. When concealed from observation and pressed for time, they had furtively ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... [Madame de Chatillon, whose deceased husband had been governor to King Charles VIII.] As she was discovered to have rare intellectual gifts and a very keen relish for learning, she was provided with every kind of preceptors, who made her proficient in profane letters, as they were then called. Marguerite learned Latin, Greek, philosophy, and especially theology. "At fifteen years of age," says a contemporary, "the spirit of God began to manifest itself in her eyes, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... advantage. But Graciosa's time was not yet mature in the year of grace 1533, for the girl was not quite sixteen. So Graciosa remained in Balthazar's big cheerless house and was tutored in all needful accomplishments. She was proficient in the making of preserves and unguents, could play the harpsichord and the virginals acceptably, could embroider an altarcloth to admiration, and, in spite of a trivial lameness in walking, could dance a coranto or a saraband against any ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... stewardess went out by the other. In a moment more the lovers were united in a private room. Is it necessary to say in what language the proceedings were opened? Surely not! There is an inarticulate language of the lips in use on these occasions in which we are all proficient, though we sometimes forget it in later life. Natalie seated herself on a locker. The tea, sugar, and spices were at her back, a side of bacon swung over her head, and a net full of lemons dangled before her face. It might not be roomy, but ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... weeks rolled by, her work was changed, and in addition to other employment, she instructed a number of classes in English, both in the training-school and among the deaconesses. As for herself, she was daily becoming more proficient in German, and in a very short time was able easily to follow the sermon. This was a great enjoyment to her, as she much valued the truly evangelical teaching ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... shoes, plated with iron to preserve them, with a child upon his knee, eating his breakfast. His wife and the remainder of his children were, some of them, employed in waiting upon each other, the rest in teasing and spinning wool, at which trade he is a great proficient; and, moreover, when it is ready for sale, he will lay it upon his back, sixteen or thirty-two pounds' weight, and carry it on foot to the market, ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... in bread making depends on the proper handling of the ingredients. Of course, skill in manipulation is acquired only by constant practice, so that the more opportunity the housewife has to apply her knowledge of the processes, the more proficient will she become in this phase of cookery. Each one of the processes mentioned is here discussed in the order in which it comes in the actual work of bread making, and while the proper consideration should ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... their poor homesick old bones for them when necessary. Monsieur Bergerac, afterward professor in St. Mary's College, Baltimore, was a teacher: another preceptor, M. Michel Martel, an emigre of 1780, was proficient in fifteen languages, five of which he had imparted to the lovely and talented Theodosia Burr. Aaron Burr happened to visit Wilmington when the man who had trained his daughter's intellect was lying in the almshouse, wrecked and paralytic, with the memory of all his many tongues gone, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... born at Durham, England, March 6, 1809. She was highly educated and was proficient in both Greek and Latin. She wrote her first verses at the age of ten, and her first volume of poems was published when she was but seventeen years old. In 1846 she was married to the poet Robert Browning. Her first known works ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... this instruction is to teach the soldier how to make effective use of the rifle and bayonet in personal combat; to make him quick and proficient in handling his rifle; to give him an accurate eye and a steady hand; and to give him confidence in the bayonet in offense and defense. When skill in these exercises has been acquired, the rifle will still remain a most formidable weapon at close ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... was free enough, but reluctant. Why revive the horrors of that awful night! But he persuaded me, and a month later we were in the same region, and moreover had found old Klaas alive and hearty. John had become proficient in the Bushman and Hottentot tongues, as his brother had been; though where and how he had studied them I never knew. Would he, too, I wondered, try to obtain the Proof, as his poor mad brother had done? And when we first came in contact ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... will improve you so much as playing with good players; never refuse, therefore, when any one offers you odds, to accept them: you cannot expect a proficient to feel much interest in playing with you upon even terms, and as you are sure to derive both amusement and instruction from him, it is but fair that he should name the conditions. It will soon happen that you yourself will be able to ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... proficient and more frequently than ever Borroughs would let me "spell" for him for a while each day. Be it said to his credit, however, he was always within hearing, when I was doing any of his work. He was carefulness personified, and the following incident only serves to show what unaccountable ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... greatest friendship and the highest mark of gratitude. They commanded that henceforward Columbus should be called "Praefectus Marinus," or, in the Spanish tongue, Amiral. His brother Bartholomew, likewise very proficient in the art of navigation, was honoured by them with the title of Prefect of the Island of Hispaniola, which is in the vulgar tongue called Adelantado.[14] To make my meaning clear I shall henceforth employ ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... is the difficulty, let us make ourselves equally proficient. The more we are in touch with the so-called combatant ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... all more or less learnt to profit by. Yet no other naturalist has proved himself so proficient in holding the balance true. For the most part, indeed, they have now all ceased to confound the process of speculation per se with the danger of inadequate verification; and therefore the old ideal of natural history as concerned merely with collecting species, classifying ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... and anxious to secure work, and secondarily for the reason that skilled labor was not an essential factor. Most of the work is done by machinery and in a short period of time a mechanic of ordinary intelligence will become proficient in running a machine. The necessary trained labor could be secured without difficulty. Numbers of highly trained employes at Government arsenals are now with private arms and ammunition concerns. The labor problem ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... except that of Schalken, was deserted. Gerard Douw was pacing the apartment with the restless step of impatient expectation, every now and then humming a passage from a piece of music which he was himself composing; for, though no great proficient, he admired the art; sometimes pausing to glance over the work of one of his absent pupils, but more frequently placing himself at the window, from whence he might observe the passengers who threaded the obscure by-street in which his ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... a proficient, and never acquired the art of writing or spelling French, far less foreign languages, with accuracy or correctness; nor had the monks of Brienne any reason to pride themselves on the classical proficiency of their scholar. The full energies of his mind being devoted to the scientific ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... practice. He rarely attempted and probably would not have excelled in the lighter lyrical measures. But in the grave music of the various elaborate stanzas in which the Elizabethan poets delighted, and of which the Spenserian, though the crown and flower, is only the most perfect, he was a great proficient, and his couplets and blank verse are not inferior. Some of his single lines have already been quoted, and many more might be excerpted from his work of the best Elizabethan brand in the quieter kind. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... and railroads constructed. In all these works the Negro did most of the heavy work. In the planting, cultivating and marketing of the crops not only was the Negro the chief dependence, but in the manufacture of tobacco he became a skilled and proficient workman, and in this, up to the present time, in the South, holds the lead in the large ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... of the upstart marquis appeared so firmly rooted, the career before him so splendid, that there were not wanted whisperers who, in addition to his other crimes, ascribed to Roderigo Calderon the assistance of the black art. But the black art in which that subtle courtier was a proficient is one that dispenses with necromancy. It was the art of devoting the highest intellect to the most selfish purposes—an art that thrives tolerably well for a time in the ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... River. On August 26 they were sent to Petersburg to rest. While there he enjoyed the use of the city library. He and his brother and two friends were transferred to the signal corps, which was considered at that time the most efficient in the Southern army, and, becoming soon proficient in the system, attracted the attention of the commanding officer, who formed them into a mounted field squad and attached them to the staff of Major-General French. "Often Lanier and a friend," says the latter officer, "would come to my quarters ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... only looked the more unreal, and more like a combination of pen-wiper and pincushion, until his puffy breast and shoulders seemed to offer a positive invitation to any one who had picked up a pin. But, wonderful!—according to his brief story—he had been so proficient in the goose step that he had been put in uniform already, and allowed certain small privileges,—among them, evidently the present one. The consul smiled and passed on. But it seemed strange to him that Trudschen, who was a ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... that one could learn to use it with a little practice, and he's right. Basically, anyone can use it as soon as he puts it on for the first time. But it's like so many other tools. The more you use it, the more proficient you get with it. And I suspect it has capabilities I haven't ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... Roost"; afterward the name was changed to "Sunnyside," the name by which it is still known. Little by little he bought more land, he planted trees, and cultivated flowers and vegetables. At one time he boasts that he has become so proficient in gardening that he can raise his own fruits and vegetables at a cost to him of little more ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... little more proficient, had in a couple of days made 500 cigarettes. I had undertaken to despatch them, and one morning she came to me with a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... should not be forgotten how clever people are in regard to affairs which do not concern them, even though they show no particularly sign of acuteness in other matters. This is a kind of algebra in which people are very proficient: give them a single fact to go upon, and they will solve the most complicated problems. So, if you wish to relate some event that happened long ago, without mentioning any names, or otherwise indicating the persons to whom you refer, you should be very ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... in part by women. It is well known that they have, within the past few years, entered the field of artistic bookbinding with the most gratifying success; that they excel in art work in textiles, and are proficient in art work ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... ingenious a draughtswoman, that, like the ancient Mexicans, she sometimes made a hasty sketch with her pencil the means of conveying her ideas, either by direct or emblematical representation. Above all, in the art of ornamental writing, much studied at that period, Fenella was so great a proficient, as to rival the fame of Messrs. Snow, Shelley, and other masters of the pen, whose copybooks, preserved in the libraries of the curious, still show the artists smiling on the frontispiece in all ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... class, the acrobatic dancing class, for a month, because here the students get all sorts of primary acrobatic tricks and gain in strength and flexibility. All dancing is easier to those who take this work. And besides, if you go out and accept an engagement you will be proficient in cartwheels, splits, and many other neat tricks that will be of great service to you. These are stunts that you cannot learn in a theatre; no one has time to teach them to you, nor the necessary equipment or facilities, and you want to be ready when the stage director calls ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense—such as I have never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she deeply proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in regard to the modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault. Indeed upon any theme of the most admired, because simply the most abstruse of the boasted erudition ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... man and many women need an income-producing trade or occupation; hence it is the duty of the schools to provide trade and professional educations (really the same thing under different names). No child should be permitted to leave the schools until he is proficient in some income-giving work. The character of the teaching must be altered to suit the locality, but ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... or fortnight, I think of returning to the Continent till autumn, when I shall bring a horse, and stay the winter at Burnham. I return to many charming women; but no charming woman will return with me. I want to be a proficient in the language, which is my only reason for returning. I hate their country ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... pseudo-hallucinations, as he was able to bring them on and cause their disappearance at will. He was frank in his statements and discussed the various ideas without hesitation. He was inclined to write a great deal, especially poetry of the waste-basket variety, and considered himself quite proficient in this respect. On February 2, 1911, he appeared before the Staff conference where the advisability of granting him parole of the grounds was considered. Upon being refused this privilege he again attempted suicide by making several superficial cuts across the wrists. These ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... the brooding, introspective man, who was destined in the end to be her murderer. As a child, she had been passionately grateful to him; she had learned all she could from the books he gave her to study, and with a quick brain, and a keen sense of observation, she had become a proficient in literature, so much so indeed, that more than one half the Revolutionary treatises and other propaganda which he had sent out to different quarters of the globe, were from her pen. Her one idea had been to please and ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... to send him to Jena for three months to pick up your noble vernacular; and in the meanwhile to continue his Greek and Mathematics, in which the young gentleman is fairly proficient. If you can recommend any Professor under whom he can carry on his studies, it ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... taught her and the other children, for she frequently confounded him in open class by questions which have vexed persons of maturest years. She was taught the harp, the piano, the guitar, and the violin. She was proficient in dancing. Such was her astonishing aptitude in all studies that she says, "I had not a single master who did not appear as much flattered by teaching me as I was grateful for being taught; nor one ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... time required to become proficient in the various occupations is about as follows: 43 per cent. of all the jobs require not over one day of training; 36 per cent. require from one day to one week; 6 per cent. require from one to two weeks; 14 per cent. require from one month to one year; one per cent. require from one ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... more lonely evenings for Alec, when he sat with bowed head beside his table, staring into vacancy. He should have had another promotion in March. Alec felt that he was proficient enough to be advanced, and he told himself bitterly that the reason he was not was because the ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... author has had in mind the needs of young men having no technical instruction who are anxious to become proficient in the art of Plumbing. As a consequence each exercise is minutely described and illustrated; so much so, perhaps, that an experienced mechanic may find it too simple for skilled hands and a mature mind. But the beginner will not find the exercises too ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... day and night, sleeping there. "I became quite valuable to Mr. Walker. After working all day I worked at the office nights as well, for the reason that 'press report' came over one of the wires until 3 A.M., and I would cut in and copy it as well as I could, to become more rapidly proficient. The goal of the rural telegraph operator was to be able to take press. Mr. Walker tried to get my father to apprentice me at $20 per month, but they could not agree. I then applied for a job on the Grand Trunk Railroad as a railway operator, and was given a place, nights, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... may trust the panegyric of her son, was on the other hand a far less commonplace character. But for her husband's dislike to learning and philosophy she would have become a proficient in both, and in a short period of study she had made a considerable advance. Yet her intellect was less remarkable than the nobility and sweetness of her mind; other mothers loved their sons because their ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... tallish sort of person, moderately homely, and not quite thirty-five. I am strong but not athletic. Whatever physical development I possess was acquired through the ancient and honourable game of golf and in swimming. In both of these sports I am quite proficient. My nose is rather long and inquisitive, and my chin is considered to be singularly firm for one who has no ambition to become a hero. My thatch is abundant and quite black. I understand that my eyes are green when I affect a green tie, light blue when I put on one of that delicate hue, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... actual, certified reports on file in our office—A. B. C. men got their salary raised as a direct result of becoming more proficient from ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... or Semites—did teach them, was a more orderly way of organizing society and ruling it by means of laws and an established government, and, above all, astronomy and mathematics—sciences in which the Shumiro-Accads were little proficient, while the later and mixed nation, the Chaldeans, attained in them a very high perfection, so that many of their discoveries and the first principles laid down by them have come down to us as finally adopted facts, confirmed by later science. Thus, the division of the year ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... long rides, in which they learned to be more proficient on horses, the boys did little for the week following the hunt. Jack made anxious inquiries every day after the condition of Peter Lantry, hoping the aged man might have regained his senses enough to give directions ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... the Emperor, 'is a proficient Queen in the art of man training. My other sister, the Duchess of Parma, is equally scientific in breaking-in horses; for she is constantly in the stables with her grooms, by which she 'grooms' a pretty sum yearly in buying, selling, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... become fairly proficient so that his mentor could turn his attention to other things of interest they happened to see around them as ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... spite of his soaking condition at this moment—an air of much dignity. He had on a Norfolk coat and trousers of obviously English make, though they were none that I had given him. Moreover, when he spoke to me in English, though he was by no means proficient in our language, yet he certainly spoke it much better than ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... certainly essential to him during his early stages of development, exist in all savages with some approach to equality. In the speed of running, in bodily strength, in skill with weapons, in acuteness of vision, or in power of following a trail, all are fairly proficient, and the differences of endowment do not probably exceed the limits of variation in animals above referred to. So, in animal instinct or intelligence, we find the same general level of development. ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... justly refuses him the character of an exact scholar, or technical proficient at any time in either of the ancient literatures. But he freely read in Greek and Latin, as in various modern languages; and in all fields, in the classical as well, his lively faculty of recognition and assimilation had given him large booty in proportion to his labor. One cannot under ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... proficient with both boomerang and spear, and could soon knock over a rock wallaby or a cockatoo as neatly as any man in the tribe, and, because of his greater strength, he was more than a match for the natives ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... night, after work was over, the colored people would gather in the little hamlet and march to the music of a drum and fife, and under the command of Nimbus, whose service in the army had made him a tolerable proficient in such tactical movements as pertained to the "school of the company." Very often, until well past midnight the fife and drum, the words of command, and the rumble of marching feet could be heard in the little village. The white people ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... by much as they do with any boy on a farm. Of work there was plenty, but he found time to become a proficient skater, and a strong, sturdy swimmer, to learn and take delight in outdoor sports, all of which helped to build a constitution like iron, and to give him an interest in such things which he has ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... the common course of puerile studies, in which he was no great proficient, was put an apprentice to a brewer, with whom he had lived two years, when his uncle died in the city, and left him a large fortune in the stocks. Dick had for six months before used the company of the lower players, of whom he had learned to scorn a trade, and, being now at ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... languages; to the rules of grammar he entertained a rooted aversion; and at history he was inclined to yawn, except when it happened to touch upon the names and deeds of such men as Vasco di Gama and Columbus. But in geography he was perfect; and in arithmetic and book-keeping he was quite a proficient, to the delight of Mrs Dorothy Grumbit whose household books he summed up; and to the satisfaction of his fast friend, Mr Arthur Jollyboy, whose ledgers he was—in that old gentleman's ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... the opportune arrival of Captain Craigengelt in the moment when they were longing for a third hand to make a party at tredrille, in which, as in all games, whether of chance or skill, that worthy person was a great proficient. ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... self-oblivious patriotism to the scaffold on which perished the friend of his opening manhood, Robert Emmet. Trinity College, Dublin, having been opened to Catholics by the Irish Parliament in 1793, Moore was entered there as a student in the succeeding year. He became more proficient in French and Italian than in the classic languages, and showed no turn for Latin verses. Eventually, his political proclivities, and intimacy with many of the chiefs of opposition, drew down upon him (after various interrogations, in which he honorably refused ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... completely, perfectly, totally, entirely, fully; and this is the sense in which it was used by the early writers of English. It is now often used in the sense of rather; as, "It is quite warm"; "She is quite tall"; "He is quite proficient." Sometimes it is incorrectly used in the sense of considerable; as, quite an amount, quite a number, quite a fortune. Quite, according to good modern usage, may qualify an adjective, but not a noun. "She is quite the lady," is a vile phrase, meaning, "She is ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres) |
