"Propensity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The Flemings were disappointed at the scanty numbers of the English men-at-arms, and stared with wonder and contempt at the bare-legged Welsh archers and lancemen, with their uncouth garb, strange habits of eating and fighting, and propensity to pillage and disorder, though they recognised their hardihood and the effectiveness of their missiles.[1] The same disorderly spirit that had marred the Rioms campaign still prevailed among the English engaged on foreign service. No sooner were the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... "Greenbacker," as a member of one of the minor political parties of the day was termed: the little man was poor, and Doctor Castleton had simply been drawing for him a picture of delights—at least, so I conjectured. This propensity of the doctor sometimes led to startling surprises and results, and, once at least, to a discovery of weighty consequence—as we ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... every thing committed to his care will change with him. We may plead his excuse, by observing, his sight is defective: he may be deceived by viewing an object in one light, or attitude, to-day, and another, to-morrow. This propensity to change might lead us to suspect the authenticity of ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... soothed into smiles by an open bureau with large liberty to upheave its contents from turret to foundation-stone. As the infant world ascended from cambric and dimity to broadcloth and crinoline, its propensity for investigation grew stronger. It loved not bureaus less, but a great many other things more. What sad consequences might have ensued, had this passion been left to forage for itself, no one can tell. But, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... more clear, and is not so liable to be confused when intent upon any intricate subject; and, of course, "can continue a laborious investigation longer." There is at no time such a propensity to incogitancy. ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... Her propensity, and her conscientious indulgence of the same, were proverbial among her acquaintances, but no one—not even prudish and fearsome maidens of altogether uncertain age, and prudent mammas, equally alive to expediency and decorum—had ever labelled her "Dangerous," while with young people she ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... many persons sufficiently aware of the ruinous extent to which the amative propensity is indulged by married persons. The matrimonial ceremony does, indeed, sanctify the act of sexual intercourse, but it can by no means atone for nor obviate the consequences of its abuse. Excessive indulgence in the married relation is, perhaps, as much owing to the force of habit, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... impediment to a writer, of water drinking, if I can persuade myself that I have any wit, and find I have inclination, I intend to write; though, as yet, I have another impediment: for I have not provided myself with a scheme. Ten to one but I shall have a propensity to write against vice, and who can tell how far that may offend? But an author should consult his genius, rather than his interest, if he ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... Christianity by politic concessions to heathenism, so that the successes of the Jesuit missions are magnified by reports of alleged conversions that are conversions only in name and outward form; second, a constantly besetting propensity to political intrigue.[27:1] It is hardly to be doubted that both had their part in the prodigious failure of the French Catholic missions and settlements within the present boundaries of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... he left the town, and went to reside at a distance, where, for a time, he refrained from drinking, was married, and every thing seemed prosperous around him; but instead of being thankful to God for his mercy, and watching against his besetting sin, he gave way to his old propensity, and brought misery on his ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... amusements of Christmastide, Strutt mentions their propensity for gaming with dice, as derived from their ancestors, for Tacitus assures us that the ancient Germans would not only hazard all their wealth, but even stake their liberty, upon the turn of the dice: "and he who loses submits to servitude, though younger and stronger than his antagonist, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... superintendence John Graham improved rapidly, and gained the affections of his teacher and companions. Happy for him had he continued in such a suitable situation. He was removed to Edinburgh to receive a more classical education. Being left there by his mother and sisters, the impetuosity of his temper and a propensity for a sea-faring life induced his friends to place him as an apprentice in the merchant-service. He was shipwrecked on the coast of Holland, and Mr. Gibson of Rotterdam, a friend of Mrs. Graham, took him to his house, and enabled him to come to the United States. He remained at New York ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... it may reasonably be inferred that the barriers to license are not more insuperable among those of the same color. That corruption of morals progresses with greater admixture of races, and that the product of vice stimulates the propensity to immorality, is as evident to observation as it is natural to circumstances. These developments of the census, to a good degree, explain the slow progress of the free Colored population in the Northern ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... be differentiated from rabies by the persistence of muscular cramps, especially of the face and abdomen, which cause these muscles to become set and as hard as wood. In tetanus there is also an absence of a depraved appetite or of a willful propensity to hurt other animals or to damage the surroundings. The cow remains quiet and the general muscular contraction gives her a rigid appearance. There is an absence of paralysis which marks the advanced stage of rabies. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... collars reached up to his ears. His gait was shuffling and shambling; he wore knee-breeches and grey homespun stockings, and his shoes, which were ornamented with silver buckles, were far too large for him, and of course, even had he not had the propensity to do so, would have made him shuffle his feet over the ground, his eyes were unusually large, grey, and staring; and his hair, which was already so grey that its original colour could scarcely be perceived, was cut short, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... unique naivete of our poetry. Naivete is an eminently poetical quality, and we find it in nearly all of our poets, from Oehlenschlaeger through Ingemann and Andersen to Hostrup. But naivete does not imply the revolutionary propensity. I may further mention the abstract idealism so strongly marked in our literature. It deals with our dreams, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... was excellent; Horatio was most attentive to Miss Teresa, and every one felt in high spirits, except Mr. Malderton, who, knowing the propensity of his brother-in-law, Mr. Barton, endured that sort of agony which the newspapers inform us is experienced by the surrounding neighbourhood when a pot-boy hangs himself in a hay-loft, and which is 'much easier to be imagined ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... have as great an aversion for traveling as the English have a propensity for it, both English and French have perhaps sufficient reasons. Something better than England is everywhere to be found; whereas it is excessively difficult to find the charms of France outside France. Other countries ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... discipline had been better maintained than under Captain Dieulivol, Saint-Avit's predecessor. A brave man, this Captain Dieulivol, a non-commissioned officer under Dodds and Duchesne, but subject to a terrible propensity for strong liquors, and too much inclined, when he had drunk, to confuse his dialects, and to talk to a Houassa in Sakalave. No one was ever more sparing of the post water supply. One morning when he was preparing his absinthe in ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... beauty, as admiration and sweet astonishment; desire also and love and a pleasant trepidation. For all souls, as I may say, are affected in this manner about invisible objects, but those the most who have the strongest propensity to their love; as it likewise happens about corporeal beauty; for all equally perceive beautiful corporeal forms, yet all are not equally excited, but lovers in the ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... One strange propensity of his electrified the palace; but on account of his small size, and for variety's sake, and as a monster, he was indulged on it. In a word, he was let speak ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... looking like a range of swallows' nests plastered against the face of the cliff. The people of the place fondly hold that Zaccheus, who climbed up a sycamore tree to see Our Lord pass by, came into Quercy, and having a natural propensity for climbing, scrambled up the face of the precipice to a hole he perceived in it, and there spent the remainder of his days, and changed his name to Amator. No trace of such an identification occurs before 1427, when Pope Martin ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... the Duchess was not unwilling to indulge once more her old propensity for flirtation (to give it its mildest name). The handsome and graceless Duke of Monmonth, Charles's favourite son, Danby and many another gallant, succeeded one another in her favours, which she dispensed without any care for concealment. But the only one of her lovers of this time who ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... the referee. Lord G- C- afterwards re- purchased the great house with the consent of the duke from the fortunate holder, as he did not like it to be dismembered from the family. We believe this circumstance had a most salutary effect in preventing any return of a propensity for play. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... lentils are tabooed by the followers of Dr. Haig, the gout specialist, on account of the belief that they tend to increase the secretion of uric acid. But this evil propensity is stoutly denied by other food-reformers. For myself I am inclined to believe that their supposed indigestibility, etc., arises from the fact that they are generally cooked in hard water. They should be cooked in distilled ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... these moods of the mind. The imaginary positions I loved most, were generally of the painful kind: the greater the sufferings of the personages concerned in my various plots of combined circumstances, the more was my propensity gratified. From this morbid state of excitement, I was, of course, often precipitated, by the mere decay of the cerebral energy that fed it; and when I was forced again to contemplate and mix with the common affairs of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... billiard-player, which gives an impulse to the ball indeed, but sends it off at a tangent different from the course designed by the player. Now, if I expend such eccentric movements on this journal, it will be turning this wretched propensity to some tolerable account. If I had thus employed the hours and half-hours which I have whiled away in putting off something that must needs be done at last, "My Conscience!" I should have had a journal ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... being frightened to death, you would have known it to be a true one, if you possessed any knowledge of the annals of the neighbourhood. In like manner, the project they were getting up to frighten Charles Channing, and Charles's unfortunate propensity to ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... fail to observe the striking resemblance between this wayward tendency of the shepherd's flock and our own inclination and propensity to wander from God and things eternal. The world is full of occasions to evil; at every turn of the road on our journey through life there are fierce and crouching enemies who are waiting the chance to capture and bear us away. We know this; we have often been ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... are to them as laws, point out the mode of vengeance. The nearest relative of the deceased must spear his slayer. Nothing is more common among these people than to steal one another's wives; and this propensity affords a prolific ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... knowledge of my capacity. Of course I was very grateful for this, but some of his characteristics did not impress me favorably, and I sometimes wished the distance between our camps greater. His most serious failing was an uncontrollable propensity to interfere with and direct the minor matters relating to the command, the details for which those under him were alone responsible. Ill-judged meddling in this respect often led to differences between us, only temporary it is true, but most harassing to the subordinate, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... and violent bursts of passion, all of which was so contrary to his character as universally known, that his disciples derided the physiognomist as a vain-glorious pretender. Socrates however presently put them to silence, by declaring that he had had an original propensity to all the vices imputed to him, and had only conquered the propensity by dint of ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... be more useful to discover another source of genius for philosophers and poets, less fallible than the gratuitous assumptions of these theorists. An adequate origin for peculiar qualities in the mind may be found in that constitutional or secret propensity which adapts some for particular pursuits, and forms ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... abundance of discordant noise. Yet such is unquestionably the case. They are in their festive hours the most noisy people on earth. And the farther southward you go the more pronounced and marked is the propensity. You may hear boys and men imitating the most inharmonious and vociferous street-cries solely for the purpose of exercising their lungs and making a noise. The criers of the newspapers in the streets must take an enthusiastic delight in their trade; and I have heard boys in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... proffered a basket; but that was not sufficient; nothing would satisfy her but the bowl. The Indian demurred; but opposition had only increased her craving for the turnip in a tenfold degree; and, after a short mental struggle, in which the animal propensity overcame the warnings of prudence, the squaw gave up the bowl, and received in return one turnip! The daughter of this woman told me this anecdote of her mother as a very clever thing. What ideas some ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... that here one might mention a few characteristics of Lady Burton. She was always very generous, but her generosity was not of the kind which would commend itself to the Charity Organization Society. For instance, she had an incurable propensity of giving away to beggars in the street. She never let one go. The result was that she frequently returned home with an empty purse; indeed, so aware was she of her weakness, she took out little money with her as a rule, so that she ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... rank and better birth than in the families of the nobility in general. These often complained, not only of her pride and reserve, but of her high and irascible temper and vindictive disposition. Her passionate propensity had been indeed idly encouraged by the young men, and particularly by the Earl, who sometimes amused himself with teasing her, that he might enjoy the various singular motions and murmurs by which she expressed her resentment. Towards him, these were of course only petulant and whimsical indications ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... temporary member of the Wynchcote establishment she merits a word of description. She came from an institution in the neighborhood, and, being the only servant procurable at the time, was tolerated in spite of a terrible propensity for smashing plates, and for carolling at the very pitch of a nasal voice. She was a rough, good-tempered girl, devoted to Minx, the cat, and really kind if anybody had a headache or toothache, but quite without any sense of discrimination: she would show ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... effect to their meaning, and all the varieties of dumb show, of gesticulation, shrugs, and wise shakes of the head, are called into requisition, to effectually and unmistakably express their ideas. The usages of good society are regarded by them as a great restraint upon their besetting propensity to expatiate in phrases of grandiloquence, and to magnify objects of trivial importance. They are always sure to initiate topics which will afford scope for admiration; they delight to enlarge upon the unprecedented growth of cities, villages, and towns; upon the comparative prices of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... persuasion."—Adams's Rhetoric, Vol. i, p. 31. "To instill ideas of disgust and abhorrence against the Americans."—Ib., ii, 300. "Where prejudice has not acquired an uncontroled ascendency."—Ib., i, 31. "The uncontrolable propensity of his mind was undoubtedly to oratory."—Ib., i, 100. "The Brutus is a practical commentary upon the dialogues and the orator."—Ib., i, 120. "The oratorical partitions are a short elementary compendium."—Ib., i, 130. "You shall find hundreds of persons able ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... such a 'run' upon the bank was enough to break it," cried my master, whose propensity to crack a joke overcame all feeling of sympathy for ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... To swell the league as speedily as possible each of the confederates assembled all his friends, relations, adherents, and retainers. Great banquets were held, which lasted whole days—irresistible temptations for a sensual, luxurious people, in whom the deepest wretchedness could not stifle the propensity for voluptuous living. Whoever repaired to these banquets—and every one was welcome—was plied with officious assurances of friendship, and, when heated with wine, carried away by the example of numbers, and overcome by the fire of a wild eloquence. The hands of many were guided while they ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... moon, they may move in a circle. Our greatest men, likewise, are susceptible to Luna's blandishments. In proof of this we may produce a story told by Mark Lemon, at one time the able editor of Punch. By the way, an irrepressible propensity to play upon words has reminded some one that punch is always improved by the essence of lemon. But this we leave to the bibulous, and go on with the story. Lord Brougham, speaking of the salary attached to a new judgeship, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... not how to regulate or apply. She was a beautiful child; and for a time her mother's vanity was gratified by having her brought from the nursery to her drawing-rooms, to be caressed, admired, and praised for her smart speeches; but after a time her truth-telling propensity became too evident. The polite occupants of the drawing-room began to whisper among themselves that Miss Emma was a spoiled child, and had better ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... acquaintance, they are the most costly. "It is horrid to think that we should go out among our friends for the mere sake of eating and drinking," Mrs. Proudie would say to the clergymen's wives from Barsetshire. "It shows such a sensual propensity." ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... beauty, as in some of the birds, are secondary. It is quite certain that the animals that store up food for the winter do not take any thought of the future. Nature takes thought for them and gives them their provident instinct. The jay, by his propensity to carry away and hide things, plants many of our oak and chestnut trees, but who dares say that he does this on purpose, any more than that the insects cross-fertilize the flowers on purpose? Sheep do not take thought of the wool upon their backs ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... to tell you—only that there is nothing to tell—only in guard of my gratitude, lest you should come to think all manner of evil of me and of my supposed propensity to let everything pass like Mr. Horne's copies of the American edition of his work, sub silentio. Therefore I must write, and you are to please to understand that I have not up to this moment received either letter or book by the packet of October ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... better when the flowers are picked off?" I asked, having my full share of the childish propensity for asking awkward and candid questions. Mr. ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... fly from hand to hand of its keeper. When pitted against an antagonist, such is the obstinate courage of this little creature that it will sink from exhaustion rather than release its hold. This propensity, and the ordinary character of its notes, render it impossible that the Bulbul of India can be identical with the Bulbul of Iran, the "Bird of a Thousand Songs,"[2] of which poets say that its delicate passion for the rose gives a plaintive ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... family and their domestics, both Jackman and his servant had been led to the conclusion that the boy was the very impersonation of mischief, and were more or less on the look out for displays of his propensity; but Junkie walked demurely by their side, asking and replying to questions with the sobriety of an elderly man, and without the slightest indication of the latent internal fires, with which he ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... restless, ready for all sorts of undertakings and projects, his condition was attributed to a great flow of spirits. If, while talking very sensibly on many subjects and doing many proper things, he manifested a propensity to wanton mischief, why, then he was possessed with a devil and consigned to chains and straw,—unless he had committed some senseless act of crime, in which case he received from the law the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... holding conferences, marrying, christening and burying, and hunting up "something to eat." About half of his precious time was consumed in the last of these pursuits. We do not wish to represent this clergyman as having an undue gastronomic propensity; but, as having a due one, and a salary that was so badly paid as quite to disable him from furnishing his larder, or cellar, with anything worth mentioning, in advance. Now, he was short of flour; then, the potatoes were out; next, the ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... somewhat less inhuman), are such as to make the flesh creep. No language can be too strong in speaking of the horrors of such a state of society. But it would be unjust to confound these agrarian conspiracies with ordinary crime, or to suppose that they imply a propensity to ordinary crime either on the part of those who commit them, or on the part of the people who connive at and favour their commission. In the districts where agrarian conspiracy and outrage were most rife, the number of ordinary crimes was ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... a girl—a little girl—who had a propensity for getting into trouble, because she had not learned the lesson of obedience. She masters this, however, as the story tells, and in doing so she and her brother have a number ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... flattery in unsparing measure upon this foible of theirs, representing kings abased as a contrast to their republican dignity; and with all their greatness, it is easy to detect through their writings, a lamentable propensity in their muse to play the parasite with the people. To their gratification of the public foible, the tragic poets no doubt owed some small part of that idolatry in which they were held by the Athenian multitude. Yet no sooner did the comic writers ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... view; he beholds things sub specie aeternitatis. The philosophical tendency of his mind, though amply displayed even in works like "Savva"—which is purely a character and social drama—manifests itself chiefly by his strong propensity for such subjects as those treated in "To the Stars," "The Life of Man," and "Anathema." In these plays Andreyev plunges into the deepest problems of existence, and seeks to posit once more and, if possible, to solve in accordance with the modern spirit ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... French and English; was a dead shot, a good angler, and an excellent fencer with the small sword as well as with his own particular weapon. For his faults, they were on his face, and I now knew them all. But the worst of them, his childish propensity to take offence and to pick quarrels, he greatly laid aside in my case, out of regard for the battle of the round-house. But whether it was because I had done well myself, or because I had been a witness of his own much greater prowess, is more than I can tell. ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enjoyment in the fulness of all things; grown old, and when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had experience of every state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a man completely happy; I say, after all this, any one would have thought that the native propensity to rambling which I gave an account of in my first setting out in the world to have been so predominant in my thoughts, should be worn out, and I might, at sixty one years of age, have been a little inclined to stay at home, and have done venturing ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... they sit in the front row. The new man is known by his clothes, which incline to the prevalent fashion of the rural districts he has quitted; and he evinces an affection for cloth-boots, or short Wellingtons with double soles, and toes shaped like a toad's mouth, a propensity which sometimes continues throughout the career of his pupilage. He likewise takes off his hat when he enters the dissecting-room, and thinks that beautiful design is shown in the mechanism and structure of the human body—an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... which are susceptible of an internal pruriency, and thence produce laughter, the blood is set in commotion, in consequence of an alteration in the vital spirits, whereby involuntary fits of intoxicating joy, and a propensity to dance, are occasioned. To this notion he was, no doubt, led from having observed a milder form of St. Vitus' dance, not uncommon in his time, which was accompanied by involuntary laughter, and which bore a resemblance to the hysterical laughter of the moderns, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... products of Hyres, as indeed of all the Riviera, are olives, wine, and cork. The olive-berry harvest commences in December. The small berries make the best oil. The trunk has a curious propensity to separate and form new limbs, which by degrees become covered with bark. If the sap be still in a semi-dormant state, and the weather dry, the trunk and branches can bear a cold of 12 Fahr., while the orange and lemon are killed by a cold of 22. The cold of 1820 killed the orange ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... course she won't fall in love. We know that she will, sooner or later; and probably as much sooner as opportunity may offer. That is our experience of the genus girl in the general; and we quite approve of her for her readiness to do so. It is, indeed, her nature; and the propensity has been planted in her for wise purposes. But as to this or that special sample of the genus girl, in reference to this or that special sample of the genus young man, we always feel ourselves bound to ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... learned that the patient advertised was one whose propensity was homicide, consigned for life to the asylum on account of a murder, for which he had been tried. The description of this person exactly tallied with that of the pretended American. The medical superintendent ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a new demand for their services. To this mode of life the man was compelled to resort; and taking the chair every night, at some low theatrical house, at once put him in possession of a few more shillings weekly, and enabled him to gratify his old propensity. Even this resource shortly failed him; his irregularities were too great to admit of his earning the wretched pittance he might thus have procured, and he was actually reduced to a state bordering on starvation, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Miss Nightingale and some of the nurses in the Crimean hospitals. The situation had been embittered by rumours of religious dissensions, while the Crimean nurses were Roman Catholics, many of those at Scutari were suspected of a regrettable propensity towards the tenets of Dr. Pusey. Miss Nightingale was by no means disturbed by these sectarian differences, but any suggestion that her supreme authority over all the nurses with the Army was, no doubt, enough to rouse her to fury; ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... utmost value, afterwards, to England. The Electress Sophia was not perhaps a very estimable, though a very intelligent princess. But she was eighty-four when the crown came within reach, and she died of rage at an unfriendly letter from Queen Anne, betraying her Jacobite propensity. ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... i. p. 24.) Bishop Durie died at Edinburgh, in September 1558. His name occurs in the list of Scottish Poets; but none of his writings are known to be preserved, although his sayings recorded by Knox, indicate a rhyming propensity. John Rolland of Dalkeith, in the prologue of his "Seven Sages," a kind of poetical romance, alludes to the poets who flourished at the Scotish Court, and after naming Lyndsay, Bellenden, and ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... tho' well versed and delighting in various branches of litterature, cannot overcome that strong national propensity to tales and romances wherein the terrific and supernatural abounds; in all their romances accordingly this taste prevails strongly; nay, even in some of the romances, where the scene is laid in later times, there is some such anachronism as the story ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... these great names, it must be confessed, that one common fault, in a greater or less degree, pervaded the most admired poetry of Queen Elizabeth's age. This was the fatal propensity to false wit; to substitute, namely, strange and unexpected connections of sound, or of idea, for real humour, and even for the effusions of the stronger passions It seems likely that this fashion arose at court, a sphere in which its denizens never think they ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... demon by whom that medium was possessed, only that those who do not know me, might take the calumny of the devil for truth. After the confession that he was Don Quixote, to make which he was compelled by a higher power, he added according to his lying propensity, that he was Thomas Paine, although ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... on her hand; but he respected her promise, and troubled her no more by contact. Nevertheless she had to pay. His dwarfish propensity to wit led him the wildest lengths. The rogue began to sigh and gesture and slap his ribs. He affected the lover preposterously; he was over weary of his rough life, he would say; he must marry and settle down in the hut by ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... all the cunning and combativeness of the child. There is a vague feeling in his mind that he would like to see you confirm your suspicion without the aid of an open confession—and the result is a "lie." Indeed, any approach that arouses antagonisms is almost sure to bring out the propensity to dissimulate or even to deceive. In such cases the mother should learn how to approach the child without a challenge, instead of trying to teach the child ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... between two things, where there is no personal advantage to bias the decision, they will always choose that which seems to them true, rather than the other which appears false. To this is opposed the notorious fact of the remarkable propensity which children have to lying. This is readily admitted; but it does not meet us, unless it can be shown that they have not in the act of lying an eye to its reward,—setting aside any outward advantage,—in ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... rewards of things that are pleasant to them, is as carefully to be avoided. He that will give his son apples, or sugar-plums, or what else of this kind he is most delighted with, to make him learn his book, does but authorize his love of pleasure, and cockers up that dangerous propensity, which he ought, by all means, to subdue and stifle in him. You can never hope to teach him to master it, whilst you compound for the check you give his inclination in one place, by the satisfaction you propose to it in another. To make a good, a wise, and a virtuous man, 'tis ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... arose, one of the infernal potentates, and after making his obeisance to the king, he said, "O emperor of the Air! mighty ruler of Darkness! no one ever doubted my propensity to malice and cruelty; the sufferings of others have been, and still are, my supreme delight. It is as capital sport to me, to hear the shrieks of infants perishing in the fire as of old, when thousands of sucklings were sacrificed to me outside of Jerusalem. When was I ever slack ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... you. In Death we have both learned the propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with the moment of life's cessation—but commence with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the passionate ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... means of the Luciferian influence, drew them into his soul which was separated from his physical body during sleep. Thus he came in contact with beings whose influence was highly corrupting. They increased in his soul the propensity for error; especially the tendency to misuse the powers of growth and reproduction, which since the separation of the physical and etheric bodies were ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... Breakshugh, a deadly sort of dysentery, which is as infectious as fire, in a flock. Whenever a sheep feels itself seized by this, it instantly withdraws from all the rest, shunning their society with the greatest care; it even hides itself, and is often very hard to be found. Though this propensity can hardly be attributed to natural instinct, it is, at all events, a provision of nature of the greatest kindness ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... time, she said Though my husband so neglects me, I know that he is very fond of women in general, and ready to be captivated by any one, especially respectable woman who will give him a little encouragement. Acting on this propensity, I think, with your help, that something may be done. There is a young lady, a neighbour, the daughter of a very rich man, in great favour with the Rajah; she is a friend of mine, and is very like me. As my husband hardly knows her by sight, and scarcely ever ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... that few seem to appreciate or perceive it. To many it seems no great virtue or wisdom, no great and splendid thing, in some small issue of feeling or opinion, in the family or among friends, to withhold a little, to tighten the rein upon some headlong propensity, and await a calm for fair adjustment. Such a course is not usually held to be a proof of wisdom or virtue; and men are much more ready to praise and think well of smartness, and spirit, and readiness for an encounter. To leave off contention before it is meddled ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... elsewhere, applause is sought with less eagerness. Notice should be taken of the connexion between this love of approbation and the social restraints; since it plays an important part in the maintenance of them. (d) The acquisitive propensity. This, too, is a character the degrees of which, and the relations of which to the social state, have to be especially noted. The desire for property grows along with the possibility of gratifying it; and this, extremely small among the lowest men, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... extent and character and the gravity of the problems they present. In some there is great sexual laxity, which leads to various forms of dependency and sometimes to extreme mental defect. In others alcoholism prevails and the people show a propensity for deeds of violence. All informants, however, practically agreed ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... flesh; to the Laplander it is none the less acceptable if grease of the bear, or train oil, or the blubber of whales be added. Meteorology to no little extent influences the morals; the instinctive propensity to drunkenness is a function of the latitude. Food, houses, clothing, bear a certain relation to the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... on one's heart," murmured Riccabocca. "Don't cry, Jemima; it may be bad for you, and bad for him that is to come. It is astonishing how the humours of the mother may affect the unborn. I should not like to have a son who has a more than usual propensity to tears." ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had seen on shore was a proof that she was as yet at sea, it being customary, as they said, to make use of these fires as signals for her direction, when she continued longer out than ordinary. On this information, strengthened by our propensity to believe them in a matter which so pleasingly flattered our wishes, we resolved to cruise for her for some days; and we accordingly spread our ships at the distance of twelve leagues from the coast, in such a manner, that it was impossible she should pass us unobserved: However, not seeing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... claim the title of conservative: and the fact is a very curious one, well worthy the consideration of those foreign critics who argue that the inevitable tendency of democracy is to compel larger and larger concessions to a certain assumed communistic propensity and hostility to the rights of property on the part of the working classes. But the truth is, that revolutionary ideas are promoted, not by any unthinking hostility to the rights of property, but by a well-founded jealousy of its ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... seemed to be a loose theo-socialism, and their religion an absurd potpourri of most of the major monotheisms of the Federation period, plus doctrinal and ritualistic innovations of their own. Aside from their propensity for sharp trading, their bigoted refusal to regard anybody not of their creed as more than half human, and the maze of dietary and other taboos in which they hid from social contact with ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... white man to approach. He was a Siwash (male Indian) with one exception—his love of the coin. But then, he had an object in this ambition; and a fault, if it is a means to a worthy end, must be commended. He had this propensity developed to the most pronounced degree. It was a disease with him, for which there was no cure. In outward appearance he was a typical B.C. specimen of the obsolete "coureur de bois" of eastern Canada during the ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... Marshall's was a reverent mind, and it sprang instinctively to the defense of ideas and institutions whose value had been tested. Unfortunately, in his "Life of Washington" Marshall seems to have given this propensity a somewhat undue scope. There were external difficulties in dealing with such a subject apart from those inherent in a great biography, and Marshall's volumes proved to be a general disappointment. Still hard pressed for funds wherewith to meet his Fairfax investment, ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... the younger generation of Rover boys, as well as the sisters, were brought up very much as one family. When they were old enough all were at first sent to private schools in the Metropolis. But soon the boys, led by Andy and Randy, showed such a propensity for "cutting loose" that their parents were compelled to hold ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... Englishmen, and is, in ecclesiastical history, looked upon as one of the brightest ornaments of this nation. Originally, his name was Winfred, or Winfrith, and he was born at Kirton, in Devonshire, then part of the West-Saxon kingdom. When he was only about six years of age, he began to discover a propensity to reflection, and seemed solicitous to gain information on religious subjects. Wolfrad, the abbot, finding that he possessed a bright genius, as well as a strong inclination to study, had him removed to Nutscelle, a seminary of learning in the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... windows of his house were closed, his domestic animals bestowed in some safe place, and sentinels posted at suitable stations, to warn all comers to look out for something almost as much to be dreaded, as a fiery locomotive in full speed. In short, if the propensity to be exceedingly good-natured after a hearty meal, had not been given to the bee, it could never have been domesticated, and our honey would still be procured from the clefts of rocks, ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... [Edwin and Neville] had repaired [presumably the Esplanade] to watch the storm." There is, however, no Weir nearer than Allington, at which place the tide of the Medway stops, and Allington is a considerable distance from Rochester, probably seven or eight miles. How well the good Minor Canon's propensity for "perpetually pitching himself headforemost into all the deep water in the surrounding country," and his "pilgrimages to Cloisterham Weir in the cold rimy mornings," are brought into requisition to enable him to ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... such desire. Which forces being powerless to withstand, I did but act as was natural in a young woman, when I gave way to them, and yielded myself to love. Nor in sooth did I fail to the utmost of my power so to order the indulgence of my natural propensity that my sin should bring shame neither upon thee nor upon me. To which end Love in his pity, and Fortune in a friendly mood, found and discovered to me a secret way, whereby, none witting, I attained my desire: ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... well that I should see you instead, since you're evidently one of the household—your son and his wife live with you, I suppose? Yes, on the whole, then, it's better—I shall be able to talk so much more frankly." She spoke as if, as a rule, circumstances prevented her giving rein to this propensity. "And frankness, of course, is the only way out of this—this extremely tiresome complication. You know, I suppose, that my nephew thinks he's ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... The propensity with which Irishmen are credited of making ludicrous bulls is said to have its origin, not from any lack of intelligence, but rather in the fancy of that lively race, which often does not wait for expression until the ideas have taken proper verbal form. Be this as it may, a considerable ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... that it appears to me, I hope you will burn this, and pardon me for giving you so much trouble about an impracticable thing; but, if you think there is a probability of obtaining the favour asked, I am sure your humanity and propensity to relieve merit, in distress, will incline you to serve the poor man, without my adding any more to the trouble I have already given you, than assuring you, that I am, with ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... southern Tirol (Hans von Hoffensthal, Richard Huldschiner), whereas on the northern slope of the Alps a race of men made of sterner stuff is reared (Rudolf Greinz, Karl Schoenherr). In Bavaria, finally, people are even more rough and ready and lyrical sentimentality yields to a pugnacious propensity to ridicule, which gives satirical seasoning to the works of the genuinely Bavarian writers ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... visage of Maurice. His eyes were of a darker blue; his glossy hair was tinged with chestnut, while Bertha's shone with unmingled gold; but, like Bertha's, his recreant locks had a strong tendency to curl, and lay in rich clusters upon his brow, distressing him by a propensity which he deemed effeminate. His mouth was as ripely red as hers, but somewhat larger, firmer, and less bland in its character. His eyebrows, too, were more darkly traced, supplying a want only too obvious in her countenance. The resemblance, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... had the misfortune to be left-handed, and a child flogged left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby's chastisements, and, even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was getting worse and worse every ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... good?' asked innocent Lady Macleod of Dunvegan Castle at her guest, Dr. Samuel Johnson. 'No, madam, no more than a wolf.' That is quite past all question with all those who either in natural morals or in revealed religion look to and know and characterise themselves. We have all an inborn propensity to dislike one another, and a very small provocation will suddenly blow that banked-up furnace into a flame. It is ever present with me, says self-examining Paul, and hence its so sudden and so destructive outbreaks. So the written or the printed ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... the extreme outer line of settlements in western Texas, near the head waters of the Colorado River, and in one of the remotest and most sequestered sections of that sparsely populated district, there lived in 1867, an enterprising pioneer by the name of Babb, whose besetting propensity and ambition consisted in pushing his fortunes a little farther toward the setting sun than any of his neighbors, the nearest of whom, at the time specified, was some fifteen miles ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... felt a sinking at the heart as he thought of the severe punishment that had fallen upon the offender, who proved to be none other than the man home with a ticket of leave, but who had not been cured of his dishonest propensity. ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... buy brandy, for at that date brandy was much cheaper in France than it is now. Here he could indulge his growing propensity for strong drink to the uttermost extent of his means, and could drown his sorrows, and drink destruction to his enemies, in fiery ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Emily, spite of all unreason, such was the family opinion of Fred's propensity to fall in love, that Albinia's first suspicion lighted upon him, but as her eye fell on the pink envelope the handwriting ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the pistol as a parlor toy accounts in great part for a cowboy's propensity to "shoot up the town" and his indignation ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... as here employed, is no less conducive to virtue than to happiness; and, as such, it frequently discovers itself in the most tumultuous scenes of life. It addresses our finer feelings, and gives exercise to every mild and generous propensity. ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... is one of a small breed of dogs, named from their propensity to scratch the ground or earth in ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... It is not time, but a man's propensity to anger, or his pertinacity in anger, that is the chief point of consideration in the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... lead us to suspect that he was also envious, malignant, and cruel. How far this will tend to confirm the assertion, that when a boy, he was an amateur of this royal sport, I do, says Mr. Ireland, not pretend to decide: but were a child, in whom I had any interest, cursed with such a propensity, my first object would be to correct it: if that were impracticable, and he retained a fondness for the cockpit, and the still more detestable amusement of Shrove Tuesday, I should hardly dare to flatter myself that he could become a merciful man.—The subject ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... nose. She never supposed us capable of telling the truth, so we very naturally never gave ourselves the trouble to cultivate a useless virtue, and seldom resorted to it unless it answered our purpose better than a lie. This propensity of Mrs Higginbottom converted our candour and honesty into deceit and fraud. Never believed, we cared little about the accuracy of our assertions; half-starved, through her meanness and parsimony, we were little scrupulous as to the ways and means, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Patrick through the partition, breaking three of his ribs. Then I got the doctor to perform the operation properly, and the horse after that appeared right well, excepting that Patrick said that he had suddenly acquired an extraordinary propensity for standing on ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... essay on "The First Journey I Ever Made," he says that while other great travelers have felt in childhood an inborn propensity to go out into the world to see the regions beyond, he had the intensest desire to climb upward—so that without shifting his horizon, he could yet extend it, and take in a far wider sweep of vision. "I envied every bird," ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... negroes would be as efficient as other free laborers. But whatever theorists, who know nothing of the matter, may think proper to assume, we well know that this would not be so. We know that nothing but the coercion of slavery can overcome their propensity to indolence, and that not one in ten would be an efficient laborer. Even if this disposition were not grounded in their nature, it would be a result of their position. I have somewhere seen it observed, that ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... we have written shall in any degree excite them in other minds. We are not much in the habit of idolising either the living or the dead. And we think that there is no more certain indication of a weak and ill-regulated intellect than that propensity which, for want of a better name, we will venture to christen Boswellism. But there are a few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny and the severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and have proved pure, which have been weighed ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... consequent inability to judge. The very fact of the presence of motives of a most powerful kind renders it impossible to be certain of the presence of the disease; whereas other motives being apparently absent, we presume disease as the readiest way of accounting for the propensity; I do not therefore think it is the only way. I believe there are cases in which it comes of pure greed, and is of the same kind as any other injustice the capability of exercising which is more generally distributed. Why should a thief be unknown in a ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... ever since his youth developed a peculiar kind of mean and silly propensity. Having moreover from tender infancy grown up side by side with Tai-Yue, their hearts and their feelings were in perfect harmony. More, he had recently come to know to a great extent what was what, and had also filled his head with the contents of a number of corrupt ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... represented as having been in about 39 deg. N., or in the neighbourhood of the present mouth of the Peiho, and the most southerly being that which existed before the change in 1851-1853, in 34 deg. N. Owing to its small value as a navigable highway and to its propensity to inundate the regions in its neighbourhood, there are no considerable towns on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... knew, exceeded that breedinge. His style in all his writings seemes harsh and sometymes obscure, which is not wholy to be imputed to the abstruse subjects, of which he commonly treated, out of the pathes trodd by other men, but to a little undervalewinge the beauty of a style, and to much propensity to the language of antiquity, but in his conversation the most cleere discourcer, and had the best faculty, in makinge hard things, easy, and praesentinge them to the understandinge, of any man, that hath bene ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... reference to Griqualand West. But similar acts of violence have marked the land-grabbing propensity of the Cape in Bechuanaland, in Peddie and the Transkei, even ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Luka makes his appearance. He wants to help every one. He is the apostle of goodness and humanity. He finds a tender word for the dying wife of the locksmith. He talks to the drunken actor about a Reformatory, where he can be cured of his propensity for drinking. And he counsels Natasha to fly with Pepel from these depths of iniquity. The keeper of the refuge hears this. She torments her sister, and almost does her to death, with her husband's assistance. Pepel is off his head with rage, and ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... be denied, in man, a natural propensity to sloth and indolence; and though habits of industry,—like all habits,—may render those exertions easy and pleasant which at first are painful and irksome, yet no person, in any situation, ever chose labour merely for its own sake. It is always ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... which, although sacred symbols of Italianism, could not add anything to the economic resources which will play such a predominant part in the future struggle for material well-being among the new and old states. There was a marked propensity among Italy's leaders at home and in Paris to consider each of the issues that concerned their country as though it stood alone, instead of envisaging Italy's economic, financial, and military position after the war as an indivisible problem and proving that it behooved ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... philosophers of the fifth century; the former because of his propensity to laugh at the follies of men was called the "laughing philosopher;" the latter, according to a current notion, probably unfounded, habitually wept ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... up to a sense of duty, out of a dangerous little nap in which she had been indulging, and which occasioned me great uneasiness, by reason of the opportunity it afforded her for the display of an alarming suicidal propensity, which threatened to leave Mr. Coleman a disconsolate widower, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... said in ridicule of fascination, it is nevertheless true that birds, and even quadrupeds, are, under certain circumstances, unable to retire from the presence of certain of their enemies; and, what is even more extraordinary, unable to resist the propensity to advance from a situation of actual safety into one of the most imminent danger. This I have often seen exemplified in the case of birds and snakes; and I have heard of instances equally curious, in which ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone |
