"Aptness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... took such a pride in his company that he affected to furnish his chambers with their pictures." Amongst the benefits to be derived from such a club as that of which Mr. Pool was president, Roger North mentions "Aptness to speak;" adding: "for a man may be possessed of a book-case, and think he has it ad unguem throughout, and when he offers at it shall find himself at a loss, and his words will not be right and ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... rub," Farrell said, quoting a passage whose aptness had somehow seen it through a dozen reorganizations of insular tongue and a final translation to universal Terran. "If they're none of those three, we've only one conclusion left. There's no one down there at all—we're victims of the first joint ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... a large majority of cases—especially in the dairy districts, at least, comprising the Eastern and Middle States—the farmer cares more for the milking qualities of his cows, especially for the quantity they give, than for their fitness for grazing, or aptness to fatten. These latter points become more important in the Western and some of the Southern States, where much greater attention is paid to breeding and to feeding, and where comparatively slight attention is given to the productions of the dairy. A stock ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... and Diana are Amazons or hermaphrodites—masculine minds in female bodies. In Juno, as Gladstone has aptly said, the feminine character is strongly marked; but, as he himself is obliged to admit, "by no means on its higher side." Regarding Minerva, he remarks with equal aptness that "she is a goddess, not a god; but she has nothing of sex except the gender, nothing of the woman except the form." She is the goddess, among other things, of war. Diana spends all her time hunting and slaughtering animals, and she is not only a perpetual virgin but ascetically ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... of Rupert's face, sternly and sadly rebuking, was not proof against the exquisite aptness of this proposal. His men outside were waiting for the signal, surrounding the island from land and seaward, (for the prey was not to be allowed to escape them again); but how to make it without creating suspicion had not yet suggested itself to his fertile brain. Now, while he held her lover ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... that period. The most important act of that assembly was the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, which, as I have already stated, he himself drafted. It is said, however, that he was most valuable in committee work, because of the aptness of his sensible and methodical mind, and the ingenuity he possessed in putting his ideas upon paper, and doing it in such a way as to create but little, if any, antagonisms. In all of the official stations ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... They cycled assiduously and went for long walks at a trot, and raided and studied (and incidentally explained themselves to) any social "types" that lived in the neighbourhood. One invaded type, resentful under research, described them with a dreadful aptness as Donna Quixote and Sancho Panza—and himself as a harmless windmill, hurting no one and signifying nothing. She did rather tilt at things. This particular summer they were at a pleasant farmhouse in level country near Pangbourne, belonging to the Hon. Wilfrid Winchester, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... the great sinner before, let him take heed lest he presume; I say now to the little sinner, let him take heed that he do not dissemble: for there is as great an aptness in the little sinner to dissemble, as there is in the great one. "He that hideth his sins shall not prosper," be he a sinner little or great; Prov. ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... its aptness after the inauguration of the Government. Jefferson and his school were not opposed to a federal government. They were opposed only to its pretensions, to its assumption of centralized power. Their deep faith in popular control is revealed in the name they assumed, Democratic-Republican. ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... to be to the ancient Ligurian town of Nicaea, now Nice, in France. The "perfumed sea" would then be the Ligurian sea. But one half suspects that it was the scholarly and musical sound of the word, rather than any aptness of classical reference, that led to the use ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... a wondering smile. The aptness of the remark did not strike him. However, he was equal to ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... Thomas Bailey Aldrich to George Ade's Fables in Slang is a far cry, but one is as typical a style of humor as the other. Ade's is the more distinctly original, for he not only created the style, but another language. The aptness of its turns, and the marvelous way in which he hit the bull's-eye of human foibles and weaknesses lifted him into instantaneous popularity. A famous bon mot of George Ade's which has been quoted threadbare, but which serves excellently to illustrate his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... wages in money and a share in the crop, they will choose the former and work better. Many cases of negroes engaged in little industrial pursuits came to my notice, in which they showed considerable aptness not only for gaining money, but also for saving and judiciously employing it. Some were even surprisingly successful. I visited some of the plantations divided up among freedmen and cultivated by them independently without the ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... of New England poets have carried the New England spirit into poetry,—its sense of fitness, order, propriety, its shrewdness, inventiveness, aptness, and its aspiration for the pure and noble in life. They have finely exemplified the best Yankee traits; but in no instance were these traits merged in a personality large enough, bold enough, and copious and democratic enough to give them national and continental significance. ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... I noted the aptness of the description; but, indeed, Felipe had sometimes a strange felicity in rendering into words the sensations of the body. 'And your mother, too,' said I; 'she seems to feel this weather much. Do you not fear she ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... if Lincoln was assassinated by a man, Bolivar escaped the weapon of the assassin only to sink under poisonous treachery and ingratitude. It is true that Bolivar was quick-tempered, at times sharp in his repartee; his intellectual aptness had no patience with stupidity, and occasionally his remarks hurt. But when the storm had passed, he was all benevolence, enduring all, forgiving all, ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... Their aptness therefore to conclude that they can be happy without it, is one great occasion that men often are not raised to the desire of the greatest ABSENT good. For, whilst such thoughts possess them, the joys of a future state move them not; they have little ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... detriments the costumes were very poor, especially the disguise of Alonzo as the Hollander, and Haunce's own 'fantastical travelling habit,' dresses on the aptness of which the probability of the intrigue can be ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... first convinced me that the popular opinion of my asinine capabilities was erroneous. It was PUNCH who discovered that there was as much in my head as on it(loud cheers, produced doubtlessly by the aptness of the simile, the gallant Colonel being perfectly bald). I should, therefore, be the most ungrateful of Members for Lincoln, did I not entreat of this meeting to mark their high sense of Mr. PUNCH'S exertions by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... fifteen. We meet him again a youth qualified to appear to advantage in any society. Of course, this change was not wrought without persistent effort. Tom was, as we know, an unusually smart boy, with a quick wit, and an aptness to learn. But talent avails little unless cultivated. Our hero, however, kept up his habit of evening study, at first under Mordaunt's instruction. The latter was amazed at the progress of his pupil. He seemed to fly ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... March 9th, the Toronto Women's Literary and Social Progress Club had gathered in public for the first time in the City Council Chamber to consider the Suffrage question. Mrs. McEwan presided and a paper "treating pithily and with much aptness on the subject of the Franchise" was read by Miss E. Foulds, who moved a Resolution "that in the opinion of this Meeting the Parliamentary Franchise should be extended to women who possess the qualifications which entitle ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... adapted to the spirit of the age. But nothing like his German writings had ever been seen before. In lucidity and copiousness of language, in directness and vigor, in satire and argument and invective, in humor and aptness of illustration and allusion, the numerous tracts, political and theological, which poured from his pen, surpassed all that had hitherto been written and went straight to the hearts of his countrymen. And he won his battle almost alone, for Melanchthon, though ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... Michael found opportunity to explain to Aunt Barbara what had happened, suggesting as a consolatory simile the domestic difficulties of the seals at the Zoological Gardens, and was pleased to find her recognise the aptness of this description. But heaviest of all on the spirits of the whole party sat the anxiety about Lady Ashbridge. There could be no doubt that some cerebral degeneration was occurring, and Lady Barbara's urgent representation to her brother had the effect of making him ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... according to an English cousin, "in an openness to ideas, an aptness for intuitions, and sometimes a seemingly positive preference for the bird in the bush," which latter may account for that skilful Yankee versatility so perfectly exemplified in the chaplain, poet, editor, merchant, speculator, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... shore, the canoes could beat our boat very much in rowing whenever the Esquimaux chose to exert themselves, but they kept close to her the whole way. During the time that they were on board, we had observed in them a great aptness for imitating certain of our words; and, while going on shore, they took a particular liking to the expression of "Hurra, give way!" which they heard Mr. Palmer use to the boat's crew, and which they frequently imitated, to the great amusement ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... which we would have the blessings entailed, but they are not. And they are providences that smile upon the flesh; to wit, such as cast into the lap, health, wealth, plenty, ease, friends, and abundance of this world's good: because these, [Manasseh, as his name doth signify,] have in them an aptness to make us forget our toil, our low estate, and from whence we were (Gen 41:51): but the great blessing is not in them. There are providences again, that take away from us whatever is desirable to the flesh; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... creature with its great flopping ears, and its stiff-legged jumping like a bucking mule, to realize the aptness of its ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... to fallacy, and could detect it in his opponent and expose it with merciless directness. He had an abounding sense of humor, and always employed it in illustration of his argument—but never for the mere sake of provoking merriment. In this respect he had the wonderful aptness of Franklin. He often taught a great truth with the felicitous brevity of an Aesop fable. His words did not flow in an impetuous torrent, as did those of Douglas; but they were always well chosen, deliberate ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... also in divers Mineral Tinctures. And, not to urge that familiar Instance of the Ruby of Sulphur, as Chymists upon the score of its Colour, call the Solution of Flowers of Brimstone, made with the Spirit of Turpentine, nor to take notice of other more known Examples of the aptness of Chymical Oyls, to produce a Red Colour with the Sulphur they extract, or dissolve; not to insist (I say) upon Instances of this nature, I shall further represent to you, as a thing remarkable, that, both Acid and Alcalizate Salts, though in most other cases of such contrary Operations, ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... Americans need to be told, And it never'll refute them to swagger and scold; John Bull, looking o'er the Atlantic, in choler At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; But to scorn such eye-dollar-try's what very few do, And John goes to that church as often as you do, No matter what John says, don't try to outcrow him, 'Tis enough to go quietly on and outgrow him; 1080 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... matter seemed, it apparently called for some declaration, or intimation, or faint foreshadowing of policy in reference to the conduct of the war, and the final treatment of the Rebels. But the President's Yankee aptness and not-to-be-caughtness stood him in good stead, and he jerked or wiggled himself out of the dilemma with an uncouth dexterity that was entirely in character; although, without his gesticulation of eye and mouth,—and ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... best to learn any portions of his speeches by heart, but his addresses show a remarkable thoroughness of preparation, else they could not be so thickly sown as they are with pregnant facts, telling figures, and apt illustrations. His pudding is too full of plums to be the work of the moment. Such aptness of quotation as he displays is sometimes a little too happy to be spontaneous; as when, in alluding to the difference between men's professions out of office and their measures in ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... if the Russians be a little uncouth in their way, they possess, like bears, a wonderful aptness in learning to dance; if the brutal element is strong in their nature, so also is the capacity to acquire frivolous and meretricious accomplishments. Like all races in which the savage naturally predominates, they delight in the glitter of personal decoration, the allurements of music, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Effectual value, or wealth; where there is either no intrinsic value, or no acceptant capacity, there is no effectual value; that is to say, no wealth. A horse is no wealth to us if we cannot ride, nor a picture if we cannot see, nor can any noble thing be wealth, except to a noble person. As the aptness of the user increases, the effectual value of the thing used increases; and in its entirety can co-exist only with perfect skill of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... went very well, too, for his flashing teeth acknowledged his pleasure in her aptness; then his smile faded and she felt him studying her over his cigarette, studying her averted gaze, the bright color in her cheeks, the curves of her lips, and he was puzzled and perturbed by the sweet, baffling beauty of ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... like the Limericks of Edward Lear, they were easily imitated. What is not so intelligible is, that they seem to have fascinated many people who were assuredly not dull. Even Johnson condescended to commend the aptness of the pseudonym, and to speak of the performance as "ingenious and diverting." Horace Walpole, writing to Montagu in December 1766, professes to have laughed over them till he cried. It was "the newest piece of humour," he declared, "except ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... producing intellectual emancipation. I suppose it would be only varying the expression of his thought to say, Jesuitical education strikingly exemplifies, how much intellectual culture may be superinduced upon the mind, without awakening intellectual life—without developing a spontaneous aptness to appreciate, seek, find, embrace the truth. The head is filled with the thoughts of others-many ascertained facts and just conclusions. It can reason aright in the circles of thought, where it has been trained to move; but elsewhere, no spontaneous activity—no ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to execute, she is eminently mistress; and during my absence in Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... length, by prayer and fasting, she emancipated herself from this maternal weakness of the flesh, and was rapturously received by the Ursulines of Tours. Yet in spite of the vagaries of her devout mind, Madame de l'Incarnation possessed a singular aptness for practical affairs. Several of her early years had been spent in the house of her brother-in-law, where she had displayed an amazing talent for the ordinary business of life. A knowledge of this trait had doubtless led the Jesuits to press her appointment as Superior of the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... known to arise from traceable hereditary sources may be mentioned factors in musical ability, artistic composition, literary ability, mechanical skill, calculating ability, inventive ability, memory, ability to spell, fluency in conversation, aptness in languages, military talent, acquisitiveness, attention, story-telling, poetic ability; and, on the other hand, insanity, feeble-mindedness of many types, epilepsy. These are suggestive of the inheritability of many other mental traits ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... messenger would speedily have advised him if news of the Andromeda had arrived since he left the office on Saturday afternoon. But it is said that drowning men clutch at straws, and the metaphor might be applied to Verity with peculiar aptness. He was sinking in a sea of troubles, sinking because the old buoyancy was gone, sinking because many hands were stretched forth to push him under, and never one ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... and archaic, whether it is used to denote the dead languages or the obsolete or obsolescent forms of thought and diction in the living language, or to denote other items of scholarly activity or apparatus to which it is applied with less aptness. So the archaic idiom of the English language is spoken of as "classic" English. Its use is imperative in all speaking and writing upon serious topics, and a facile use of it lends dignity to even the most commonplace and ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... a very correct view of the excellent mode in which dissenting ministers are generally called to their important work. First, their gifts in prayer and conversation upon Divine things, and aptness in illustrating and confirming what they advance from the Scriptures, is noticed; and, secondly, they are encouraged to pray with and address the poor children in a Sunday school. If they manifest an aptness to teach, they are, thirdly, invited to give an exhortation ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... how little aptness there is in the existing human being for taking pleasure either in what already exists ready to hand, or in the making of something which had better be there; in what can be enjoyed without diminishing the enjoyment of others, as nature, books, art, thought, and the better qualities ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... which present the appearance of a row of beads upon a string. These circular spots, which some have regarded as lakes, Mr. Lowell believes are rather oases in the great deserts, and granting the correctness of his theory of the canals the aptness of ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... himself to Wellington and to the new King, William IV., assuring them that, under the Government of Louis Philippe, France would not seek to use the Belgian revolution for its own aggrandisement; and, with his old aptness in the invention of general principles to suit a particular case, he laid down the principle of non-intervention as one that ought for the future to govern the policy of Europe. His efforts were successful. So complete an understanding was established ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... right so far," she reassured him, smiling; "but we must pitch in and finish it. Why, that's just it, Paul—" she was struck with the aptness of her illustration—"that's just it. We've got the rafters and joists up now; maybe before we're married, if we're good, we can get the roof on so it won't rain on us; but all the finishing, all that makes it good to live in, has got to be ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... a very great pleasure to me to see all this apparatus in manufacture and in use at one of the principal submarine signalling works in America and to hear some of the remarkable stories of its value in actual practice. I was struck by the aptness of the motto adopted by them—"De profundis clamavi"—in relation to the Titanic's end and the calls of our passengers from the sea when she sank. "Out of the deep have I called unto Thee" is indeed a suitable motto for those who are ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... Mr. Dunborough, aghast with admiration at the aptness of the lines. 'That is uncommon clever of you! But I shall do it all the same,' he continued, in a tone of melancholy foresight. 'I know I shall. I am a fool, a particular fool. But I shall do it. Marry in haste ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... into the country, Jonathan, and noticed an immense rock split and shattered by the roots of a tree, or perhaps by the might of an insignificant looking fungus? I have, many times, and I never see such a rock without thinking of its aptness as an illustration of this Socialist philosophy. A tiny acorn tossed by the wind finds lodgment in some small crevice of a rock which has stood for thousands of years, a rock so big and strong that men choose it as an emblem of the Everlasting. Soon the warm caresses ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... weather and climate could have enabled us to endure so continual a fatigue. Had it been in Europe, half the people must have sunk under it. For my part, it did me good." No evidence of professional aptness could be given clearer than the last words. A man is easy under such circumstances only when they fit him. De Guichen asked to be superseded; "my health cannot endure such continual fatigue and anxiety." ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... a scene in which he is present when he does not illumine his remarks by quotations of some kind or other, though there are certainly a few occasions when his listeners are not always able to appreciate their aptness. For instance in the scene between Swiveller and the single gentleman, after the latter has been aroused from his slumbers, and has intimated he is ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... Normal class of my College whom I have not fitted for it by the Primary course. They are taught their first lessons by my students; hence [15] the aptness to assimilate pure and abstract Science is ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... ordinarily with barely power to loose my tongue, when among my companions, concerning the most trivial and ordinary affairs, now, because of this my affection, mastered so speedily all his modes of speech that, in a brief space, my aptness at feigning and inventing surpassed that of any poet! And there were few questions put to me in response to which, after meditating on their main points, I could not make up a pleasing tale: a thing, in my opinion, exceedingly difficult for a young woman to begin, and still more ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... aptness, for he had hardly uttered them when Roderick came out from the house, evidently in his darkest mood. He stood for a moment gazing hard at ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... prize of beauty, or Nausicaa offering protection to the shipwrecked Ulysses. It is a striking feature of the easy unconstrained character of life among the Greeks, of its gladsome joyousness of disposition, which knew nothing of a starched and stately dignity, but artist-like admired aptness and gracefulness, even in the most insignificant trifles, that in this drama called Nausicaa, or "The Washerwomen," in which, after Homer, the princess at the end of the washing, amuses herself at a game of ball with her maids, Sophocles himself played at ball, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... furniture we sometimes discover a convenience which long disuse had made us unacquainted with, and are surprised by the aptness which we did not suspect was concealed in its solid forms. We have found the labour of the workmen to have been as admirable as the material itself, which is still resisting the mouldering touch of time among those modern inventions, elegant and unsubstantial, which, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... at once, not to mention the feelings probably inherent in the shepherd of the flock, since my wards might well be likened, I thought, to helpless young sheep. By this comparison I mean no disrespect; the simile is employed because of its aptness and for no other reason. It would ill become me, of all men, to refer slightingly to any of our student-body, we at Fernbridge making it our policy ever to receive only the daughters of families having undoubted social standing in their respective communities. ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... man, I suppose, and while I think him a fine fellow, I've seen in him no great aptness for business. If I saw that he was no more to you than others who have sought your favor, I would not say a word, Trurie, for when you are indifferent you are abundantly able to take care of yourself. I've been expecting this. I knew you would in time ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... The aptness of these words, spoken in a dogmatic tone, aroused the approval of the Arabs, and the Jew could not restrain himself from exclaiming: "Capital!" but no sooner had it escaped him than he shrank as quick as lightning out of the Vekeel's reach; and Obada hardly heard ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... stories.' She also adds, 'Many were the lessons of wisdom and faith I have delighted to learn from her.' . . . . 'She continued a great favorite in our meetings, both on account of her remarkable gift in prayer, and still more remarkable talent for singing, . . . and the aptness and point of her remarks, frequently illustrated by figures the most ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... They've got no sense of value left. Why, a man found an outcrop of a zinc lode under his chicken-coop yesterday—and to-day the price of chicken-coops has gone up." Madeira patted Steering's shoulder again and laughed again, pleased at his aptness ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... away. By and by, hearing that Mr. Turner was much troubled at what I do in the office, and do give ill words to Sir W. Pen and others of me, I am much troubled in my mind, and so went to bed; not that I fear him at all, but the natural aptness I have to be troubled at any thing ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... at length his understanding grew up to the stature of his body; also without any inherent habits of virtue in his will; thus divesting him of all, and stripping him of his bare essence; so that all the perfection they allowed his understanding was aptness and docility, and all that they attributed to his will was ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... emulate the examples presented to my imagination,—to do something and become somebody, which partly made amends for my coldness for letters. In fact, I have always thought that if I had been allowed to read history more constantly, instead of losing my time in studies for which I had no aptness, I might have made some ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... "A point of morals will be no better discussed in a society of philosophers than in that of a pretty woman of Paris," said Rousseau. This constant habit of reducing thoughts to a clear and salient form was the best school for aptness and ready expression. To talk wittily and well, or to lead others to talk wittily and well, was the crowning gift of these women. This evanescent art was the life and soul of the salons, the magnet which attracted the most brilliant of the French ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... this point of view that I have urged upon you the close consideration of the permanent influences of every present action. At your age, and with your inexperience, I know that there is an especial aptness to deceive one's-self by considering the case of those who, after leading a gay life for many years, have afterwards become the most zealous and devoted servants of God. That such cases are to be met with, is to the glory of the free grace of God: ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... the old man, as he transferred a duck to his plate and proceeded to carve it with the aptness of one who had practical knowledge of its anatomy, "I tell ye, Henry, the birds be gittin' fat; and I sartinly hope the flight this fall will be a good un. Don't be bashful, Lad, in yer eatin'," he continued, as he transferred ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... great aptness for accounts. He had kept them—had rendered them. There was beauty, to him, in a correct, balanced, and closed account. An account unsatisfied was a deformity. The result is plain. That man, looking out night after night upon the grand and holy spectacle of the starry deep above and the ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... ceased entirely, and the symbols of opposition disappeared. The audience, hushed into attention, gave vent to no sounds but those of admiration for the genius of the actor. When, in the course of his part, he repeated the words, "So! I am in London again !" the aptness of the expression to the circumstances of the night, was felt by all present, and acknowledged by a round of boisterous and thrice repeated cheering. It was a triumphant scene for Mr. Kemble after his long annoyances. He had achieved a double victory. He had, not only as a manager, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... 'you must be, with the aptness of my scholar. Julia has not studied dialectics in vain. Before I can feel myself able to contend with her, I must study the books she has commended so—from which, I must acknowledge, I have been repelled ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... sailing, you may say, almost within three points of the wind; and his own accidental allusion to Romeo had brought it about with an aptness and a celerity which were better for my purpose than anything I had privately developed from the text of Bottom and Titania; none the less, however, did I intend to press into my service that fond couple also as basis for a moral, in spite of ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... And now put all the aptness on Of Figure, that Proportion Or Color can disclose; That if those silent arts were lost, Design and Picture, they might boast From you a newer ground, Instructed by the heightening sense Of dignity and reverence In their true motions found." ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... ecclesiastical. At the age of seventeen we find him writing letters to Arthur Hallam on politics and literature: and his old schoolfellows testify to his great influence among them for purity, humanity, and nobility of character, while he was noted for his aptness in letters and skill in debate. In 1827 the boy was intrusted to the care of Dr. Turner,—afterward bishop of Calcutta,—under whom he learned something besides Latin and Greek, perhaps indirectly, in the way of ethics and theology, and other ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... knew what was behind the gate. Toil, with a certainty, but our lives had known it. Death, perchance. But Death had been near to all of us, and his presence did not frighten. As we climbed towards the Gap, I recalled with strange aptness a quaint saying of my father's that Kaintuckee was the Garden of Eden, and that men were being justly punished with blood ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... man who familiarizes himself with the grave. For me; I must deny myself, for I go tomorrow to take part in festivities the reverse of funereal. I commend the propriety and aptness of your ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... not rack me; For, though I would rather not Give the answer, still the answer Rises with such ready aptness To my lips from out my heart, That ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... activity in the natural world; there are parallel lines of development as the result of the inherent correlation of forces. Thus, if we have found a great general law in physiology, that same law may apply with equal aptness to astronomy, geology, chemistry, and even to social and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... memory is probably the more tenacious of the two, it is no safe guide to the recovery of facts, still less to that of their order and significance. Yet up to the last weeks, even the last conscious days of his life, his remembrance of historical incident, his aptness of literary illustration, never failed him. His dinner-table anecdotes supplied, of course, no measure for this spontaneous reproductive power; yet some weight must be given to the number of years during which he could abound in such stories, and attest their ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... many ways so to lead a man away from the atmosphere of work and direction of activity found at home, that it is better for him, who undertakes it at all, to consecrate himself to it as the great mission of his life. It is also a fact that the longer he continues in it, the more ability and aptness he acquires for that ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... well envy him,—he is not just the man fitted for this destination. A Knight of the Garter should be a man prone to show himself, a public man, one whose work in the country has brought him face to face with his fellows. There is an aptness, a propriety, a fitness in these things which one can understand ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... most earnest and imaginative. Our people still differ from their English cousins (as they are fond of calling themselves when they are afraid we may do them a mischief) in a certain capacity for enthusiasm, a devotion to abstract principle, an openness to ideas, a greater aptness for intuitions than for the slow processes of the syllogism, and, as derivative from this, in minds of looser texture, a light-armed, skirmishing habit of thought, and a positive preference of the birds in ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... were King Henry and his queen alone in the matter; but there is still one more—the Prince of Wales, against whom no man speaks evil, even the most rancorous enemies of the House of Lancaster. All who have seen him love him; all speak of his noble person, his graces of body and mind, his aptness to ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... inadvertently imposed upon himself, and the first source of mischief which he prepared for his children; for besides continuing in this manner to soften both body and mind, these conveniences having through use lost almost all their aptness to please, and even degenerated into real wants, the privation of them became far more intolerable than the possession of them had been agreeable; to lose them was a misfortune, to possess them ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... desperation. The suddenness of this sinister conclusion had in it something comic and unbelievable. It loosened my grip on my mental processes. A Latin tag came into my head about the facile descent into the abyss. I marvelled at its aptness, and also that it should have come to me so pat. But I believe now that it was suggested simply by the actual declivity of the street of the Consuls which lies on a gentle slope. We had just turned the corner. All the houses were dark and in a perspective of complete ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the list is one who, though a poor man's daughter, will certainly bring property to Phelim. There is also an aptness in this selection, which does credit to the 'Patriarch.' Phelim is a great dancer, an accomplishment with which we do not read that the patriarchs themselves were possessed: although we certainly do read that a light heel was of little service to Jacob. Well, Phelim carries a light heel, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... "related species," of the "affinity" of a genus or other group, and of "family resemblance,"—vaguely conscious that these terms of kinship are something more than mere metaphors, but unaware of the grounds of their aptness. Mr. Darwin assures them that they have been talking derivative doctrine all ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... In the memoir of that young prince, who died at Rotherhithe, and was buried in the church-yard there, in December, 1784, there are some points of resemblance to the case under our notice. The natural and unforced politeness of the youth, his aptness at conforming, in all proper things, to the habits and customs of those to whose hospitality he was intrusted; his warm and single-hearted affection for such persons, in whatever station, as showed him kind offices, his desire for mental improvement; his resignation and submission in his last ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... art delighted him, and his admiration of our success was evident when we exhibited to him, as we were perfected in them, all the steps, exercises and dances which formed our lessons. He always encouraged us in our dancing, and praised our grace and aptness, although criticized quite severely in some places for allowing his children to expend so much time and energy upon the ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... were great; Where power was of God's gift to whom he gave Supremacy of merit—the sole means And broad highway to power, that ever then Was meritoriously administered, Whilst all its instruments, from first to last, The tools of state for service high or low, Were chosen for their aptness to those ends ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... excelled in both, obtained as a young man the most tumultuous applause. For he possessed that strong leaning for polished and condensed maxims which Menecles displayed; as with whom, so with Hortensius, some of these maxims were more remarkable for sweetness and grace than for aptness and indispensable use; and so his speech, though highly strung and impassioned without losing finish or smoothness, was nevertheless not approved by the older critics. I have seen Philippus hide a smile, or at other times look angry or annoyed; ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... elements are sublimity of thought, beauty of sentiment, aptness of expression, unction of form. In these matters the Breviary hymns are not inferior to the classic poetry of paganism, nor to the much-belauded beauties of the Gallican Breviary hymns (vide Bacquez, Le Saint Office, notes vi. and ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... churches, 'Through Adam's fall is all corrupt, nature and essence human,' is not true, but from natural birth it still has something good, small, little, and inconsiderable though it be, namely, capacity, skill, aptness, or ability to begin, to effect, or to help effect something in spiritual things." ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... like the rule of the English in India to be found in history. It has been compared to the dominion which Rome held over so large a portion of the world; but the comparison has not the merit of aptness. The population of the Roman Empire, in the age of the Antonines, has been estimated at 120,000,000, including that of Italy. The population of India is not less than 150,000,000, without counting any portion of the conquering race. Rome was favorably situated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... pathetic to see that they were brilliant, gallant, much-loved, early epauletted fellows, who did not let twenty-one catch them without wives sealed with the authentic wedding kiss, nor allow twenty-two to find them without an heir. But they had a sad aptness for dying young. It was altogether supposable that they would have spread out broadly in the land; but they were such inveterate duelists, such brave Indian-fighters, such adventurous swamp-rangers, and such lively free-livers, that, however numerously ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... women were; she seemed in nothing like others. Her dress was strange; it had folds and amplitudes and dim disks of silver broideries at breast and knee that made it like the dress of some Venetian lady, drawn at random from an ancestral marriage coffer and put on dreamily with no thought of aptness. Her hair was strange; no other woman's hair was massed and folded as was hers, hair dark as night and intertwined and looped with twisted strands of pearl and diamond. Her face was strange, that crowning face, known to all the world. Disparate ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and aptness of gesture, also, in a measure, bespeak and proclaim commanding oratory. The power, moreover, which with the Indian resides in mere gesture, as a medium for disclosing and laying bare the thoughts of his mind, is truly remarkable. Observe the Indian interpreter in Court, while in the exercise of ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... given in the story of the aptness of this remark are often very touching. The poor Marston boys are indeed only half bad. Their better natures, seconded by the influence of a good mother and sister, are continually urging them to reformation, but for this there is no opportunity. The decision of their fate by ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... Scriptures? A blameless conversation, a good report; experience of the self-debasing work of the Spirit of God; compassion to the souls of men; a fixedness in the Christian doctrines; a disposition faithfully to perform his vows; an aptness to teach the ignorant, and convince gainsayers. Knowledge of languages, knowledge of the history and sciences of this world, are useful handmaids to assist us in the study of divine things. To preach from the oracles of God, without capacity to peruse the original, especially ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... thought in vain for a simile, and then, having found one to his liking, emitted with great earnestness that the beggar, Blizzard, looked exactly like "the wrath of God." Whatever the boy's simile may convey to the reader, to Barbara, fresh from seeing the man himself, it had a wonderful aptness. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Williamstown, Mass., in his sixteenth year, and remained there until 1812, distinguishing himself for aptness and industry in classical learning and polite literature. At the end of two years he withdrew, and commenced the study of law, first with Judge Howe, of Worthington, and afterward with Mr. William Baylies, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... lives by the Rhine and Main (for great rivers, like the seacoast, always have something animating about them), expresses himself much in similes and allusions, and makes use of proverbial sayings with a native common-sense aptness. In both cases he is often blunt: but, when one sees the drift of the expression, it is always appropriate; only something, to be sure, may often slip in, which proves offensive to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... expansion uncommon even in an accepted lover, and we made our conclusions that however subject he might be to his indefinitely future mother-in-law, he would not be at all so to his wife, if she could help it. He took the lead, but because she gave it him; and she displayed an aptness for conjugal submissiveness which almost amounted to genius. Whenever she spoke to either of us, it was with one eye on him to see if he liked what she was saying. It was so perfect that I doubted if it could last; but my wife said a girl like that could keep it ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... in the aptness of his scriptural allusions, once said with regard to a leader who had announced that he would "set his face" against a certain policy and then gave way, "Yes, the deer 'set his face,' but he did not 'set it as a flint'—rather ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... more of it. Then the serious afflatus of the article condescended, as it were, to blow a shrill and well-known whistle:—the study of the science of navigation made by Commander Beauchamp, R.N., was cited for a jocose warranty of a seaman's aptness to assist in steering the Vessel of the State. After thus heeling over, to tip a familiar wink to the multitude, the leader tone resumed its fit deportment. Commander Beauchamp, in responding to the invitation of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this third portion and being in less haste attempted to use the fork, as Miss Lucy's action had suggested. He succeeded fairly well, considering his inexperience, and his hostess was delighted by his aptness. As soon as the third piece had disappeared she gave him the fourth, and ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... of them are most strikingly happy, and flood his subject with light. The smiles that break out upon the sea of upturned faces, and the laughter that whispers round the assembly, are often due as much to the aptness as to the humor of the illustration: the mind receives an agreeable shock of surprise at finding a resemblance where only the widest dissimilarity had before ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... sole dress, A cloak, was all bunched up. He leapt, and lighted Upon the boulder just beneath; there swayed, Re-poised, And perked his head like an inquisitive bird, As gravely happy; of all unconscious save His body's aptness for its then employment; His eyes intent on shells in some clear pool Or choosing where he next will plant his feet. Again he leaps, his curls against his hat Bounce up behind. The daintiest thing alive, He rocks awhile, turned from me towards the sea; Unseen I might ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... very fast; too fast Whimple thought, for by mid-afternoon he had told the boy a great deal about himself and his past and his prospects. And William had listened, asking a question occasionally, sometimes interjecting a remark, and always, so Whimple says now, with an aptness that surprised and delighted him. William evinced no surprise and no regret when informed that bright as were the prospects, two dollars a week, for the present, was the maximum ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... godly life. I have often wished I might introduce some of our American friends into our teachers' meetings on a Sabbath afternoon, or to the Sabbath-school at the intermission of public worship, where nearly the whole congregation remains, exhibiting a zeal and aptness in the discussion of religious truths scarcely surpassed in the most favored churches in New England. The weekly woman's prayer-meeting is sometimes left entirely in the hands of the native sisters, and any one of half a dozen is always ready without embarrassment ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... every view, lets you miss no effect, does not force his own opinions upon you, except now and then when he loses his temper a little on the debatable ground between religion and politics, repeats that quotation you are vainly trying to recall, or delights you by the beauty and aptness of a new one. He gives to a course of systematic sight-seeing the freedom and variety of a ramble with a cultivated and sympathetic companion. We would not be ungrateful to that inestimable impersonality, Murray, for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... weather was fair and mild and much of the time could be spent out of doors. Matilda, frail but with that gentle tenacity of life that marks many women for longevity, settled at once into the semi-rough life of the cabin with innate delicacy and aptness. The rooms Sandy had so lovingly planned and furnished became hers after the first day, and no truer compliment could have been paid her host than this homelike acceptance of his thoughtfulness. To see her soft, ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... laughed at the aptness of the "shiny night," for that was evident to the dullest capacity. Thus encouraged, he ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... host coruscates. The young lady on your right suddenly develops into a charming girl, with becoming appreciation of your pet topics and an astounding aptness for repartee. The Gorgon thaws, and implores Mr. Snapshot, whose jests are popping as briskly as the corks, not to be so dreadfully funny, or he will positively kill her. Belle Breloques can always talk, and now her tongue rattles faster than ever, till the languid one arouses himself like a giant ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... youth of their sect, they found themselves carried away by it, beyond all power to forget what they had read. The idolatry of the poet, which marked that time, was an inevitable consequence of the singular aptness of his utterance. His dress, manners, and likings were adopted, so far as they could be ascertained, by hundreds of thousands of youths who were at once sated with life and ambitious of fame, or at least of a reputation for fastidious discontent; young ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... in this youth to enjoy this world, so much the less chance was thereof his being fit for any other world. What could it do for him there,—this beautiful grace and elegance of feature,—where there was no form, nothing tangible nor visible? what good that readiness and aptness for associating with all created things, doing his part, acting, enjoying, when, under the changed conditions of another state of being, all this adaptedness would fail? Had he been gifted with permanence on earth, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in Phoebus's aria, and promptly caricaturing it in the second part of Pan's ("Wenn der Ton zu muehsam klingt"). Midas votes for Pan—"denn nach meinen beiden Ohren singt er unvergleichlich schoen." At the word "Ohren" the violins give a pianissimo "hee-haw" which is fully as witty in its musical aptness as Mendelssohn's clown-theme in the Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream; and in the ensuing dialogue their prophecy is verified. As with many other great artists, Bach's playfulness occasionally showed itself inconveniently where little things ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various |
