"Forte" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chair and crossing her legs, "I've found my forte at last. For three years, nearly, I've been employed by the Secret Service Department ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... which I was entrusted with a part. The piece chosen was Iphigenie en Aulide. Mademoiselle de Sabran and her brother, as well as a young Strogonoff, were, it is said, perfect actors. Armand de Polignac had a little part. Tragedy was not my forte. But in the second piece I achieved a little success, which the Chevalier de Boufflers was kind enough to celebrate in a very bright couplet, sung at the close. He gave me the name of the Little White Mouse. After that the Queen called me her little white mouse, and showed me a thousand ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... exierant flammae, et Sol redditus orbi: Assistunt Domino turmae, gelidamq. resurgens Linquit humum Saulus: sed non redit ossibus ardor, Non oculis lumen; subitis exterrita monstris Haud aliter juveni stupuerunt pectora, quam cum Fulmina si flammis straverunt forte bisulcis Coniferam pinum, aut surgentem in sidera quercum, Agricola exsurgit conterritus, et pede lustrat Exustum nemus, et pallentes sulphure campos. Explorat late noctem, caecosq. volutat Hinc atq. hinc oculos, et ab ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... accepit, ad ipsam restituendam tenetur, vel ejus precium, si forte incendio, ruins, naufragio, ant latronum, vel hostium incursu, consumpta fuerit vel deperdita, substracts, vel ablata." Fol. 99 a, b. This has been thought a corrupt text (Guterbock, Bracton, by Coxe, p. 175; 2 Twiss, Bract. Int. xxviii.), but agrees ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... of 'having undertaken the drudgery of invective under pretence of being champions of politeness.' The other papers summarized are the Free Briton, a violent opponent of the Craftsman, the British Journal, and the Universal Spectator, the forte of the last two lying in essays ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... crow; he has no brains, No,—not enough to go in when it rains. He is not gamy,—fighting's not his forte, A Haycock fight is just no sort of sport. Down in the meadow all day long he'll bide, (That is a little ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... has he logic or grasp with his reasoning powers, though of this, also, he is ambitious. Observation is his forte. To see, and to tell with grace, often with dignity and pathos, what he sees, is his proper vocation. Yet, where he fails, he has too much tact and modesty to be despised; and we cannot enough admire the absence of faults in a man whose ambition soared so much beyond his powers, and in an age ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... of Alberti's or Galuppi's, I forget which. His voice went like the wind, and his fingers leapt over the imaginary keys. The various passions succeeded one another on his face; you observed on it tenderness, anger, pleasure, sorrow; you felt the piano notes, the forte notes, and I am sure that a more skilful musician than myself would have recognised the piece by the movement and the character, by his gestures, and by a few notes of airs which escaped from him now and again. But the absurd thing was to see him from time to time hesitate and take himself ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... sticking out behind them on the floor, like boot-trees. Above whom, the Virgin, on a kind of blue divan, promised to restore the patient. In another case, a lady was in the very act of being run over, immediately outside the city walls, by a sort of piano-forte van. But the Madonna was there again. Whether the supernatural appearance had startled the horse (a bay griffin), or whether it was invisible to him, I don't know; but he was galloping away, ding dong, without the smallest reverence or compunction. On every picture ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... example the aria of 'Orpheus,' 'Che faro senza Euridice' Change its expression by the smallest discrepancy of time or modulation, and you transform it into a tune for a puppet-show. In music of this description a misplaced piano or forte, an ill-judged fioriture, an error of movement, either one, will alter the effect of the whole scene. The opera must, therefore, be rehearsed under my own direction, for the composer is the soul of his opera, and his presence is as necessary to its success ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... I said quietly. "You have invited me into this carriage simply to lie to me. But you are an indifferent liar—it is not your forte. My dear child, do you imagine that I cannot see through your poor little plan? Mrs. Sullivan Smith has been talking to you, and it has occurred to you that if you cast me off, the anger of that—that thing may be appeased, ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... Lindsay,—I never imitate. Originality is, if I may be allowed to say so much for myself, my peculiar forte. Why, the critics allow as much as that. See ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... hair is all put out of sight, turned back, and no border to the cap, very unbecoming and very singular, tied under the chin with a pink ribbon—blue for the married, white for the widows. Here was a Piano forte and another sister teaching a little girl music. We went thro' all the different school rooms, some misses of sixteen, their teachers were very agreeable and easy, and in every room ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... classics and mathematics. A "Double-First" is the incarnation of Oxford, a masterpiece of Art. All that he knows he knows profoundly, nor does it require an Artesian bore to bring that knowledge bubbling to the surface. His mastery over his intellect is as great as that of Liszt over the piano-forte,—it is a slave to do his bidding. He is the result of a thousand years of culture. A "Double-First" never gives way to enthusiasms; his heart never gets into his head. Impulse is snubbed as though it were a poor relation; and argument is carried on by clear, acute ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... find other methods than those of military force to settle the problems with which it was faced; and this situation provided ample scope for diplomatic recalcitrance and delay. The advantage was that practice was thus acquired in the exercise of such economic and other peine forte et dure as the League of Nations would in future have to use to reduce its unruly members to order. Proceedings at Versailles therefore took less and less the character of a conclusion to the war and more and more that of ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... am," replied Eleanor emphatically. "You ought to know from past experiences that disagreeable scenes are my forte." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... and white, tipped with pink filbert nails. He did not learn the game so quickly as might be. He, like Maurice, was pondering over the unusual position in which he found himself; but analysis of any sort was not his forte; so he soon forgot all save the delicate curve of Madame's chin and throat, the soft ripple of her laughter, the abysmal gray ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... professor, she was cradled in literature, and has made it in a certain way the work of her life. There is nothing, however, of the pedantic about her. She is the embodiment of a woman's wit and humour; but her forte is a certain crisp and lively condensation of persons and qualities which carry a large amount of information under a captivating cloak of vivacious and confidential talk with her audience, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... lists against a spirit of such a temper as his rival. Had he desired, after Luther's manner, to deal in caricature, he would certainly have failed. Sallies, play upon words, and conceits did not suit a mind like his, whose forte was finesse. By nature sober, he could not, like the Saxon monk, fertilize his brain in enormous pots of beer; moreover, beer was not as yet ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... climate of Nice, the fame of which they carried to their northern homes. It was both directly and indirectly through one of these officers that the claims of Nice as a sanatorium came to be put so plainly before Smollett. [Losing its prestige as a ville forte, Nice was henceforth rapidly to gain the new character of a ville de plaisir. In 1763, says one of the city's historians, Smollett, the famous historian and novelist, visited Nice. "Arriving here shattered in health and depressed ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... je la pli alta finigxo, la unua, cxiam forte tenante per la du manoj la tenilon, metis sian sxovilon sur la lignan superajxon, kie trovigxas la drapa mureto: La dua malrapide komencas malfermi la sakon. ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 3 • Various
... the same height as his brother, two years younger, slender in form, and gentle in disposition, but active, too, when occasion required it. His forte was drawing and painting. Fred was generally quiet and grave. Both ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... colors; and its texture was so fine and thick that it yielded like moss to the footstep. Crimson velvet curtains, lined with white satin and fringed with gold, draped the windows and excluded every breath of the wintry blast. Many costly pictures, rare works of art, covered the walls. A grand piano-forte, a fine harp, a guitar, and a lute were at hand. Rich inlaid tables were covered with the best new books, magazines, and journals. Indian cabinets were filled with antique shells, minerals, ossifications, and other curiosities, Marble stands supported vases, statuettes, and ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... sarebbe male, ma distuona come il diavolo. Ruggiero, un ricco principe innamorato di Bradamante, e un musico; canta un poco Manzuolisch [Footnote: Manzuoli was a celebrated soprano, from whom Mozart had lessons in singing when in London.] ed ha una bellissima voce forte ed e gia vecchio; ha 55 anni, ed ha una [Footnote: "She has a tolerable voice, and her appearance is in her favor, but she sings out of tune like a devil Ruggiero, a rich Prince enamored of Bradamante, is a musico, and sings ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... seit les humeurs des Angloys et leur voluntez estre forte discordantes, desireux de nouvellete, de mutation, et vindicatifz, soit pour estre insulaires, ou pour tenir ce natural de la marine."—Renard to Mary: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... done for, I covered my face with my hands, and commanded myself to God, with all the resignation that could be expected from a poor young fellow in my grievous circumstances, expecting to be cut off in the prima vera of his days, and to part for ever from—. Poo, that there line is not my forte. However, finding the haemorrhage by no means great, and that the wound was in fact slight, I took the captain's rather strong hint to be still, and lay quiet, until a 32—pound shot struck us bang on the quarter. The subdued force with ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the Devil of the Albanians is minus horns, hoof and tail! This gives the fifth hero time to erect his impregnable tower before the fiend returns from the end of the world. When he comes to the tower he finds all his skill is naught, so he has recourse to artifice, which indeed has always been his forte. He begs piteously to be allowed one last look of his beloved princess. They can't refuse him so slight a favour, and make a tiny hole in the tower wall, but, tiny as it is, the Devil is able to pull the princess through it and instantly mounts on high with her. Now ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... have known Casa Guidi as it was could hardly enter the loved rooms now and speak above a whisper. They who have been so favored can never forget the square anteroom, with its great picture and piano-forte, at which the boy Browning passed many an hour,—the little dining-room covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning,—the long room filled with plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. Browning's retreat,—and, dearest of all, the large drawing-room, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... ibidem pernoctabat in oratione,[1202] quam forte reperiens solam homo barbarus, accensus libidine et sui minime compos, irruit rabiosus in eam. Conuersa illa et tremefacta, suspiciens aduertit hominem plenum diabolico spiritu. "Heu," inquit, "miser, quid agis? Considera ubi es, reuerere haec sancta, defer ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... Leading from the old entrance-hall is the favorite sitting-room of Mary Chaworth in her happy childhood and youth; and here, in his boyish days, Byron often sat beside her while she played for him his favorite airs on the piano-forte. Beneath the window is a little garden, where she cultivated the flowers she loved best, and which are still cherished for her memory. Our guide gathered a few of these, and gave them to our young companion: they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... well-proportioned, broad-shouldered, with a commanding presence and amiable countenance. He was bold, earnest, energetic, persevering; artless, and honest as the day. He said exactly what he meant. His mental vision was clear, strong, and accurate. Imagination was never active; oratory was not his forte. Demonstrative evidence suited him best. In his religious character he was conscientious, devout, and reverent, never excited ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... consideration of the advantages this system presented, for, in performances on a large scale, the following somewhat crude rule prevailed: all those passages marked piano were executed by a single set of instruments, while those marked forte were carried out by a duplicated set. As an instance of the way in which I took care to ensure an intelligible rendering by this means, I might point to a certain passage in the second movement of the symphony, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... is couched in terms of the concrete, he can succeed, but if that is replaced by the x, y, z elements, he is prone to fail. There is another type of child—the one who has the executive ability, the child of action. True, he thinks, too, but his forte is in control of people and of things. He is the one who manages the athletic team, runs the school paper, takes charge of the elections, and so on. For principles to be grasped he must be able to put them into practice. The fourth type is the feeling type, the child ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... ch'a null'amato amar perdona, Mi prese del costui piacer si forte, Che come vedi ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... But it did little enough to make up for the lack of national whole-heartedness by any efficiency of its own. Madison was less zealous about the war than most of his party. He was no Pitt or Lincoln to ride the storm, but a respectable lawyer-politician, whose forte was writing arguments, not wielding his country's sword. Nor had he in his Cabinet a single statesman with a genius for making war. His war secretary, William Eustis, never grasped the military situation at all, and had to be replaced by John Armstrong after the egregious failures of ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... harmony the world should come to the performance of this ode." Lady Fragrantia was at that moment drumming with her fingers on the edge of her fan, lost in a reverie, thinking she was playing upon——Was it a forte piano? ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... the beginning of the twentieth century, two new voices have begun to be heard; at first sotto voce, they have risen through a murmurous pianissimo to a decorous non troppo forte, and they continue crescendo,—the voice of the teacher and the voice of the graduate. And the burden of their message is that no educational system is genuinely democratic which may ignore with impunity the criticisms and suggestions of the teacher who is expected ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... proclaimed her to be a prize. She was quickly boarded by boats from the shore, every one in them eager to be on board, for a prize crew are supposed to have their pockets well lined with coin, and to be ready to spend it. She was soon known to be "La Forte," captured by the "Thisbe" in the East Indies. She at once went into dock, her crew was paid off, and Rawson got confirmed in his rank of commander; but Ronald Morton received no further acknowledgment of his ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Terram vero Landa Rolfoni quaesitam existimarem esse Vinlandiam olim Islandis sic dictam; de qua alibi insulam nempe Americae e regione Gronlandiae, quae forte hodie Estotilandia," etc. Crymogoea, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... should suit one another mainly. He Jives on the ground floor, for convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air. He keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, not caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the belles lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a harmony. You must bring the Baron ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... and his sister going out to meet him at the sound of his well known voice, with her milk-white pail, he would find the one poring over Latin and Greek, and the other running her fingers over the chords of a harp or piano-forte." ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... began more firmly, "you take a pinch of sand from this box—so." Tee-making is not my forte, and I was painfully conscious that I worked under the critical gaze of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... casting a sweet glance at Sir Robert, who immediately led her to the piano-forte, followed by the Scottish merchant of the Baltic, whither the noble symphony of "The Douglas," "hound and horn," soon gathered the rest of the company. The remainder of the evening passed away delightfully in the awakened harmony. Mrs. Montresor joined Lady Albina in some touching ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... our way over the Colma to and from Varallo-Sesia. On one occasion we were accompanied by two English ladies and, one being a teetotaller, Butler maliciously instructed La Martina to make the sabbaglione so that it should be forte and abbondante, and to say that the Marsala, with which it was more than flavoured, was nothing but vinegar. La Martina never forgot that when she looked in to see how things were going, he was pretending to lick the dish clean. These journeys provided the material ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Heerden started in to do some tall cursing of me, my country, my decadent race and the like. Things have been strained all the afternoon. To-night they reached a climax. He wanted me to help him in a burglary—and burglary is not my forte." ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... tibi communicabo: hoc vicissim amanter a tua humanitate petens, vt quae ex vtriusque nauigationis cursu obseruata nancisci poteris, mihi communices, penes me pro tuo arbitrio manebunt omnia, et quaecunque inde collegero, fideliter ad te perscribam, si forte ad pulcherrimum, vtilissimumque orbi Christiano hoc nauigationis institutum aliquid opis et consilij adferre possint. Bene vale, vir doctissime. Duisburgi in Cliuia. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... l'interrogatoire des temoins. 5. L'histoire racontee, dans les livres des Juges et de Samuel, et meme en partie celle comprise dans les livres des Rois, est en contradiction avec des lois dites mosaiques; donc celles-ci etaient inconnues a l'epoque de la redaction de ces livres, a plus forte raison elles n'ont pas existe dans les temps qui y vent decrits. 6. Les prophetes du 8e et du 7e siecle ne savent rien du code mosaique. 7. Jeremie est le premier prophete qui connaisse une loi ecrite et ses citations rapportent au Deuteronome. 8. Le Deuteronome (iv.45-xxviii.68) est ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... beatus. Tu es sola puella quam amo, et semper eris. Alias puellas non amavi. Forte olim amabis me, sed sum indignus. Sine te sum miser, cum tu es prope mea ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... spinet or cembalo kind; but how the tone was produced there is no statement, no word to base an inference upon. The name has not been met with again between the Estense document and Scipione Maffei's well-known description, written in 1711, of Cristofori's "gravecembalo col piano e forte." My view of Cristofori's invention allows me to think that the Estense "piano e forte" may have been a hammer cembalo, a very imperfect one, of course. But I admit that the opposite view of forte and piano, contrived by registers of spinet-jacks, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... between two foxes' tails, which served the purpose of bell pulls. At this moment, my topographical observations were disturbed by the arrival of the scout with candles, and two strange-looking fellows in smock frocks, bringing in, as I supposed, a piano forte, but which, upon being placed on the table, proved to be a mere case: the top being taken off, the sides and ends let down in opposite directions, and the cloth pulled out straight, displayed an elegant dinner, smoking hot, and arranged in as much form as if the college butler had superintended ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was a square enclosure of eight or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, "during hours," of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the "Dominic," we would all have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles were two other similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit of the "classical" usher, one of the "English and mathematical." Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... hours,' of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the 'Dominie,' we would all have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles were two other similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit of the 'classical' usher, one of the 'English and mathematical.' Interspersed ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... was his forte. There have been various rocks on which men have shattered their barks in their attempts to sail successfully into the harbours of parliamentary management. There is the great Senator who declares to himself that personally he will have neither friend nor foe. There ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... forte putes me, quae facere ipse recusem, Cum recte tractant alii, laudare maligne; Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet; falsis terroribus implet, Ut magus; & modo me Thebis, modo ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... et visiva, per hoc purgetur, et cerebrum a sua superfluitate purgetur, etc. Etiam qui sternutat frequenter, dicitur habere forte cerebrum."—Aristotelis ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... Sultan came, as I said before, and eat, drank, and was merry. He is passionately fond of music, and the piano-forte was placed out under the trees, where Anna and Zuleika sat singing and playing Greek and Italian music to him, until he ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... think so? (He says "Yes" with his eyes, bows, and moves up C. The piano is now forte. BELINDA accompanies him up a little, then stops. He turns in entrance up C., and they exchange glances. TREMAYNE exits to R., behind yew hedge. BELINDA stays looking after him, then moves down to back of table and picking up the book of poems, gives that happy ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne
... if I were you, I wouldn't chance it. Fighting has never really been your forte; Witness Larissa, and your rapid transit, Chivied by slow foot-sloggers of the Porte; Far better make for Denmark o'er the foam; There is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... What could a farmer know of military affairs? True, Arnold had been a merchant, but then he had studied at Yale and had made military subjects his special forte, and he had been complimented ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... up in a heap upon the nearest chair. Her laugh was very infectious; it began with a low, mirthful ripple, well down in the throat, and rose in rapid leaps of musical joy till it had traveled a whole octave of bubbling happy sounds, when it culminated in a peal of double forte shakes and trills, that made it a joy to hear, and finally it died out in an "Oh, dear me! What ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... Mr. Bruder's forte, on which he specially prided himself. He was too much of a gentleman to ask questions, and was delighted to find the old zest returning in his pupil. They were soon constructing bergs, caves, and grottoes of cold blue ice. Evening after evening, while sufficient light lasted, they worked at this ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... purity incarnate—that is what she seemed; and what she was. "La plus forte des forces est un coeur innocent," said Victor Hugo—and if you translate this literally into English, it comes to exactly the same, both in rhythm ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... to say, that this was an occupation 'better suited to the circumstances of a man advancing in years, than that of adapting music to such vain and trivial words as the musical drama generally consists of.' The truth was, he had discovered his forte. But the tide of fashionable feeling ran so strongly against him, that even the performance of the oratorios of Saul and Israel in Egypt scarcely paid expenses. Unwilling to submit his forthcoming Messiah also to the caprices of fashion, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... is good enough to say of me that "cutting up monkeys is his forte, and cutting up men is his foible." With your permission, I propose to cut up "A Devonshire Man"; but I leave it to the public to judge whether, when so employed, my occupation is to be referred to the former ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... other side of the story from Captain Davy at Forte Ann. On the way there he had heard of the separation from the boy, Willie Quarrie, a lugubrious Manx lad, eighteen years old, with a face as white as a haddock and ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... passer-by, had he peeped through the blinds of No.—Wharton Street, Pentonville, late at night, would have been rewarded by the touching spectacle of a huge, rawboned ex-private in her Majesty's Life Guards, with his head bowed over the black and yellow key-board of a venerable square piano-forte (on which he could not play), dropping the bitter tear of ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... of the ancient World, up to the real discoveries of the present time proceeded the solution of the relation of the Eternal time, motion, and distance. Which set forte the discovery of the generational cosmological Parents of this planet, are discovered that these can be seen ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... Relation of the Discovery of Our River From James Forte into the Maine, Made by Captain Christopher ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... the true path to excellence and renown. Like the AEolian harp, which waits for a breath of air to produce a sound, so they frequently wait or strive in vain, till nature strikes a sympathetic chord, that vibrates to the soul. Thus Joseph Vernet never thought of his forte till he first stood on La Viste; and after that, he was nothing but a painter of ships and harbors, and tranquil seas, till the day when lashed to the mast, he first beheld the wild sea in such rude commotion, as threatened to engulf the noble ship ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... reserve, uniform, full and fatigue dress, armament, and tactics. He understood, without difficulty, the advantages of the percussion gun, but the attempt to explain rifled cannon to him was in vain. Artillery was not his forte; but he avowed, nevertheless, that Napoleon had owed more than one ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... d'avoir aujourd'hui Plus de nom que ... [Vaudreuil], plus de vertus que lui, Et c'est de la que part cette secrete haine Que le temps ne rendra que plus forte et ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... course of the nerves, using gentle pressure upon the breasts of the ladies, and staring them out of countenance to magnetise them by the eye! All this time the most rigorous silence was maintained, with the exception of a few wild notes on the harmonica or the piano-forte, or the melodious voice of a hidden opera-singer swelling softly at long intervals. Gradually the cheeks of the ladies began to glow, their imaginations to become inflamed; and off they went, one after the other, in convulsive fits. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... eloquent man, although a ready and frequent public speaker. His voice was not musical. His strong forte was invective. He was nearly always denouncing somebody. Apparently, he was never so happy as when making another miserable. Sometimes his personal allusions were very broad. He was accustomed in his speeches to refer to one of Missouri's ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... not Coleridge's forte. In politics he was happier. In mere personal politics, he (like every man when reviewed from a station distant by forty years) will often appear to have erred; nay, he will be detected and nailed in error. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... ire pedes, transibit statim nauigio Brachium Sancti Georgij quod satis est strictum, ibique ad Ruphinal quod est forte castrum, inde ad Puluereal, et hinc ad castrum Synopulum. Ex tunc intrat Cappadociam, terram latam sed plenam altis montibus, deinde Turciam ad portum Theueron, et ad Ciuitatem ita dictam, nunc munitam firmis turribus, ac muris, per quam transit fluuius Reglay. Postea ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... "is hardly our forte at present. The park's been Nature's playground for over a century, and she's made the most ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... lastly, that he was to be preserved with the coarsest bread that could be got, and water out of the next sink or puddle.' He was told that 'oftentimes men lived in that extremity eight or nine days.' People have sometimes endured the peine forte et dure, as it was called, because, unless they pleaded and were convicted, their estates were not forfeited; and they endured the death of protracted torture for the sake of their families. Weston's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... in my mind from the ashes of another passion. Fresh materials, of heterogeneous kinds, altered the colour, and changed the nature of the flame: I should have told you, but narrative is not my forte—I never can remember to tell things in their right order. I forgot to tell you, that when Madame de Stael's book, 'Sur la Revolution Francaise,' came out, it made an extraordinary impression upon ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Dukedome, a Shiere, a Lordship, or lesse, may be described distinctly. But marueilous pleasant, and profitable it is, in the exhibiting to our eye, and commensuration, the plat of a Citie, Towne, Forte, or Pallace, in true Symmetry: not approching to any of them: and out of Gunne shot. &c. Hereby, the Architect may furnishe him selfe, with store of what patterns he liketh: to his great instruction: euen in those thinges which outwardly are proportioned: either ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... large audience, without any apparent effort on his part. Besides, it was musical. The hearer went away with its expressive inflections and cadences still sounding in his ears. But his voice was not his only forte. He had a mind as full of sanctified wit and quick perception as an egg is full of food. A clear thinker, a cogent reasoner, and I may add, full of love and the Holy Ghost, it is not a matter of wonder that he excelled. What he might have achieved had he ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... for me. I happened to be the only reporter present at the scene—'sensation' was my forte—a 'beat' upon all the other dailies had come directly to my hand. It was late in the week, and I was also afforded the chance of cooking the thing up remuneratively for two or three weekly papers. But the whole thing stood before me like a picture which ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... rivers, in the various countries which it fertilizes by its waters. We reposed here for some hours, and to my astonishment the Doctor, laying aside his pipe, entertained us with his performance on a piano forte, which was in the room, and when his tea arrived his place was occupied ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... one sees no especial use in conventional beatings about the bush. One goes straight to the point, or else one keeps still entirely; and, at that phase of his existence, keeping still was not Scott Brenton's forte. Indeed, he was later than are the most of us in learning the lesson that the keenest social weapon lies ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... is your majesty's forte," exclaimed Count Hacke, endeavoring to give the conversation another direction. "Never before in my life did I feel my heart beat as it did when I crossed the ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... was as natural as breathing. She was recalled again, and again, and again, and the uproar of approval only ceased when the next singer advanced with a roll of music in his hand. He was a pale, sentimental young man whose forte was despairing ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Mirus artifex Neminem habuit parem. Haec liberalis animi oblectamenta, Quam nullo illi labore constiterint, Facile ii perspexere, quibus usus est amici; Apud quos urbanitatum et leporum plenus Cum ad rem, quaecunque forte inciderat, Apte varie copioseque alluderet, Interea nihil quaesitum, nihil vi expressum Videbatur, Sed omnia ultro effluere, Et quasi jugi e fonte afiatim exuberare, Ita suos tandem dubios reliquit, Essetue in scriptis, poeta elegantior, An in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... in particular odes, are his forte; there are indeed few departments of learning in which he has not extensive knowledge, and he is also well read in the Greek and Roman authors. Everything he studies, he studies merely from the love he bears to the science itself, and ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... and naturally impetuous. There could be no greater mistake; or, if he is such by natural disposition, this is one of the points where his seminary training has taught him to control and master himself. The forte of his character is his unchanging equanimity. And yet there must have been in him a wondrous amount of nervous energy to enable him to survive very serious injuries to his frame in early life, and to endure ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... he is less courageous. Tiuj estis malplej akraj, those were least sharp. La vento blovis malpli forte, the wind blew less strongly. Li skribis malplej zorge, he wrote least carefully. Mi malpli timas ilin, I fear them less. Vi malplej bezonos helpon, you will ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... thought Hunt, would not be Maggie's forte if she developed her possibilities. With her looks, her boldness, her cleverness, she had the makings of a magnificent adventuress. As he painted, he wondered what she was going to do, and become; and he watched her not only with a painter's eye intent upon the present, but ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... that this arrangement is by no means peculiar to that city, or to the western side of the Alleghanies. Sometimes a small attempt at music produces a partial reunion; a few of the most daring youths animated by the consciousness of curled hair and smart waistcoats, approach the piano-forte, and begin to mutter a little to the half-grown pretty things, who are comparing with one another 'how many quarters' music they have had.' Where the mansion is of sufficient dignity to have two drawing-rooms, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... years younger than Tom, and for a time there was an attempt to utilise him in the green-grocer's shop when Tom at twenty-one married Jessica—who was thirty, and had saved a little money in service. But it was not Bert's forte to be utilised. He hated digging, and when he was given a basket of stuff to deliver, a nomadic instinct arose irresistibly, it became his pack and he did not seem to care how heavy it was nor where he took it, so long as he did not ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... or anything of the sort," resumed Camilla, "I have remained in that state, hours and hours, and Raymond is a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what the total inefficacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the piano-forte tuner's across the street, where the poor mistaken children have even supposed it to be pigeons cooing at a distance,—and now to be told—" Here Camilla put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemical as to the ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... sulla sua sedia portatile sta scrivendo una lettera sopra un foglio a vignetta. L' Italiano continua ad ascendere ... e giunte alla vetta ... all' amplissima libera vista, il cuore dell' Italiano batte piu forte ... la mente s' esalta, e i piu energici pensieri vi bollono.... Ma gli occhi ritornano svegliati dei passi dei Cavalli, appie del ripiane s' affaccia una numerosa comitiva ... e un pique nique! Fuggi fuggi mal capitate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... fieret, et Dominus, et famuli, et ancillae, a domo properantes, forte obliti, infantem in cunis jacentem secum non auferent, Daemones incipiunt commessari et vociferari, prospicereque per fenestras formis ursorum, luporum, felium, et monstrare pocula vino repleta. Ah, inquit pater, ubi infans meus? Vix cum haec dixisset, unus ex Daemonibus ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a tutor—Cirindey of Corpus—whom we recommended to him, and with whom the young gentleman did not fatigue his brains very much; but his great forte decidedly lay in drawing. He sketched the horses, he sketched the dogs; all the servants from the blear-eyed boot-boy to the rosy-cheeked lass, Mrs. Kean's niece, whom that virtuous housekeeper was always calling ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... um rico piano forte do autor Erard, de 3 cordas, por 280$, garantido; na rua da Quitanda ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... yesterday's figures, generally, I should say; or else by unrolling a ball of red tape. Well-docketed papers and statistical facts are his forte." ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... loud that I cannot be heard, and I will never stoop to noisy banging. How I hate these orchestral players! How they scratch and blow like pigs and boasters! When I did play with them they made fun of my red hair and delicate touch. The leader could not understand me, and kept on yelling "Forte, Forte." It was in the Fifth of Beethoven, and I became angry and called out in my poor German (ah! I hate German, it hurts my teeth): "Nein, so klopft das Schicksal nicht an die Pforte." ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... aberrations ought to warn us from trying to make too many genera out of these animals. Dr. Gray, whose particular forte—or shall I say weakness?—was minute subdivision, classed (in 1847) the Indian porcupines in three sub-families, Hystrix, Acanthion, and Atherura; and Acanthion he some years after (1866, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... follows, for there is hardly a finer effect in music than that of the soft voices singing the words, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," while the strings gently pulse; and the fortissimo C major chord on the word "light," coming abruptly after the piano and mezzo-forte minor chords, is as dazzling in its brilliancy to-day as when it was first sung. The number of unisons, throwing into relief the two minor chords on C and F, should be especially noted. The chorus in the next number is poor, matched with this, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... a word about your letters; except that Kate and I have come to a conclusion which makes me tremble in my shoes, for we decide that humorous narrative is your forte, and not statesmen of the commonwealth. I won't say a word about your news; for how could I in that case, while you want to hear what we are doing, resist the temptation of expending pages on those darling children? ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Forte puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido, Dixerat, ecquis adest ? et, adest, responderat echo. Hic stupet; utque aciem partes divisit in omnes; Voce, veni, clamat magna. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... the fanciful, and the utterly ridiculous. He was a student of the whimsicalities of character and nature, and delighted in their portrayal by voice or pen. Strange to relate, however, his first thought of adopting the histrionic profession contemplated tragedy as his forte. He had inherited a wondrous voice, deep, sweet, and resonant, from his father, and had a face so plastic that it could be moulded at will to all the expressions of terror, malignity, and devotion, or anon into the most grotesque and mirth-provoking ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... June 15, 1806, Louis started from Saint Leu to go to his kingdom. He was accompanied by his wife and his two sons, the elder, Charles Napoleon, who died in Holland the 5th of the next May, and the other, Louis Napoleon, who died at Forte, in 1831, in the insurrection of the States of the Church against the Pope. His third son, later Napoleon III., was born in 1808. The new King entered The Hague June 23, 1806. He countermanded a body of French troops which the Emperor had designed for his escort at his entrance into the capital, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... [11] "Sed si forte placet veteres sopire querelas Anthemium concede mihi; sit partibus istis Augustus longumque Leo; mea jura gubernet Quem ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies |
