"Prodigy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Guy," suddenly snapped little Mrs. Jeffries. "We are wasting the gentleman's time. You are no infant prodigy, and we have no pictures of your calves to ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... of the Cretans are named [Greek: diaponoi] from working hard, [Greek: itamai] from their keenness, and mongrels from their being compounded of both, so these Celts are named from their swiftness. In figure, the most high-bred are a prodigy of beauty; their eyes, their hair, their colour, and bodily shape throughout. Such brilliancy of gloss is there about the spottiness of the parti-coloured, and in those of uniform colour, such glistening over the sameness of tint, as to afford ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... would not dice, nor game—save for trifles. Who, on the contrary, talked of duty, and had a peaceful word for all, and openly condemned the duello, and was mild as milk and as gentle as an owl. Such a one seemed, indeed, the fabled "phaynix," or a bat with six wings, or any other prodigy which the fancy, Irish or foreign, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Countess Gemini was not acquainted with the ancient monuments Isabel occasionally offered to introduce her to these interesting relics and to give their afternoon drive an antiquarian aim. The Countess, who professed to think her sister-in-law a prodigy of learning, never made an objection, and gazed at masses of Roman brickwork as patiently as if they had been mounds of modern drapery. She had not the historic sense, though she had in some directions the anecdotic, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... to these dogs who form the vanguard, and the natives at the mere sight of these formidable Molossians[4] and the unaccustomed sound of their baying, break their ranks and flee as though horrified and stupefied by some unheard-of prodigy. This does not occur in fighting against the natives of Caramaira or the Caribs, who are braver and understand more about war. They shoot their poisoned arrows with the rapidity of lightning, and kill the dogs in great numbers; but the natives ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... mandate similar to that which chained the tempests of Tiberias, or the demoniac of Gadara, to have hurled the incumbent stone into fragments? Might not He who has "the keys of the grave and of death" have Himself unlocked the portals preparatory to the vaster prodigy that was ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... movements of the body, usages the most indifferent, ceremonies the most frivolous, have become, in the powerful hands of the priests, sublime and divine mysteries. In the Roman religion all is magic, all is prodigy, all is supernatural. In the decisions of our theologians, the side which they espouse is almost always that which is the most abhorrent to reason, the most calculated to confound and overthrow common sense. In consequence, our priests ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... wished himself in the Palace of Calm Delights, where he found the princess walking, and with grief considering the message which her mother had sent her, and on the means to repel Furibon. Suddenly she beheld a head hanging in the air, with nobody to hold it. This prodigy astonished her so, that she could not tell what to think of it; but her amazement was increased when she saw the head laid at her feet, and heard a ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... mutually promised to conceal what they had seen, they again closed the Tower, and blocked up the gate of the Cavern with earth, that no memory might remain in the world of such a portentous and evil-boding prodigy. The ensuing midnight, they heard great cries and clamour from the Cave, resounding like the noise of Battle, and the ground shaking with a tremendous roar; the whole edifice of the old Tower fell to the ground, by which they were greatly affrighted, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... we have misunderstood each other. I said that your answering in Latin at so early an age was a prodigy, that is, a thing that is wonderful; that does not ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... The clouds, a signal of impending showers, To warn the wand'ring linnet to the shade, Beheld, without concern, expiring Greece, And not one prodigy foretold our fate. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... wherewith to astonish the natives. One would think that he had already ornaments enough to satisfy any mortal; but he, it appears, is not of the stuff every-day people are made of, and he could not rest satisfied until his fingers boasted another ring. The new prodigy is, like its predecessors, of pure solid gold. It is worth 500 dollars, and weighs nearly, if not quite, a pound. This small treasure is intended for the owner's "little" finger. It is the work of Mr. Melon, jeweller and goldsmith, on Camp-street, and is adorned with small carved figures, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... at the age of thirty-four he was raised suddenly to a dizzying height of fame and power, was generally looked upon as a prodigy. Though he was not that, he had a real claim to distinction. Had destiny been considerate, permitting him to rise gradually and to mature as he rose, he might have earned a stable reputation high among those who are ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... at the receipt of custom required no miracle to produce obedience. It was by no stroke of the supernatural that Jesus caused those sent to seize Him to go backward and fall to the ground. It was the sublime and holy effluence from within, which needed no prodigy to commend it to the reverence even of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... this new prodigy would, perhaps, have filled the hundred cities of Crete, if Crete had not lately produced a nearer wonder {of her own}, in the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... stage with tempestuous verbiage; which, to be sure, is not the style of greatness at all, but only of one trying to be great, and trying to be so, because he is not so. For to talk big is the instinct of ambitious littleness. But Tamburlaine is also represented in act as a most magnanimous prodigy: amidst his haughtiest strides of conquest, we have strains of gentleness mingling with his iron sternness; and he everywhere appears lifted high with generous passions and impulses: if he regards not others, he is equally ready ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... absence of a wise companion with whom he could converse, he undertook the education of his brother Henry, who was not exactly a prodigy and could not get along at school. Great people are teachers through necessity, for it is only in explaining the matter to another that we make it clear to ourselves. Not finding enough to do in teaching his brother, Balzac advertised ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... is a human prodigy. She ought to be exhibited. Six years old! Oh, I say—that child ought to turn out something great when she grows up. What did you say her name was, by ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... you are in, Boldly demand the lady for her sons, For pledges of her husband's faith and hers: Whom when ye have, upon the castle seize, And keep it to our use, until we come. Meanwhile let me alone with Hugh your son, To work a wonder, if no prodigy; But whatsoe'er, it ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... With his genius in his eyes, his manners on his lips, his long career behind him and his honours and rewards all round, the great artist, in the course of a single sustained look and a few words of delight at receiving him, affected our friend as a dazzling prodigy of type. Strether had seen in museums—in the Luxembourg as well as, more reverently, later on, in the New York of the billionaires—the work of his hand; knowing too that after an earlier time in his native Rome he had migrated, in mid-career, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... weakened, had not been smothered under the scenic delicacies brought into fashion by Behzad. If the Timourid age is to be dubbed the Persian quattrocento, Mr. Ruck's man will pass muster as the counterpart of some artist older than Raphael, who worked independently of the young prodigy unaffected by his ultimately ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... the pilgrim swam into the orbit of Franz Liszt, who happened to be giving a series of recitals. Born in 1811—the "year of the Comet"—he was at the height of his powers when Lola Montez flashed across his path. During an early visit to England, as a "boy prodigy," he had gathered considerable laurels. Windsor Castle had smiled upon him, and he had played to George IV and to Queen Victoria. The chance encounter with Lola was a fateful one for both of them. But, as it happened, the virtuoso ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... brighter to their fancy, the probability of its becoming realized becomes less; for the brain, worn out by premature exertion, either becomes diseased or loses its tone, leaving the mental powers feeble and depressed for the remainder of life. The expected prodigy is thus, in the end, easily outstripped in the social race by many whose dull outset ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... have come to conclude the reality of the stigmata. They may have been a unique fact without being more miraculous than other phenomena; for example, the mathematical powers or the musical ability of an infant prodigy. ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... marooned in this back end of the world. Believing this to be the position, she acted accordingly, treating the Russians and the other Allied forces in the stupidly arrogant manner I have already described. With the naivete of a young Eastern prodigy she not only made demands upon her Allies, but at the same time made definite proposals to such Russian authorities as retained a precarious control over the territory she had already assigned to herself. On landing her troops at Vladivostok she presented, through her proper ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... astonishing that a purely technical sketch like this, whose humours might be relished only by such specialists as Barristers and Attorneys, who would understand the jokes levelled at the Profession, should be so well understanded of the people. All see the point of the legal satire. It is a quite a prodigy. Boz had the art, in an extraordinary degree, of thus vividly commending trade processes, professional allusions, and methods to outsiders, and making them humourous and intelligible. Witness Jackson, when he came to "serve" Mr. Pickwick and friends with the subpoenas. ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... "children" of Monnica. Besides Alypius, whom we know already, there was the young Adeodatus, the child of sin—"my son Adeodatus, whose gifts gave promise of great things, unless my love for him betrays me." Thus speaks his father. This little boy was, it seems, a prodigy, as shall be the little Blaise Pascal later: "His intelligence filled me with awe"—horrori mihi erat illud ingenium—says the father again. What is certain is that he had a soul like an angel. Some sayings of his ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... doubt," replied the Signor solemnly. "She is, indeed, a prodigy of talent,—one of the wonders of the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... instruction, received also generous alms. It was at this time that bread was first seen to multiply in the hands of the Venerable Mother: with only two or three loaves to divide among fifty or sixty persons, it was found that every one had a sufficient share. She perceived the prodigy herself and said quite simply, as she went on dividing the loaves, "I think our good God is multiplying this bread for His poor necessitous creatures." Even before this special demand on her charity, she had arranged that ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... coolly resigned to fate. How she must suffer, after having stooped to ask for aid! Poor Robbie Belle! Poor, lonely, disappointed Robbie Belle! For strange to say she flunked too and the question journeyed on triumphantly to the mathematical prodigy at the ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... cut it voluntarily. The new comers seemed to decline the honor. The "old favorites" reappeared one by one like dethroned princes who have been replaced for a brief spell in power. Then, the chosen ones became few, very few. For a month (O, prodigy!) M. Anserre cut open the cake; then he looked as if he were getting tired of it; and one evening Madame Anserre, the beautiful Madame Anserre, was seen cutting it herself. But this appeared to be very wearisome to her, and, next day, she urged one of her guests so ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... Illegitimate children. Images. Imitation. of animals. Imitative games. Immortality. Improvvisatrici. "In." Incarnation. Infancy. deities of. Infant. Infant-magician. —marriage. —prodigy. —spirit. Infanta. Infanticide. Infantry. Ingenious. Ingenuous. Inheritance. Initials. Insult. Intoxication. Inventiveness of children. Invisibility. I. O. G. T. Ipukarea. Isis. Isles of West. Istar. "It." "Iter ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... and fundamental delusion about those "words" and that "life." "Christianity is immortal; it has eternal truth, inexhaustible value, a boundless future. But our popular religion at present conceives the birth, ministry, and death of Christ as altogether steeped in prodigy, brimful of miracles—and miracles ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... admiration, Marian complied; and though, of course, no great cricketer, her skill was sufficient to make her a prodigy in their eyes. But the game was brought to a sudden conclusion by Miss Morley, who, seeing them from the window, came out very much shocked, and gave the girls a lecture on decorum, which Marian ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... in pleasant excitement, to see what new and wonderful performance had been attempted by my little prodigy—my first born—my year old bud of beauty, the folded leaves in whose bosom were just beginning to loosen themselves, and send out upon the air sweet intimations of an abounding fragrance. He had escaped from his nurse, ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... foaming, and went to spread the news elsewhere. The effect of his revelation was immediate distinction for Hamilton. He was discussed everywhere as a prodigy of intellect; messages reached him from every colony. "Sears," said Willets, one of the leaders of the Liberty party, "was a warm man, but with little reflection; McDougall was strong-minded; and Jay, appearing to fall in with the measures of Sears, tempered and controlled ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... same time recalling the prevalent tendency to ignore it, declares: "Detached facts on miscellaneous subjects, as they are taught at a modern school, are like separate letters of endless alphabets. You may load the mechanical memory with them, till it becomes a marvel of retentiveness. Your young prodigy may amaze examiners and delight inspectors. His achievements may be emblazoned in blue books, and furnish matter for flattering reports on the excellence of our educational system. And all this while you have been feeding him with ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... what a prodigy! You suffer this to burst upon me, Jacques, without notice, without preparation. My nerves are permanently shattered. You tell me, a man; I behold a tower, a mountain, Atlas crowned with clouds! Thousand thunders! what bulk! what sinews! and of ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... 'Daisy of the Glen,'" was the reply. "She is a prodigy for her age. Her history is a little singular. She was found not far from here in a wild glen, or ravine, when about three years old, and has never been able to tell who or where her parents are. But I will relate the circumstances to you at another ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... Defaults of Nature by the Industry of Art; he accordingly makes the greatest Provision for their Breeding and Education, which prov'd so effectual in a little Time, that their Progress was a greater Prodigy ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... take in sundry parts of a science at one view without interruption or confusion. Some of his acquaintance, who were pleased to distinguish between the wit and the scholar, extoll'd him altogether on account of the first of these excellencies; but others, who were more candid, admired him as a prodigy in both. He had acquired reputation in the schools, both as a philosopher and polemic of extensive knowledge, and deep penetration, and went through all the courses with a proper regard to the dignity, and importance of each science. Mr. Smith had a long and perfect intimacy with all the Greek ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... literature. The four successive sovereigns, Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, may, on one account or other, be admitted into the class of authors. Queen Catharine Parr translated a book: Lady Jane Gray, considering her age, and her sex, and her station, may be regarded as a prodigy of literature. Sir Thomas Smith was raised from being professor in Cambridge, first to be ambassador to France, then secretary of state. The despatches of those times, and among others those of Burleigh himself, are frequently ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... an extremely laborious task to restore the sense of corrupt passages, and have sometimes abandoned the attempt in despair. Not a few of the pieces in the last edition of Dodsley come within this category; and we may signalise the unique tragedy of Appius and Virginia, 1575, as a prodigy of negligent and ignorant execution on the part of the original compositor. But to the same cause is due our still remaining uncertainty as to the true reading of numerous places in ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... A sign, wonder, prodigy. These terms are commonly used in Scripture to denote an action, event, or effect, superior (or contrary) to the general and established laws of nature. And they are given, not only to true miracles, wrought ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... in their husband's company, even on the most ordinary subjects. So that once when a woman had the confidence to plead her own cause in a court of judicature, the senate, it is said, sent to inquire of the oracle what the prodigy did portend; and, indeed, their general good behavior and submissiveness is justly proved by the record of those that were otherwise; for as the Greek historians record in their annals the names of those who first unsheathed the sword of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... who hath foreseen it, For although (the fact's admitted) By an humble resignation It is possible to diminish Its effects, it first must happen, And by no means can be hindered. Let it serve as an example This strange sight, this most surprising Spectacle, this fear, this horror, This great prodigy; for none higher E'er was worked than this we see, After years of vain contriving, Prostrate at my feet a father, And a mighty king submitted. This the sentence of high heaven Which he did his best to hinder ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... appointed to investigate the cause of the Goodwin Sands. He met with small success in his inquiries. At last he came upon an old man who had lived in the district nearly a hundred years. The centenarian knew. The secret sparkled in his eyes. Master More approached the prodigy. 'Yes, sir,' the old man answered, 'I know. Tenterden Steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands! I remember when they built the steeple. Before that we never heard of sands, or flats, or shallows off this haven. They built the steeple, and then came ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... (1756-1791) was not only a musical genius, but was also one of the pre-eminent geniuses of the Western world. He defined in his music a system of musical thought and an entire state of mind that were unlike any previously experienced. A true child prodigy, he began composing at age 5 and rapidly developed his unmistakable style; by 18 he was composing works capable of altering the mind-states of entire civilizations. Indeed, he and his predecessor Bach accomplished the Olympian feat of adding ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... stupendous miracles. Miracle, from miraculum, a wonder, a prodigy. "A miracle," says Horne, "is a sensible suspension or controlment of, or deviation from, the known laws of nature." It is a signal act of Divine Omnipotence, that which no other being but God can do. Miracles flow from Divine power, and are the proper evidence of a Divine mission. The ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... conviction which religion must ever inspire, that the birth place of benevolence and piety is more illustrious than the birthplace of genius and philosophy. On this principle we look with admiration upon the town of Joppa, which, if it cannot boast a prodigy of valour, talent, or learning, is nevertheless conspicuous as the residence of one "of whom the world was not worthy." She was not, indeed, rich in wealth, but in good works. She was not a conqueror of nations or a distributor of crowns, but a giver of ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... of the academicians, introduced me to his family. His parents, who were in easy circumstances, received me very kindly. One of his sisters was very amiable, but the other, a professed nun, appeared to me a prodigy of beauty. I might have enjoyed myself in a very agreeable way in the midst of that charming family during my stay in Chiozza, but I suppose that it was my destiny to meet in that place with nothing but sorrows. The young doctor forewarned me that the monk Corsini ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... across the shoulder for some. Nor, indeed, did her husband's words save me the suspicion that my eyes deceived me when anon I was presented to a very pale, small lady whose hair was rather white than gray. And the "little daughter!" This prodigy's hair was as yet "down," but looked as if it might be up at any moment: she was nearly as tall as her father, whom she very much resembled in face and figure and heartiness of hand-shake. Only after a rapid mental calculation ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... implied that he plainly regarded her as a prodigy of knowledge. His whole attitude suggested at once the mind of an alert, interested boy asking his teacher for information on a subject near to his heart. It was ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... my Misfortune was, that having naturally a good Stomach, and having lived soberly for some time, my Body was as well prepared for this Contention as if it had been by Appointment. I had quickly vanquished every Glutton in Company but one, who was such a Prodigy in his Way, and withal so very merry during the whole Entertainment, that he insensibly betrayed me to continue his Competitor, which in a little time concluded in a compleat Victory over my Rival; after which, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... correctly, to add, subtract or multiply, and he understands the relation of numbers to each other, their properties, and because of his superior sense in this direction he becomes a "lightning calculator" and is regarded as a mathematical prodigy. There are others who have this sense deficient, but they may be superior in development to the mathematical prodigy ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... eighteenth century. It answered its purpose effectually; it reduced the nation to a state of poverty, degradation, and slavishness of spirit unparalleled in the history of Christendom, while it made the small dominant class a prodigy of political and religious tyranny. Never was an aristocracy, as a body, more hardened in selfishness, more insolent in spirit; never was a church more negligent of duty, more intensely and ostentatiously secular. Both church and state reeked ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... novelty described as a "new beef animal," which is a blend of the domestic cow and the North American bison. The resulting prodigy has the ferocious hump and shoulders of the bison, with the mildly benevolent face of the Herefordshire ox. It must not, however, be supposed that the old country is behind-hand in such experiments, as witness ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... the "Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a splendid example of waste talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen. This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, who declared himself descended from that prodigy of learning and accomplishment, and said he had family-plate in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C.—Admirable Crichton! H—— laughed or rather roared as heartily at this as I should think he ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... learned divine of his generation in New England, minister of the North Church of Boston, President of Harvard College, and author, inter alia, of that characteristically Puritan book, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences. Cotton Mather himself was a monster of erudition and a prodigy of diligence. He was graduated from Harvard at fifteen. He ordered his daily life and conversation by a system of minute observances. He was a book-worm, whose life was spent between his library and his pulpit, and his published ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... man was really a prodigy. He was only two-and-twenty years of age; yet his information seemed already to be universal. He spoke on every science and every art like one of its ablest professors. There was no broken lumber nor useless trash in his mind. The materials were all of the best sort, and in ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... of a piece with that prodigy of self-contradiction that, when the Liberal leaders in the House of Commons expose the absurdity of professing to rectify the German exchanges by keeping out German fabric gloves, a tariffist leader replies by arguing that the Paris ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... his name—it were cruel to neutralise such a prodigy—and he is just learning to walk and lisp. Khalid teaches him the first step and the first monosyllable, receiving in return the first kiss which his infant lips could voice. With what joy Najib makes his first ten steps! ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... admiration, were active volcanoes pouring streams of lava down into the plain even after the foundation of the Eternal City. Livy mentions that under the third king of Rome, a shower of stones, accompanied by a loud noise, was thrown up from the Alban Mount—a prodigy which gave rise to a nine days' festival annually celebrated long after by the people of Latium. The remarkable funereal urns found buried under a bed of volcanic matter between Marino and Castel Gandolfo on the Alban Hills are an incontrovertible proof that showers of volcanic ashes must ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... completely of the past as his love-affair with Mrs. Thorley Rushworth gave way to wonder at the generosity of her view. There was something superhuman in an attitude so recklessly unorthodox, and if other problems had not pressed on him he would have been lost in wonder at the prodigy of the Wellands' daughter urging him to marry his former mistress. But he was still dizzy with the glimpse of the precipice they had skirted, and full of a new awe at the ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... privilege rarity stupidity verify epitaph retinue nutriment vestige medicine impediment prodigy serenity terrify ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... was one of those about whose footsteps legends rise, and legend could add little to the romantic facts of her life;—the poverty of her youth; her debut as a child prodigy at Warsaw and the sudden fame that had followed it; the coronets that had been laid at her feet; her private tragedies, cosmopolitan friendships, her scholarship, caprices and generosities. She had been the Egeria, smiling in mystery, of half a dozen famous men. And it was ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... obtained, Borri spent it in Holland with an unsparing hand, and was looked up to by the people with no little respect and veneration. He performed several able cures, and increased his reputation so much that he was vaunted as a prodigy. He continued diligently the operations of alchymy, and was in daily expectation that he should succeed in turning the inferior metals into gold. This hope never abandoned him, even in the worst extremity of his fortunes; and in his prosperity it led him ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... pitiable, was her expression, half arch, half pleading, and so beautiful! "Oh, lovely and terrible prodigy!" I thought, "draw back; banish those thoughts; or, rather, no longer think at all—for you are on the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the dream glow in the towering talent of a 12-year-old, Tyrone Ford. A child prodigy of gospel music, he has surmounted personal adversity to become an accomplished pianist and singer. He also directs the choirs of three churches and has performed at the Kennedy Center. With God as your composer, Tyrone, your music will be the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... him. When I think on one, with his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that "girls with spits, and boys with stones, should slay him in puny battle;" when the other crosses my imagination, I remember the prodigy in "Macbeth", ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... task of watching the boy in his rambles, when he should not be otherwise accompanied. The Dominie loved his young charge, and was enraptured with his own success, in having already brought him so far in his learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea of this early prodigy of erudition being carried off by the gipsies, like a second Adam Smith, [* The father of Economical Philosophy was, when a child, carried off by gipsies, and remained some hours in their possession.] was not to be tolerated; and accordingly, though the charge ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Freger. He brought with him skill in talking, but of true eloquence and science I could not discover a trace. When proof from the Scripture was demanded, he traveled off. I found nothing in him but a barefaced monk, although others looked for a prodigy. Still more boisterously did a certain Dominicaster beat about him with passages of Scripture for several days, but in the end showed that he understood no Greek. The best among them was the schoolmaster of ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... ordinary interest. Therefore let us be exceedingly careful what we say and write about her. I shall write freely to you and tell you everything, on one condition: It is this: you must promise never to show my letters to any one. My beautiful Helen shall not be transformed into a prodigy if I can ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... prodigy is this power of praising and blaming. Tell me, ye brethren, who will master it for me? Who will put a fetter upon the thousand necks of ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of ordinarily intelligent and moral parents became a prodigy of sex perversion and the accomplice of thieves and murderers. She gave untold misery to all her family, but the father never gave up his search for her when she left the home and never failed to give her succor ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... the origin of that debt which has since become the greatest prodigy that ever perplexed the sagacity and confounded the pride of statesmen and philosophers. At every stage in the growth of that debt the nation has set up the same cry of anguish and despair. At every stage in the growth of that debt ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not in his face made patent: Him they captured without knowing Who he was, it being commanded That the faces of the prisoners Should be covered, but ere captured This effectually was done By themselves, they flying backward With averted faces; he Thus was taken, but his partner, That strange prodigy of Rome— Man in mind, wild beast in manners, Doubly thus a prodigy— Saved himself by power of magic. Thus Chrysanthus was sole prisoner, While the Christian crowd, disheartened, Fled for safety to the mountains From their grottoes and their caverns. These the soldiers quickly ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... read music before she knew her alphabet. She had been so long lulled to sleep with Gretry's airs, that at the age when so many other young girls think only of hoops and dolls, she had found sufficient music in her soul for the whole of a charming opera. She was a prodigy. Had it not been for death, who came to seize her at sixteen like her sister, the greatest musician of the eighteenth century would, perhaps, have been a woman. But the twig, scarcely green, snapped at the moment ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... de Grammont regarded his master's attention to the affairs of state as a prodigy: he could not conceive how he could submit at his age to the rules he prescribed himself, or that he should give up so many hours of pleasure, to devote them to the tiresome duties, and laborious functions of government; but he blessed the Lord that henceforward ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... but not necessarily her heart. You are considering her for the moment as prodigy; I am thinking of her ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... second hand through some biblical commentary. Much of it certainly comes from the Notes and Observations upon some Passages of Scripture (Oxford, 1646) of John Gregory, chaplain of Christ Church, a prodigy of oriental learning, who died in his 39th year, March 13, 1646. Thus in his Address to the Reader (3rd page from end) Gregory remarks: "The Jews, when they build a house, are bound to leave some part of it unfinished in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem," giving a ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... numberless palms, and a very pleasant orange grove in good bearing; in the courtyard a bronze Venus rode on a sprouting whale, and there were many fountains; and within there was much white marble and pillars of precious stone, and horrible liverish Viennese mosaics, for the house was something of a prodigy, having been built in a trade boom by a rastaqouere. "Mhm," said Mr. Philip sagaciously, and from the funeral slide of respect in his voice Ellen guessed that he imagined rastaqouere to be a Brazilian variety of Lord Provost. She would have ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... might comment on this story, and might compare it with another which is told in a life of Innocent, written during the reign of his successor, and published with approval at Rome. In this we are told that at the time of his death a marvellous prodigy was observed; for that, when his corpse was borne on a bier from Monte Cavallo to the Vatican, at the moment of a violent storm of wind and rain, not a drop of water fell upon it, but the bier remained ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Woodward, the comedian, in his lively attack on Hill, has given "a mock Inspector," an exquisite piece of literary ridicule, in which he has hit off the egotisms and slovenly ease of the real ones. Never, like "The Inspector," flamed such a provoking prodigy in the cloudy skies of Grub-street; and Hill seems studiously to have mortified his luckless rivals by a perpetual embroidery of his adventures in the "Walks at Marybone," the "Rotunda at Ranelagh," spangled over with "my domestics," and "my equipage." [One ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... new admirer every minute. They had hardly ever felt so pleasant, and so full of conversation, in their lives; Mercy, in particular, was uncommonly brilliant, and said so many good things in the way of lively repartee that she was looked upon as a prodigy. 'In short,' as that young lady observed, 'they felt now, indeed, that they were in London, and for ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... warm-hearted woman of about thirty, one of those unhappy persons who are made for domestic life, but condemned by fate to school-celibacy. Lonely and impulsive, she drew to herself the most interesting girl in her classes, and, with complete indiscretion, made a familiar, a pet, a prodigy of one whose especial need was discipline. By her confidences and her flatteries she set Clara aflame with spiritual pride. Ceaselessly she excited her to ambition, remarked on her gifts, made dazzling ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... not, by his proper Figure, that's like tobacco-stopper, It should be Saturn. Yes, 'tis clear 455 'Tis Saturn; but what makes him there? He's got between the Dragon's Tail And farther Leg behind o' th' Whale. Pray heav'n divert the fatal omen, For 'tis a prodigy not common; 460 And can no less than the world's ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... of the Paravas; and in all this time, his two companions, Paul de Camerine, and Francis Mansilla, were not come to his assistance, though they had been arrived at Goa some months since. The number of Christians daily multiplying to a prodigy, and one only priest not being sufficient to cultivate so many new converts in the faith, or advance them in Christian piety, the saint thought it his duty to look out for succour. And besides, having selected some young men, well-natured, and of a good understanding, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... of our acquaintance, Lomellino, never did I hear you so enthusiastic! Go, then, conduct this prodigy hither. ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... most distinguished families of the land. She cautiously suggested this to her husband when he came to take his seat at her bedside; but to her utter astonishment she found that he had been indulging a similar train of thought, and had already destined the infant prodigy for the army. She, however, could not give up her predilection for literature, and the Colonel, who could not bear to be contradicted in his own house, as he used to say, was getting every minute louder and more flushed, ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... on a small bear's back. A scene impossible! A hairy tornado, rolling, twisting, flopping, yelling, screeching, roaring, and howling, tore, bit, scratched, clawed, and walloped all over the place. An epileptic nebula; a maelstrom that revolved in every way known to man at the same instant; a prodigy of tooth and claw. If that fight were magnified a hundred times, a glimpse of it would kill; as it was, myself and the clothing store boy clung weakly ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... as if he were all lighted up within—the day when she had said to her husband afterwards: "Ah, he's an angel!" Not yet a year—the beginning of last October term, in fact. He was different from all the other boys; not that he was a prodigy with untidy hair, ill-fitting clothes, and a clever tongue; but because of something—something—Ah! well—different; because he was—he; because she longed to take his head between her hands and kiss it. She remembered so well the day that longing first came to her. She was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... estate; and some of them offered their good offices towards a reconciliation betwixt his father and him, induced by the general detestation which was entertained for his brother Gam, who was by this time looked upon by his neighbours as a prodigy of insolence and malice. Our young squire thanked them for their kind proposal, which he accepted; and old Gamaliel, at their entreaties, seemed very well disposed to any accommodation: but as he would not venture to declare himself ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... at least, Toni will soon be married. Then this friendship with the theatrical prodigy will be at an end. I give you my word for it, that no such guests will be allowed within the walls of Burgsdorf, and Willibald will not permit his young wife to keep ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... the first time at the Italian Opera, and one of those singular incidents which remind one of Paganini's triumphs occurred. At the close of a bravura cadenza, the band forgot to come in, so absorbed were the musicians in watching the young prodigy. Their failure was worth a dozen successes to Liszt. The ball of the marvellous was fairly set rolling. Gall, the inventor of phrenology, took a cast of the little Liszt's skull; Talma, the tragedian, embraced him openly with effusion; and the misanthropic ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... on reading the letter. "What meaneth this old dotard, surd and absurd, thus to control our actions? Did not our innate generosity restrain us, I would confound him, and make him a prodigy ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... law taught him to spell as far as two syllables.[1] The white boy's brother stopped him from teaching this lad of color, pointing out that such an instructor was liable to arrest. For some time he obtained help from an old colored gentleman, a prodigy in sounds. At the age of thirteen his mother employed a white lady to teach him on Sundays, but she was soon stopped by indignant white persons of the community. When he attained the age of fifteen he was employed by a number of lawyers in whose favor he ingratiated himself by ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... little daughters who were lying in one bed, burned them even to ashes; then the south wind, blowing strongly, dispersed their ashes over many parts of Ireland. And Milcho, awaking, meditated with himself on his couch what prodigy might this remote vision portend. On the morrow, Patrick being called before him, he declared unto him his dream, entreating and abjuring him that if he knew he would unfold its interpretation. And Patrick, being filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, answered unto Milcho: "The ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... call me a prodigy," murmured Fran, as she obeyed Mrs. Gregory's gesture inviting her to follow up-stairs. "Now it's stopped raining," Simon Jefferson complained, as he wheeled his ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... 144), and there is also a version attributed to Dryden. page 260 13.—Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) was the most fertile playwright ever known to the world. Alone he created the Spanish drama almost out of nothing. Born at Madrid, where he spent most of his life, Lope was an infant prodigy who fulfilled the promise of his youth. His first play was written at the age of thirteen. He fought against the Portuguese in the expedition of 1583 and took part in the disastrous Armada of 1588. His life was marked by unending literary success, numerous love-affairs and occasional punishments ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... yourself in. The Atlas of Christianity proposes to establish the boundaries of that great tide of Christianity through all the ages, and for all parts of the globe. An undertaking worthy of the Benedictine learning, worthy of such a prodigy of erudition ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... scampered to the heel of the bowsprit to investigate this ocean prodigy. And as the cask drifted nearer he saw that Joe Hawkridge was clinging to it. There was no mistaking that dauntless grin and the mop of carroty hair. A handy seaman tossed a bight of line over his shoulders as he bobbed past ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... "The word 'prodigy' when applied to some youthful artist is always used with an accent of reproach. Public and critics are inclined to regard them with suspicion. Why? After all, the important thing is not their youth, but their artistry. Examine the history of music—you will discover that any number of great masters, ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... of both these committees. He was then forty years old and one of the most remarkable men in the country. Born on the frontier—his father from the upper middle class, his mother "a Randolph"—he had been trained to an outdoor life; but he was also a prodigy in his studies and entered William and Mary College with advanced standing at the age of eighteen. Many stories are told of his precocity and ability, all of which tend to forecast the later man of catholic tastes, ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... cardboard and the comic pink tie. In fact it was a head he knew. He recognized it, above all the dire erection of English holiday array, as the face of an old but forgotten friend name Ezza. This youth had been a prodigy at college, and European fame was promised him when he was barely fifteen; but when he appeared in the world he failed, first publicly as a dramatist and a demagogue, and then privately for years on end as an actor, a traveller, a commission ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... called the most eminent woman who ever took up music as a profession. It would be hard to deny Robert Schumann a place among the major gods of creative art. Every one knows how he began to love Clara, and she him, when he was first leaving his teens and she entering her fame as an eleven-year-old prodigy. Their fidelity through the storm and stress of their courtship, their lifelong sympathy and collaboration in conserving a humanly perfect home, and in achieving a dual immortality, both as lovers and as musicians—these certainly indicate music ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... it was madness or fear that caused this; and first {of all}, Medon began to grow black with fins, with a flattened body, and to bend in the curvature of the back-bone. To him Lycabas said, 'Into what prodigy art thou changing?' and, as he spoke, the opening of his mouth was wide, his nose became crooked, and his hardened skin received scales upon it. But Libys, while he was attempting to urge on the resisting oars, saw his hands shrink into a small compass, and now ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... like, capacity for sustained narrative. Hard Cash displays it; parts of It is Never Too Late to Mend display it. But over much of these two novels lies the trail of that defective taste which makes A Simpleton, for instance, a prodigy ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... perfect ecstasy; and their insisting on saluting the ladies all round, before they would permit them to retire, gave occasion to the superannuated bank clerk to say so many good things, that he quite outshone himself, and was looked upon as a prodigy of humour. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... received up to the time of his leaving home; but then what a large range of information can be imparted by an intelligent woman who reads a great deal, and who reads with the student's deep love of knowledge. Vernon, without being a prodigy, like the infant Goethe, or that wondrous product of paternal scholarship, John Stuart Mill, knew more about things in general, from the course of the planets to the constitution of the glowworms in the hedges, than many full-grown undergraduates. Flowers and ferns, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... voluntarily. The newcomers seemed to decline the honor. The "old favorites" reappeared one by one like dethroned princes who have been replaced for a brief spell in power. Then, the chosen ones became few, very few. For a month (oh, prodigy!) M, Anserre cut open the cake; then he looked as if he were getting tired of it; and one evening Madame Anserre, the beautiful Madame Anserre, was seen cutting it herself. But this appeared to be very wearisome to her, and, next day, she urged ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... Court of Directors, and to the world. It varied afterwards. But it never appeared in any other than a most questionable shape. When this gigantic phantom of debt first appeared before a young minister, it naturally would have justified some degree of doubt and apprehension. Such a prodigy would have filled any common man with superstitious fears. He would exorcise that shapeless, nameless form, and by everything sacred would have adjured it to tell by what means a small number of slight individuals, of no consequence or ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... leading patriots, who had nothing more in view than the enjoyment of rational liberty under a regular government, attempted to stop the revolution at the point of a limited monarchy. Mirabeau, that prodigy of genius and vice, was believed to have been of this number. The virtuous Lafayette certainly was, and so was a host of others of the brightest names in France. But the ball had rolled beyond their reach, and had acquired a momentum which they could ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... the terrible energies of nature are his playthings: the gods, angels, and demons are his habitual attendants: the sun, moon, and all the starry host wheel around his cradle in joyful measures, and the earth thrills with joy at having borne such a prodigy: and at his last hour of mortal life the whole universe ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... daughters laughing for two or three hours every day. His notions of law, government, and trade are surprisingly clear and just. His misfortune is to have chosen a profession at once above him and below him. Zeal would have made him a prodigy; formality and bigotry would have made him a bishop; but he could neither rise to the duties of his order, nor stoop to ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the Boy Conductor? A musical prodigy, seven years old, who will order the fifth oboe out of the Albert Hall as soon as look at him. Well, he has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... Navarre. According to the testimony of Rabbi Abraham Zuka, a celebrated professor of astronomy at Salamanca, it is supposed that Rabbi Benjamin travelled from 1160 to 1173. Young Barratier, a prodigy of early literary genius, asserts that Benjamin never made the journey at all, but patched up the whole work from contemporary writers. There is no doubt that his work is full of incredible tales, yet many of the anomalies it contains, may have proceeded from mistakes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... miracle of her liturgy, the power of her word, the constantly renewed prodigy of phrases created by revolving time, of prayers arranged by ages which are dead. All has passed, nothing exists that was raised up in those bygone times. Yet those sequences remain intact, cried aloud by indifferent voices and cast out from empty hearts, plead, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... smallness of his stature had nothing to do with his inactivity. When all was ready, he climbed up to his seat, and at a signal from the station-keeper, who watched with paternal pride all the movements of the little prodigy, we dashed off at a pace rarely attained by post-horses. He had the faculty of emitting a peculiar sound—something between a whirr and a whistle—that appeared to have a magical effect on the team and every few minutes he employed this incentive. The road was rough, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... aid, dare call for an account from God why he condemns or predestines to damnation innocent beings before they have even seen the light. Truly, Luther, in the eyes of all God's creatures, must appear a prodigy of daring when he ventures to maintain that no one can reach heaven unless he adopts the slavery of the human will. And it is not merely by the spirit of disputation, but by settled conviction, that he defends this most odious of all ideas. He lived and died teaching that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... down to her feet; her hands were the hands of a princess. Then I saw that she was as clever as she was beautiful, and that she had only to play her cards. She had masters, professors, every educational advantage. They told me she was a little prodigy. She speaks French, Italian, German, better than most natives. She has a wonderful genius for music, and might make her fortune as a pianist, if it was not made for her otherwise! I traveled all over Europe; every one told me she was a marvel. The director of the opera in Paris ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... the great prodigy, Blind Tom, came to Memphis, there was a similar stir among the people. Tom was very young then, and he was called the Blind Boy. People came from far and near to hear him. Those coming from the villages and small towns, who could not get passage on the regular trains, came in freight or on flat ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... Douglass of Monroe, then a young coloured man of thirty-eight, for secretary of state, and Lewis Tappan of New York for comptroller. Douglass' life had been full of romance. Neither his white father nor coloured mother appears to have had any idea of the prodigy they brought into the world; but it is certain his Maryland master discovered in the little slave boy the great talents that a hard life in Baltimore could not suppress. Douglass secretly began teaching himself to read and write before he was ten years of age, and three years ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... snore on, dreaming gods, And let this last of that proud giant-race Heave mountain upon mountain, 'gainst your state—— Be good unto me, Fortune and you powers, Whom I, expostulating, have profaned; I see what's equal with a prodigy, A great, a noble Roman, and an honest, Live an old man!—— Enter LEPIDUS. O Marcus Lepidus, When is our turn to bleed? Thyself and I, Without our boast, are almost all the few Left to be honest ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... a monstrous shape; a geometric prodigy. A shining angled pillar that, though rigid, immobile, seemed to crouch, be instinct with living force striving ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... The drooping mother wail'd her children gone. The mother last, as round the nest she flew, Seized by the beating wing, the monster slew; Nor long survived: to marble turn'd, he stands A lasting prodigy on Aulis' sands. Such was the will of Jove; and hence we dare Trust in his omen, and support the war. For while around we gazed with wondering eyes, And trembling sought the powers with sacrifice, Full of ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... to the laird and his sister little hoping or expecting they would come. But the laird, likewise being a deputy lord-lieutenant, he accepted the invitation, and came with his sister in all the state of pedigree in their power. Such a prodigy of old-fashioned grandeur as Miss Jenny was!—but neither shop nor mantuamaker of our day and generation had been the better o't. She was just, as some of the young lasses said, like Clarissa Harlowe, in the cuts and copperplates ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... from others. Thomas Jefferson in his Notes on Virginia wrote: "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other.... The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.... I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice can not sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... on the watch for me as I jumped out of the carriage which had been sent over to Kerry to meet me. The old seaman had expected me to come back a prodigy of learning; but was horrified to discover that I was puzzled how to make a carrick-bend, and had nearly forgotten the length of the ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... little Matilda, who was not quite four years old, as the most charming little love in the world; and the boy, a little fellow of two years—pale, heavy-eyed, and large-headed—she pronounced to be a perfect prodigy in point of size, intelligence, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... race. The English professional soldier of our youth had been conspicuous not only by his red coat but by his rarity. When rare things become common they do not become commonplace. The memory of their singularity is still strong enough to give them rather the appearance of a prodigy, as anyone can realise by imagining an army of hunchbacks or a city of one-eyed men. The English soldier had indeed been respected as a patriotic symbol, but rather as a priest or a prince can be a symbol, as being the exception and not the rule. A child ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton |
