"Quickness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a third time, advancing with their cross-bows presented and began to shoot. The English archers then advanced one step forward and shot their arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed as if it snowed. When the Genoese felt these arrows, which pierced their arms, heads, and through their armor, some of them cut the strings of their cross-bows; others flung them on the ground ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... unless indeed it were a change that I saw with a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the air, and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as definite as a picture in a frame. That's how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, of each person that he might have been and that he was not. We were confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... thicker and thicker, and presently flames burst out. Now they ran up the trees, now along the tall lank grass dried by the heat. They darted from tree to tree—the bush (as the forest is called) was on fire. The flames spread with fearful quickness. ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... the farm, but its nerve center is here,—right here in New York. America's the wonder of the world, all right, but all there is to it is capital plus brains, and New York is the furnace that melts them down into that quickness and grip on things we call the American spirit. Millions from every race of the world come here, and the Statue of Liberty is the first symbol, and the skyscrapers of lower New York the first reality they see of the Land ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... introducing the narration of a short tour to Negroponte, in which his noble friend was unable to accompany him, Mr. Hobhouse expresses strongly the deficiency of which he is sensible, from the absence, on this occasion, of "a companion, who, to quickness of observation and ingenuity of remark, united that gay good-humour which keeps alive the attention under the pressure of fatigue, and softens the aspect of every difficulty and danger." In some lines, too, of the "Hints from Horace," ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... very singular to him to see the changes in Daisy's face. Light and shadow came and went with struggling quickness. He expected her to speak, but she waited for several minutes; then she said in a troubled voice, "Papa, ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... came to an end after the year 1655. Since the invention of printing, no more important event had happened in the republic of letters than the introduction of a periodical literature. It was a complete revolution, differing from other revolutions only by the quickness with which the new power was recognized ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... which was new to him, which he felt to be ominous to him. But he was no untried boy to be cast down or disconcerted by sudden alterations of mood in a woman. He was a man, with a man's trained tenacity of purpose and experienced quickness ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... sung in our chapel, and lent us the use of his tuneful voice in our services of praise. I have noted him many a time, and sometimes have had conversation with him, in the which I have been struck by his versatility and quickness of apprehension. Therefore (having in this matter certain powers from my lord cardinal in dealing with these hapless young men) I am most anxious so to work upon his spirit that he show himself not obstinate ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Miranda, pallid, scared, but desperately resolved, had gone, Rilla flew to the telephone and put in a long-distance call for Charlottetown. She got through with such surprising quickness that she was convinced Providence approved of her undertaking, but it was a good hour before she could get in touch with Joe Milgrave at his camp. Meanwhile, she paced impatiently about, and prayed that when she did get Joe there would ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... believe that the appointment of the new permanent and skilled authority at the Bank is the greatest reform which can be made there, and that which is most wanted. I believe that such a person would give to the decision of the Bank that foresight, that quickness, and that consistency m which those decisions are undeniably now deficient. As far as I can judge, this change in the constitution of the Bank is by far the most necessary, and is perhaps more important even than all other changes. But, nevertheless, we should reform the other ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... put off-shore, the boats took her in tow, till, a breeze springing up, sail was made on her for Sierra Leone. The next morning commenced with a thick mist and rain. Orlo, from his quickness of vision, was now constantly employed as one of the look-outs. He was on the watch to go aloft directly it gave signs of clearing. His impatience, however, did not allow him to remain till the mist dispersed. Away aloft he went, observing, ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... clump of bushes the near horse of the half-broken pair gave a catlike bound to the right against his tracemate. A second jump followed the first with flash-like quickness; and this time the frightened animal was accompanied by his companion, who, not knowing what it was all about, jumped on general principles. But, quick as they were, the strength of the driver's skillful arms met their weight on the reins and forced ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... began, and the little girl showed both quickness and patience to grasp the ideas. No one at first noticed the tiny child who planted himself at his sister's elbow, the light of the candles falling on his delicate, sensitive features and bright brown hair. His glance never left Nannerl's fingers as they felt hesitatingly among the white and ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... of the time to be taken. Of course, no one can be at a loss to distinguish a Largo from a Presto. If the Presto be two in a bar, a tolerably sagacious conductor, from inspection of the passages and melodic designs contained in the piece, will be able to discern the degree of quickness intended by the author. But if the Largo be four in a bar, of simple melodic structure, and containing but few notes in each bar, what means has the hapless conductor of discovering the true time? And in how many ways might he not be deceived? The different degrees of slowness that might be assigned ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... nervous promenades in my life, than those when, taking my turn, I received my bucket of sand at the mouth of the tunnel, and walked slowly away with it. The most disagreeable part was in turning my back to the guard. Could I have faced him, I had sufficient confidence in my quickness of perception, and talents as a dodger, to imagine that I could make it difficult for him to hit me. But in walling with my back to him I was wholly at his mercy. Fortune, however, favored us, and we were allowed to go on with our work—night after ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... they do not generally best fit a man for the discharge of social duties. Swift remarks that "Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe, that the clerk in his office used a sort of ivory knife, with a blunt edge, to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only by requiring a steady hand; whereas, if he should make one ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... was prowling about, asking the boys what they thought of it, and whether I was like to be killed, because of my mother's trouble. But finding now that I had foughten three-score fights already, he came up to me woefully, in the quickness of my breathing, while I sat on the knee of my second, with a piece of spongious coralline to ease me of my bloodshed, and he says in my ears, as if he was clapping ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... go there. It was then given me to tell him that perhaps this was a sign that he would soon be received. The angels then told him to cast off his raiment, which, from the ardency of his desire, he did with a quickness that could scarcely be surpassed. By this was represented the character of the desires of those who are in the province to which the seminal vesicles correspond. It was said that such spirits, when prepared for heaven, are stripped of their own garments, ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the air about her, and what has social life to compare with one of those vital interchanges of thought and feeling with her that make an hour memorable? What can equal her tact, her delicacy, her subtlety of apprehension, her quickness to feel the changes of temperature as the warm and cool currents of talk blow by turns? At one moment she is microscopically intellectual, critical, scrupulous in judgment as an analyst's balance, and the next ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... watched the tumult which she herself had roused. She did not stir when she saw a glass hurled at the unoffending Englishman's head. A hand reached over and seized a bottle behind her. The bottle was raised and still she did not move, though her fingers pressed her cheeks with a spasmodic quickness. Three times Shorland had said, in well-controlled tones: "Frenchmen, I am no spy," but they gave him the lie with increasing uproar. Had not Gabrielle Rouget said that he was an English spy? As the bottle was poised in the air with a fiendish cry of "A baptism! a baptism!" and Shorland was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a pointed carving knife. The monster immediately made towards him, and when he turned on his side (which providentially sharks are obliged to do to seize their prey, their mouths being placed so much underneath) the fisherman, with great quickness and presence of mind, dived, and stabbed him in the bowels. The shark, in agony, gave a horrid splash with his tail, and disappeared for a short time. He then rose again and attempted to seize the man a second time, but the latter once more dived and gave ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... consider the number and greatness of his books, will admire he should ever write so many; and those who have read them, considering the skill and method they are written in, will admire he should write so well. Nor is he less happy in verse than prose, which for elegance of language, and quickness of invention, deservedly entitles him to the honour of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... Admiral calculated the number of hours in the day and night, and from sunrise to sunset. He found that twenty half-hour glasses passed, though he says that here there may be a mistake, either because they were not turned with equal quickness, or because some sand may not have passed. He also observed with a quadrant, and found that he was 34 degrees ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... o'clock when Phillis rang, he opened the door for her. Hardly had she entered when she was about to throw herself into his arms as usual, with a quickness that told how happy she was to see him. But he checked her with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... tribe grow readily, and many of them naturally on rocks and walls, they may be in general regarded as proper rock plants, some of them however are apt by the quickness of their growth to extend over and destroy plants of more value; this fault, if such it may be deemed, is not imputable to ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... prominent muscles, trained by heavy farm work of my early youth, seemed to move slowly, to knot sluggishly though powerfully. Nevertheless I judged at a glance that my strength could not but prove greater than his. In a boxing match his lithe quickness might win—provided he had the skill to direct it. But in a genuine fight, within the circumscribed and hampering dimensions of our little room, I thought my own rather unusual power must crush him. The only unknown quantity was the spirit or gameness of us two. I ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... recruits selected by force of law—if they had, as in Prussia, the absolute command of each man's time for a few years, and the right to call him out afterwards when they liked, we should be much surprised at the sudden ease and quickness with which they did things. I have no doubt too that any accomplished soldier of the Continent would reject as impossible what we after a fashion effect. He would not attempt to defend a vast scattered empire, with ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... tossed it to the girl. The girl twisted the paper, and, making it fast, threw it aside, and took up another. All thus was done with such swiftness, with such intentness, as it is impossible to describe to a man who has never seen it done. I expressed my surprise at their quickness. ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... dolphin changed into the form of a glowing star, which, shooting high into the heavens, lit up the whole world with its glory; and as the awe-stricken crew stood gazing at the wonder, it fell with the quickness of light upon Mount Parnassus. Into his temple Apollo hastened, and there he kindled an undying fire. Then, in the form of a handsome youth, with golden hair falling in waves upon his shoulders, he hastened to the beach ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... it[131]. I supposed him to be only near-sighted; and indeed I must observe, that in no other respect could I discern any defect in his vision; on the contrary, the force of his attention and perceptive quickness made him see and distinguish all manner of objects, whether of nature or of art, with a nicety that is rarely to be found. When he and I were travelling in the Highlands of Scotland, and I pointed out to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Rogers; exactly so.' Minks contrived to make the impatience in his voice sound like appreciation of his master's quickness. 'Distance no obstacle either,' he repeated, as though fond ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the scout, solemnly, 'I have listened to all the sounds of the woods for thirty years, as a man will listen, whose life and death depend so often on the quickness of his ears. There is no whine of the panther, no whistle of the catbird, nor any invention of the devilish Mingos, that can cheat me. I have heard the forest moan like mortal men in their affliction; often and again have I listened to the wind playing its music ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... club. However, I can get past the outer door, I think, even if it is strong. But inside—you must have heard of it—is the famous steel door, three inches thick, made of armor-plate. It's no use to try it at all unless we can pass that door with reasonable quickness. All the evidence we shall get will be of an innocent social club-room down-stairs. The gambling is all on the second floor, beyond this door, in a room without a window in it. Surely you've heard of that famous gambling-room, with its perfect system of artificial ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... him. It is to him that God will look, and with him God will dwell, who is poor, and of a contrite spirit (Isa 57:15, 66:2). And the reason why God will manifest so much respect to one so qualified, is because he carries it so becomingly towards him. He comes and lies at his feet, and discovers a quickness of sense, and apprehensiveness of whatever may be dishonourable and distasteful to God (Psa 38:4). And if the Lord doth at any time but shake his rod over him, he comes trembling, and kisses the rod, and says, 'It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Counting on quickness for the safe delivery of his men in jail, Madden did not attempt to approach the court house by a side street. On the contrary he drove fast down the main way, with the other two cars following close, passing without pause through ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... ceremony of shaking hands, as described preparatory to the former dance, was first gone through; the music then struck up and they entered the arena. At first they confined themselves to evolutions of defence, springing from one side to the other with wonderful quickness, keeping their shields in front of them, falling on one knee and performing various feats of agility. After a short time, they each seized a sword, and then the display was very remarkable, and proved what ugly customers they must be in single conflict. Blows in every direction, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... with a horse-whip, within the hustings, some one upon the hustings, Dr. Watson, I believe, communicated to the people without, that the constables were ill-using me; he seeing that the constables had seized me by the arms. With the quickness of lightning the boards which formed the lower end of the hustings were demolished, and the brave and generous people rushed in to my assistance, declaring that they were ready to lose their lives in my defence. I will give but another ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... carpet; and, though composed of so many materials, it was sufficiently strong for the purpose; and with it he hauled up the end of the rope and the block through which it was to run. The block he at once, with a sailor's quickness, securely fastened on to the iron bar; and, reeving the rope through it, he fastened one end to the chair he had arranged, and then, putting the chair out of the window, he jumped into it, holding on by the other part of the rope, and ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Spaniard,' answered Z., 'yes. He has the quickness, the finesse, and the elegance of mind and of manner which belong to the South. The want of book-learning ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... by this unusual mode of salutation, the trapper had sense and quickness enough to perceive that the artist was in anything but a warlike state of mind, and that his violent demonstration was the result of having been startled; so, pulling off his cap with that native politeness which is one of the characteristics ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... been accustomed to take a connected view of a difficult question and to work it out gradually in all its bearings, may be very deficient in that quickness and ease which men of the world, who are in the habit of hearing a variety of opinions, who pick up an observation on one subject, and another on another, and who care about none any further than the passing away of an idle hour, usually acquire. An ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... laborious and slow was the task, and every muscle and bone ached when the tools were laid aside. For a time the disposal of the earth and rock taken from the tunnel puzzled them, but Fawkes with characteristic quickness found a way;—such of the debris as would attract little attention was scattered about the garden; as for the larger rocks and mortar, the river was close at hand, and, as Robert Keyes had ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... '93—a season marked by the deadly feud raging 'twixt the Girondins and the Mountain, and in that battle of tongues La Boulaye was covering himself with glory and doing credit to his patron, the Incorruptible. He was of a rhetoric not inferior to Vergniaud's—that most eloquent Girondon—and of a quickness of wit and honesty of aim unrivalled in the whole body of the Convention, and with these gifts he harassed to no little purpose those smooth-tongued legislators of the Gironde, whom Dumouriez called the Jesuits of ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... great natural quickness of apprehension, and she had not pondered over this announcement more than half an hour before she was struck with the extraordinary coincidence between the list of items desired and the ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... cowardice of the man received a sudden spurring, and leaped into quickness. An evening paper lay upon the marble top of the table, and carelessly taking it up, Soames, hitherto lost in imaginings, was now reminded that for more than a week he had lain in ignorance of the world's doings. Good Heavens! ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... for your quickness of eye and hand—and foot, for that matter—I would now be laid out in a mortuary or on an hospital table. I appreciate those qualities when exercised on a person like Martiny, whose main argument is centered in an automatic pistol, but they would be singularly out of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... never heard any other bird attempt: he gives to his melody all the force of harmony. How this unique and curious effect, this vocal double-stopping, as a violinist might term it, is produced, is not certainly known; but it would seem that it must be by an arpeggio, struck with such consummate quickness and precision that the ear is unable to follow it, and is conscious of nothing but the resultant chord. At any rate, the thing itself is indisputable, and ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... the Quickness of Repartees, which in Discoursive Scenes fall very often: it has so particular a grace, and is so aptly suited to them, that the Sudden Smartness of the Answer, and the Sweetness of the Rhyme set off ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... quickness he stepped forward and swept the jewels into one hand—filled the pocket of his trousers, caught up every ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... solid ground of fact. Human life, as it is actually and visibly lived, was the subject of his study and conversation from first to last. He always put fine-spun theories to mercilessly positive tests such as the ordinary man understands and trusts at once, though ordinary men have not the quickness or clearness of mind to apply them. When people preached a theory to him he was apt to confute them simply by applying it to practice. He supposed them to act upon it, and its absurdity was demonstrated. One of his friends was Mrs. Macaulay, who was a republican and affected ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... Later I shall describe in more detail the suffrage campaigns and the National and International councils in which we took part; now it is of her I wish to write—of her bigness, her many-sidedness, her humor, her courage, her quickness, her sympathy, her understanding, her force, her supreme common-sense, her selflessness; in short, of the rare beauty of her nature as I learned to ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... extreme coolness that relied upon the swiftness of his wrist to draw it at a second's notice, staggered and scared him. He remembered the skill that had long been his admiration, and that he had at last learned to imitate, the sureness of aim and eye, the dexterity and quickness of that hand, and his tongue fairly cleaved to the roof of his dry mouth. He struggled to draw his revolver, but his arm refused to obey his will. Yet it was not wholly cowardice that swept over him ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... strength of body, but equal bravery, and a quickness alike and force of understanding, his mother Aethra, conducting him to the stone, and informing him who was his true father, commanded him to take from thence the tokens that Aegeus had left, and to sail to Athens. He without any difficulty set himself ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... and quickness of comprehension, the Grizzly was superior to other animals in the zoological garden and compared not unfavorably with a bright dog. It could not be said of him, as of most other animals, that man's mastery of him was due ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... courage and his quickness is due the fact that Ingram's was the only life lost in the German attack on the Cassin. That result he foresaw and welcomed. He knew how to take death as his portion without an instant's hesitation. He was of the breed of heroes, and his name will be borne ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... great and good man. That he had occasional sallies of heat of temper, and that he was sometimes, perhaps, too 'easily provoked[235]' by absurdity and folly, and sometimes too desirous of triumph in colloquial contest, must be allowed. The quickness both of his perception and sensibility disposed him to sudden explosions of satire; to which his extraordinary readiness of wit was a strong and almost irresistible incitement. To adopt one of the finest images in ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... not long in finding out the difference between country and town, and was rather surprised than abashed by the change. His mental quickness soon discovered how small an entity he was in the midst of this all-comprehending Babylon; how insane it would be to attempt to stem the torrent of new ideas and new ways. A single incident was enough. He delivered his father's letter ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... Nothing was too much for them to do for you when their affections were touched. On the other hand, no law, human or divine, seemed to restrain them when their blood was up. When roused by what they regarded as an insult, they were human tigers, no less in the quickness than in the desperate ferocity of their anger. The father once, in open court, in a sudden rage, actually strode over the tables and heads of the lawyers, and seizing the presiding judge by the collar, dragged him from the bench and ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... surrounded the vessel as she lay at the wharf, and with brown, upturned faces and beckoning hands tempted the passengers to toss dimes into the water. As the coins struck the surface they would dive with the ease and quickness of seals, and seize the silver apparently before it had gone a yard toward the bottom. Holding the coins up to view between the thumb and finger, they would slip them into their mouths and ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... with some special powers, and by training, reading, and culture of many kinds, be equipped for the work before him. No amount of training can give to a dense understanding and a clumsy personality certain powers of quickness and spontaneity; and, on the other hand, no genius can find its fullest expression without some understanding of the principles and method of a craft. It is the actor's part to represent or interpret the ideas and emotions ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... quickly nor lightly to be repaired. The most assiduous practice in observation failed to make my sight so quick and so accurate as it ought to have been for my purpose. At that time I failed to apprehend the fact of my deficient quickness of sight; it ought to have taught me much, but I was not ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... breeze, and observed the narrowness and tortuousness of the channel that we had to traverse, winding hither and thither through that vast expanse of reef, my heart almost quailed within me, and I felt inclined to doubt whether we three males possessed the ability, the skill, the quickness of eye, the readiness and strength of hand, to take the ship in safety through that apparently endless, twisting channel. But the feeling was merely momentary; an old adage flashed into my mind to the effect that one need never trouble about crossing a bridge until one comes to it; also that ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... produced evidence enough, and I plead guilty," Jasper laughed. He was greatly amused at the girl's quickness. "You are not offended, are you, at the little ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... a soldier one of his former companions writes thus: "I always regarded Beckwith as an officer of very brilliant promise, for he embodied all the requisites of a great commander: remarkable quickness in conception, imperturbable coolness in the time of action, admirable power of organization, with indomitable courage. When he was major he always left a position of safety to mix in the thick of the fight, and ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... that young officer with more than common affection, to have acted so savagely to Mademoiselle Tourangeau?" Caroline, with a woman's quickness, had caught at that gleam of hope ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... for all his mercies. I am not proud; but my boy is the best boy in the whole neighborhood, and so smart! he reads in the biggest books; he does the most terrible long sums, almost like a flash of lightning—his schoolmaster is astonished at his quickness; his head is just as full as it can hold of learning, and his heart is just as full of love for his father and mother. (She falters, and the tears rush into ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... to the man who had done the shooting. He came across the room, shoving his gun back into the holster, a rather thickly built man but well-knit and there was a soft spring in his slowest movements which suggested snake-like quickness. He was dark-eyed, and his hair was a mat of close black curls. The cattle-buyer nodded, to ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... you had been in our service," he said, "instead of that of Sweden. You would have mounted fast. You have all the requisites for success, above all, promptitude of decision and quickness of invention. You did well in getting away from that Jewish scoundrel in the hut, and in killing his master, but it was your adventure with the wolves that showed your quality. That idea of setting fire to the tree in which you were sitting, in order at once to warm yourself ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... eminent and lasting usefulness. For more than a score of years it held its ground as the universal standard of reference in all spectroscopic inquiries within the range of the visible emanations. Those that are invisible by reason of the quickness of their vibrations were mapped by Dr. Henry Draper, of New York, in 1873, and with superior accuracy by M. Cornu in 1881. The infra-red part of the spectrum, investigated by Langley, Abney, and Knut Angstrom, reaches perhaps no definite end. The radiations oscillating too slowly to affect the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... supply throughout their growth, and micro-organisms, which require for their development a supply of this necessary plant-food, are propagated. A regularity in the plant's growth is thus secured, which is of great importance. But while admitting this, there are many cases in which this greater quickness of action does not render soluble phosphate the most economical form. The nature of the crop, as well as the nature of the soil, may in many cases be such as to render the application of the cheaper ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... affairs, and give their opinion on the universe. They can naturally have but scattering views on such subjects, and in default of personal judgment, they drift with the current, reacting with extreme quickness to any shock, for they are ultra-sensitive, with a morbid vanity which exaggerates the thoughts of others when it cannot express their own. This is the only originality at their disposal, and God knows they make ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... higher mathematics, international jurisprudence, chemistry, philosophy, military strategy, and I do not know what else! I understood from some of the professors that the students were remarkable for their quickness and intelligence as compared with Europeans, and I myself, on meeting some of the students who had been and others who were being instructed in the University, was very much struck by their facility in learning matters so foreign to them, and by their astounding faculty of retaining ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... you have a mind to be considerable, and to shine hereafter, you must labor hard now. No quickness of parts, no vivacity, will do long, or go far, without a solid fund of knowledge; and that fund of knowledge will amply repay all the pains that you can take in acquiring it. Reflect seriously, within yourself, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... With fiery quickness she flung her arms around the neck of her friend, and pressed a kiss upon her lips. "Farewell, Julia; Madame Adelaide is coming: that is just the same as irritation and annoyance. She may not bear the least suspicion ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... people to whose notice it is for the first time pointed out. There is no saying to what extent it may not be carried; and the more the powers of each individual are concentrated in one employment, the greater skill and quickness will he naturally display in performing it. But, while he thus contributes more effectually to the accumulation of national wealth, he becomes himself more and more degraded as a rational being. In ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... to the school of the convent of Port Royal, and the Jesuits noticing his natural quickness, bestowed careful attention upon his education. He was so wretchedly poor that he could not buy copies of the classics, and he was obliged to use those owned by others, and which were much inferior to copies he could have purchased had he possessed money. He was early struck with the beauty ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... victims should dash past; but the length of the weapons was such that not more than three could reach each victim at any given moment; and of this the two friends had already taken note, deciding with the rapidity of thought that if by skill and quickness of action they could evade those three simultaneous blows, they need not trouble about anything more for the moment; for their progress down the lane would simply be a continuous succession of evasions of three blows aimed at them ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... lay so, there started with electric quickness, from some sudden coldness of recollection, the image of Prue. Sharp and vivid it shone from this chill of truth like a glittering star from the clean winter sky outside. Prue was before him with the tender blue of her eyes ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... very tall and straight, her cheeks aflame, the lace on her bosom trembling with the quickness of her breathing, and her work dropped on the table before her as she slipped from her finger the ruby ring and pushed ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... controlling, indeed, was this principle in her bosom, that it exhibited itself in all her conversation, and seemed to be the governing motive of all her actions. And when she had once discovered the truth and the right, at which she appeared to arrive with intuitive quickness, no wheedling or sophistry could blind her to their force; and no inducements could be offered sufficient to cause her to waver in their support. And yet this peculiar trait, as deeply seated as it was, and as firmly as it was ever exercised, was so beautifully tempered by the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... so precious as in the salvation of human souls; if there is one work for which women are better fitted than another, it is that of arresting the progress of unbelief. Can there be a nobler one? Their superior tact and quickness give them a great advantage over men; men will listen to them when they would turn away from one of their own sex; and though I am well aware that courtesy is no argument, yet the natural politeness shewn by a man to a woman will compel attention to what falls from her lips, and ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... calling is that of the elephant hunter, who finds in the profits he derives from it all the compensation he requires for the hardships, the long marches, and the grave personal dangers. In the most inaccessible parts of the continent he plies his trade, knowing that his life may depend upon the quickness of his eye and intellect and the accuracy of his aim. Nor are his troubles over when his quarry has been secured. The ivory has still to be disposed of, and it is not always safe to attempt to sell in the territory where the game ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... refracted. The magical colors disappeared by degrees and the shades of emerald and sapphire were effaced. We walked with a regular step, which rang upon the ground with astonishing intensity; indeed the slightest noise was transmitted with a quickness and vividness to which the ear is unaccustomed on earth, water being a better conductor of sound than air in the [v]ratio of four to one. At this period the earth sloped downward; the light took a uniform tint. We were at a depth of a hundred ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... yellow about the vent. Tail about one inch, being rather long in proportion to the body, causing the wings to appear forward, with a miniature pheasant-like appearance as it flew, or rather darted, from bush to bush, with amazing quickness, its wings moving with rapidity, straight in its flight, keeping near the ground, appearing loth to wing, never passing an intervening bush if ever so near; and I never saw one fly over eight or ten yards, and never wing a second time, which induced our ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... immediately and very archly, I replied, 'Isn't it a man with the meat off?' This was thought wonderful, and, as it is supposed that I had never had the phenomenon explained to me, it certainly displays some quickness in seizing an analogy. I had often watched my Father, while he soaked the flesh off the bones of fishes and small mammals. If I venture to repeat this trifle, it is only to point out that the system on which I was being educated deprived all things, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... him. He was not as heavy as of old, but there was more firmness in his face and figure. Perhaps it was his clothes that had given him a strange new grace, for in the old days he was a ponderous, slow-moving fellow. Now there was a lightness in his step and quickness in his every motion. Had I not known him, I should have seen in the scrupulous part in his hair a suggestion of the foppish. But I knew him, and while I liked him best with his old tousled head, and tanned face, and homely hickory shirt, I felt a certain pride that he had taken so well with the ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... directed the paddlers when all should paddle, when either the one side or the other should cease, &c.; for the steering paddles alone were not sufficient to direct them. All these motions they observed with such quickness, as clearly shewed them to be expert in their business. After Mr Hodges had made a drawing of them, as they lay ranged along the shore, we landed and took a nearer view of them, by going on board several. This fleet consisted of forty sail, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... unclosed and the hasp dropped, then a creak of the door on its hinges, while it opened and shut behind the undulating shape in the aperture. Then a low throaty ejaculation—the black's call of warning. And now with a quickness incredible, the wriggling movement of two blanket-shrouded serpentine shapes round the hide-house—in and out among the grass tussocks and the low herbage, now hidden for a moment by friendly gum shadows in the dimness, now dark moving blurrs ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... women usually keep away from young men for whose character they have no regard. Do not, however, get into the opinion that you are irresistible, or anywise attractive. It will give you many wounds. Young women detect masculine vanity of this order with a quickness that is appalling to the young man. They may have had no thought of you at all! They will then, all the readier, become influenced by your good points, and, above all, by your habitual good treatment of your sister. Be, therefore, ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... Suffolk and Norfolk, alleging that the bill, if passed into a law, would render it impossible to bring fresh provisions from those counties to London, as the supply depended absolutely upon the quickness of conveyance, the further consideration of it was postponed to a longer day, and never resumed in the sequel: so that the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... son of the daughter of Eblis, prince of the genii. Is not this hatchet yours, and these shoes?" Without waiting for an answer—which, indeed, I could hardly have given him, so great was my fright—he seized hold of me, and darted up into the air with the quickness of lightning, and then, with equal swiftness, dropped down towards the earth. When he touched the ground, he rapped it with his foot; it opened, and we found ourselves in the enchanted palace, in the presence of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... a duel, again," said Gibberne, "where it all depends on your quickness in pulling ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... disappointments, always herself cheerful and full of vivacity,—an angel of consolation and spiritual radiance. Her beauty at this period was moral rather than physical, since it revealed the virtues of the heart and the quickness of spiritual insight. In her earlier days—the object of universal and unbounded admiration, from her unparalleled charms and fascinations—she may have coquetted more than can be deemed decorous in a lady of fashion; but if so, it was vanity and love of admiration ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... women and lithely powerful. There was nothing delicate about her—nothing spirituelle—on the contrary, she was markedly full-veined, cheerful and humorous, and yet she had responded several times to an allusive phrase with surprising quickness. She did so now as he remarked: "Somebody, I think it was Lowell, has said 'Nature is all very well for a vacation, but a poor substitute for the society of good men and women.' It's beautiful up ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... With a quickness not unlike the bump at the end of a falling-through-space dream, Rose-Marie felt herself drawn from the room—heard the door close with a slam behind her. And then she was hurrying after the shadowy form of Bennie, down ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... When out on foot in the fields, on these occasions, he was ever foremost in the march; and he delighted to test the prowess of his companions by a good jump at any hedge or ditch that lay in their way. His companions used to remark his singular quickness of observation. Nothing escaped his attention—the trees, the crops, the birds, or the farmer's stock; and he was usually full of lively conversation, everything in nature affording him an opportunity for making some ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... this important piece of news, so that it took me about three hours to go a distance of seven or eight miles. There was a light of intelligence in the boy's face that enabled me to comprehend him almost by instinct, and the quickness with which he caught at my half-formed words, and gathered my meaning when I told him of the wonders of California, were really surprising. This boy was a natural genius. He will leave his mountain home some day or other and ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... well dressed and appeared to be a gentleman, recovered himself with surprising quickness, and ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... peaches is used at the rate of half to one pound to the gallon of water, according to the strength of the lye, which you can determine by the quickness with which it acts. The lye water is kept boiling, and the fruit is dipped in wire baskets, only being allowed to remain in the lye a few seconds, and is then plunged at once into fresh water. You must be careful to keep the lye boiling hot, also either to use running ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... and conciliatory, but there was a quickness in his sensibility to anything apparently offensive which experience had taught him to watch, and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... recovered from the effects of the confinement and sickness, they again began to talk among themselves. The fact that all the other vessels of the fleet were out of sight naturally encouraged them. Jack observed, however, that the call to parade on deck was answered with more quickness than before, and the exercises were gone through with a painstaking steadiness greater than had been shown since the embarkation. When the men were dismissed from parade Jack remarked this ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... Cortes's Castilian into the Aztec of Mexico from the first. The young girl was later baptized Marina. There being no "r" in the Aztec language the people called her Malintzin or Malinche,—Lady Marina, the ending "tzin" being a title of respect. She learned Castilian with wonderful quickness, and was of great service not only to Cortes but to her own people, since she could explain whatever ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... when they could produce such as he. His height, his straight, commanding glance, the wonderful, careless strength and majesty of his figure, all impressed them. He looked to them like one without fear, and moreover, with such strength and quickness as his, he seemed one who had little to fear. But as he walked there, Yellow Panther came again, and spoke to him with sly, ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler |
