"Trait" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inscribes his own treatise with Varro's name as a polite reminder which he hopes his friend will not think immodest. In the opening chapters Cicero extols Varro's learning with that warmth of heart and total absence of jealousy which form so pleasing a trait in his character. Their diffuseness amusingly contrasts with Varro's brevity in his dedication. When it appeared, there occurred not a word of compliment, nothing beyond the bare announcement In his ad te scribam. [33] Truly Varro was no ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... trait in Jimmy which marked him off as a highly bred little fellow. For let me tell you, boys, respect for your elders is the first point of high ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... them is either before the leaves are out or after they have fallen, when a flock will sometimes sit for half an hour in a bare tree, exchanging civilities, stroking each other's feathers, and passing food around. This trait has given them the reputation of being the most polite birds in all Birdland. One will find a dainty morsel and offer it to his next neighbor, who passes it on—hunt-the-slipper fashion—until some ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... to strike him, and he beat a hasty retreat. Whether he was possessed with the idea I had to combat on a previous occasion of the same kind, that I was a policeman, I cannot tell, but he never reappeared. I hope I was not the innocent cause of his losing his supper. The only "felonious" trait I observed was a furtive glance every now and then cast around, and especially up to the gallery. Beyond this there really was little to distinguish the gathering from a meeting of artisans a little bit "down ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... trait of the native character, so far as it goes, that women are not wholly without influence in the public councils. If, when a tribe is debating the expediency of going to war, the women come beneath the council-tree, and ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... this elan of the soul, discovers a fellowship in thinkers wide apart in circumstance and mental environment. It is, for instance, the trait which Schopenhauer, Tourgenieff,[7] Flaubert, and Carlyle possess in common[8]. These men are not as others of their time, but prophet voices that announce the Fourth, the latest Age, whose dawn has laid its hand upon the ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... said to Hollond. He asked the opinion of my legal mind. I said I could not pronounce on his argument but that I could point out that he had established no trait d'union between the intellect which understood and the senses which perceived. It was like a blind man with immense knowledge but no eyes, and therefore no peg to hang his knowledge on and make it useful. ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... must give themselves up wholly and without reserve. "In future,[6135] not only must schoolmasters, but, again, the principals and censors of the lycees, and the principals and rulers of the colleges, be restricted to celibacy and a life in common."—The last complementary and significant trait, which gives to the secular institution the aspect of a convent, is this: "No woman shall have a lodging in, or be admitted into, the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... someday help you or him or Dejah Thoris or myself, I am going to tell you the name of my father, nor place any restrictions or conditions upon your tongue. When the time comes, speak the truth if it seems best to you. I trust you because I know that you are not cursed with the terrible trait of absolute and unswerving truthfulness, that you could lie like one of your own Virginia gentlemen if a lie would save others from sorrow or suffering. My father's ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of these meetings. However, it must be added, the Hamilton pension papers and the petitions to the Supreme Council in Philadelphia refer specifically to meetings at Fort Horn and Fort Antes.[7] Direct representation based upon popular consultation was a distinct trait of the political democracy in the ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... brother Simpson. This letter is a naive expression of a fundamental trait in Grant's character, belief in the essential ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... Mr. Sheldon has kept steadily in view the necessity of industry and economy, and it is the practice of these two mercantile virtues that has brought about his success. One trait of his business character is peculiar. He has, so far as possible, avoided recourse to law, holding the doctrine that, in most cases, when a debt could not be collected without the aid of a lawyer, it was not worth spending money for. In religious ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... One trait we cannot pass over, as it seems, so to speak, to have a psychological value. Such was his habit of ordering and arranging all things, that Charles not only undertook to regulate the affairs of men, and redress the inequalities of their several destinies, but he took into his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... insignificant and inert, as sovereigns, were the first three successors of Hugh Capet. The goodness to his people displayed by King Robert was the only kingly trait which, during that period, deserved to leave a trace in history. The kingship appeared once more with the attributes of energy and efficiency on the accession of Louis VI., son of Philip I. He was brought up in the monastery of St. Denis, which at that time had for its superior a man of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... profane, passionate, headstrong man, bred a soldier," as if the last fact were an excuse for the former, he contributed largely to the furtherance of these pious objects, "spending liberally all his salary and perquisites of office," for which generous trait of character an early and strait-laced historian is obviously of the opinion that General Nicholson should have been suffered to swear in peace and, as it were, ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... palettes, and divers other encumbrances, would ramble away over shore or cliff, bringing with him in the evening the most beautiful scenes and views of the neighbourhood, which his deft brush had transferred to the pages of his portfolio. He was a true artist, and, moreover, possessed one admirable trait, generally lacking in inferior artists, namely, humility! And as he held up for Cardo's inspection an exquisite sketch of sea and sky and tawny beach, he waited anxiously for his criticisms, having found out that though his friend ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... has portrayed, with here and there a happy trait of grace or humour beyond the wording of the text, the very scene and people. Each of the illustrations has a charm and ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... the character of the Quakers—This general or particular—Great general trait is, that they are a moral people—This opinion of the world accounted for and confirmed by a statement of some of the causes that operate in the production of character—One of these causes is, the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... till it succeeds. With respect to the person in whose hands it has failed, I may say to you (in our confidence) that my opinion does not very much differ from yours, if indeed it does at all. Since he has been in Ireland I have seen no one trait of that character which I thought he had displayed in former situations of great difficulty, and for which I still gave him credit, though a nearer view of his mind had certainly diminished the impressions which ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Civilization is not an original process with any race or nation known to history. The torch has been passed from race to race and from age to age. Where else can the Negro go? The white race at present has the light. This concession is no reproach to the Negro race, nor is it due to any peculiar race trait ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... burglars, highwaymen, yeggs. Not a new frill. Europe hasn't a thing on the good old American criminal brand. They fought well, too. Any man does who's a man at all. But Lord! they'll cut loose when they get back. Every wild bad trait they was born with multiplied by one hundred and fifty...before I go any further I want to warn you that I'm liable to break out into bad language any minute. It gets to be a kind of habit in the army to ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... They will stifle no spread of knowledge that will diminish the swarming misery of childhood in the slums, they will regard the disinclination of the witless "Society" woman to become a mother as a most amiable trait in her folly. In our bashfulness about these things we talk an abominable lot of nonsense; all this uproar one hears about the Rapid Multiplication of the Unfit and the future of the lower races takes on an entirely different complexion directly we face ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Noo-roo-ing, and added, that she had done no more than what custom obliged her to. The little victim of her revenge was, from her quiet tractable manners, much beloved in the town; and what is a singular trait of the inhumanity of this proceeding, she had every day since Yel-loway's death requested that Noo-roo-ing might be fed at the officer's hut, where she herself resided. Savage indeed must be the custom and the feelings which could arm the hand against this child's life! Her death ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... loved and respected by his parishioners; and that unconsciousness on his own part of the strength of their affection and esteem, which his statement evinced, formed, I thought, a very pleasing trait, and one that harmonized well with the finely-toned unobtrusiveness and unconscious elegance which characterized the genius of his deceased brother. A little beyond the Free Church manse the road ascends between stone walls, abounding in fragments of ichthyolites, weathered ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... of the success of the new mission. In a letter to Timothy Pickering, at the close of August, he said: "Candor is not a more conspicuous trait in the character of governments than it is of individuals. It is hardly to be expected, then, that the Directory of France will acknowledge its errors, and tread back its steps immediately. This would ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... as his room possessed the singularity of a trap-door leading down into a wine-cellar, Mr. "Footelights" was thus enabled to leap down into the aperture, and carry on the personation of Hamlet in Ophelia's grave. As the theatrical trait in his character was productive of much amusement, and as he was also considered to be one of those hilarious fragments of masonry, popularly known as "jolly bricks," Mr. Foote's society was greatly cultivated; and Mr. Verdant Green struck up a warm ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Hannah, like that virtuous woman mentioned in the Bible, was one "who seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands, who riseth while yet it is night, and giveth meat to her household." Indeed, for this last stirring trait Aunt Hannah was rather famous, especially on Monday mornings, when her washing was invariably swinging on the line ready ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... consisted of three persons—himself, his wife, and a son, Ezekiel, familiarly known as Zeke, now sixteen years old. The leading family trait was meanness. ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... service was soon in the most chaotic state. Women were forced to be notable housekeepers; men were compelled to attend to every detail of masculine labor in their households and on their farms, thus acquiring and developing a "handiness" at all trades, which has become a Yankee trait. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... gave tongue. He was at his favorite sport of trailing rabbits all by himself. He really didn't have any spite against the rabbits, but when he struck a fresh trail, he felt that he just must follow it. And when he had puzzled out a balk or break in the trait, he couldn't for the ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... was a medley of strange whims and idiosyncrasies that almost baffle description. Together with his strong individuality, he possessed a trait which made many enemies and ultimately proved his undoing. I refer to his uncontrollable desire to contradict and to antagonize. It was simply impossible to find a subject upon which he and anyone else could agree. There were, however, extenuating circumstances. "Chill penury," forced upon ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... Anna with a smile that betrayed that she knew there was something charming in her disquisitions upon the machine that had been noticed by Sviazhsky. This new trait of girlish coquettishness made an unpleasant ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... floor, and shrugged his shoulders. Erlito was none too well lodged then—soldiering had brought him some brief fame, but little else. Then he suddenly smiled. The incongruity of the thing was ridiculous. His sense of humour, by no means a characteristic trait of the man, was touched. The smile lingered upon his lips. He had come to offer a ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... that Lovin Child revealed a primitive human trait. He would not give up the gold. He held fast to one big nugget, spread his fat legs over the remaining heap of them, and fought Bud's hand away ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... a contented mind," remarked Jack, who admired this positive trait in Herbert's nature, so different ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... English have a peculiar trait; it is asking for something after we have taken it. The human countenance is a fine picture book. I should like to read that belonging to your cousin Josef, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... One good trait of the Balungu up here is, they retire when they see food brought to anyone, neither Babisa nor Makoa had this sense of delicacy: the Babemba are ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... of encouraging intercourse between their best men and women for the sake of a superior progeny, without any reference to a marriage ceremony. Records show that the ancient Roman husband has been known to invite a friend, in whom he may have admired some physical or mental trait, to share the favors of his wife; that the peculiar qualities that he admired might be ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... resolution, to alter his conduct: for though he continued to sign the papers, which were handed to him by virtue of holding this office, he never was once seated as the chairman, during the twenty years in which he attended at these meetings. I thought it not improper to mention this trait in his character. Conscious that he engaged in the cause of his fellow-creatures, solely upon the sense of his duty as a Christian, he seems to have supposed either that he had done nothing extraordinary to merit such a distinction, or to have been fearful lest the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... uncouth in appearance, round-faced, rather stout in build—almost fat. He loved to hunt possums and coons in the woods round about. He was a little boisterous, always restless, and not especially polished in manners. Yet he had at least one redeeming trait of character: he loved to work and was known to be as industrious a lad as ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... capitalists. Likewise it had taken masterfulness for him to distance the field of Emmy Lou's local admirers within the space of five short months after he procured his transfer to our town from another town where his company likewise had traction interests. He showed the same trait in the stand he presently took with regard to the future status of Aunt Sharley in the household of which he was to become a member and of which he meant ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... Presbyterian minister who was his father's predecessor. The first name soon dropped out of use, and from childhood he went by his middle name, a practice of which the Clevelands supply so many instances that it seems to be quite a family trait. ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... Australia or South Africa than it is in England itself. The sentiments thus strongly expressed impart a certain zealotism to their feelings, which constitutes a strong link with the Mother Country. In any hour of national danger or calamity this trait provides her with the enthusiastic help of her ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... something more; an indescribable, undefinable air that hung about him. Many Russians have it, and the French have embodied the idea it conveys in their proverb that if you scratch a Russian you will find the Tartar. It is rather a trait of Orientalism in the blood, and it is to be noticed as much in Servians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, and even Hungarians, as in Russians. It is the peculiarity of most of these races that under certain circumstances, if thoroughly roused, they will go to any ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... perfectly understood me, my dear parent," she murmured. "You have never appreciated that trait in my character, that strange preference, if you like, for the absolutely original. Now in all my life I never met such a young man as this. He wears the clothes and he has the features and speech of just such a person as ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that these diseases had been so very destructive among the tribes along the Saskatchawan, as to have carried off about three hundred persons, Crees and Asseenaboines, within the trading circle of these establishments. The interpreter also informed us of another bad trait peculiar to the Stone Indians. Though they receive a visitor kindly at their tents, and treat him very hospitably during his stay, yet it is very probable they will despatch some young men to way-lay and rob him in going towards the post: indeed, all the traders assured ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... lovely sail on the river Ouse this afternoon. Mrs. Benedict was timid about boating, and did not come with us. As a usual thing, I hate a cowardly woman, but her lack of courage is the nicest trait in her whole character; I might almost say the ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... old Bassora's schools, I seemed Hermit vowed to books and gloom,— Ill-bestead for gay bridegroom. I was by thy touch redeemed; When thy meteor glances came, We talked at large of worldly fate, And drew truly every trait. ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... circumstances none has greater importance than the means of expressing and transmitting intellectual action. The spoken and the written language of a nation reveal to us its prevailing, and to a certain degree its unavoidable mode of thought. Here the red race offers a striking phenomenon. There is no other trait that binds together its scattered clans, and brands them as members of one great family, so unmistakably as this of language. From the Frozen Ocean to the Land of Fire, without a single exception, the native dialects, though varying infinitely in words, are marked by a peculiarity in construction ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... was very different from that of the preceding day—quiet, courteous, and, as Herkimer thought, watchful both over his guest and himself. This unnatural restraint was almost the only trait that betokened anything amiss. He had just thrown a book upon the grass, where it lay half opened, thus disclosing itself to be a natural history of the serpent tribe, illustrated by lifelike plates. Near it lay that bulky volume, the Ductor Dubitantium of Jeremy Taylor, full of cases of ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the records of his own observations are so intermingled with knowledge drawn from books that it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other. Nor does this greatly matter, for whether as closet-student or field-naturalist, Pliny's trait of mind is essentially that of the compiler. He was no philosophical thinker, no generalizer, no path-maker in science. He lived at the close of a great progressive epoch of thought; in one of those static periods when numberless observers piled up an immense mass of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... back of a pony not more than eleven hands high, sitting as usual with his paraphernalia lashed to the back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were much steeper than the roof of a house—as perpendicular as can be imagined—but ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... and pure character of their love as shown in the facts that Florizel did not find it fitting to buy pedler's "knacks" for Perdita,—a trait not in Greene. Her independent and uncringing nature as shown in another little touch of Shakespeare (see IV. iv. 492-497). Compare these two lovers with Ferdinand and Miranda ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... hand Dealt equal lot To Court and cot, My rock had turn'd to sand! I leant upon an oak, But in the hour of need, Alack-a-day, My trusted stay Was but a bruis-ed reed! A bruis-ed reed! Ah faithless rock, My simple faith to mock! Ah trait'rous oak, Thy worthlessness to ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... The other trait is more difficult to define. To apprehend what is noblest in a nation one must oneself be noble. Knowledge of facts and an unbiased judgment need to be accompanied by a certain development of personal character which enables one to be in sympathy with the finest tissue of ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... [361] Another trait of his may not displease readers, though it be not strictly relevant. I once, perhaps with some faint mischievous intent, asked him about the competence of Dr. Pusey and of M. Renan in the sacred tongue. "Pusey," he ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Jolyon alluded to him, if at all, as 'A hard, thick sort of man; not much refinement about him.' The second generation of Forsytes felt indeed that he was not greatly to their credit. The only aristocratic trait they could find in his character was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... trait of the neglect Queen Mary experienced, whose life being considered very uncertain, sent all the intriguers of a court to Elizabeth, the next heir, although then in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... transient side of manners. If, on the contrary, we are polite from an inward conviction that politeness is one of the forms of love to the neighbor, and because we believe that in being polite we are performing a duty that our neighbor has a right to claim from us, and because politeness is a trait that we love for its own inherent beauty, our manners belong to the substance of our Character,—they are not its garment, but its skin; and this is the permanent side of manners. Such manners will be ours in death, and afterwards, no less ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... fail to render the northern grandees polite towards strangers. As an instance of this fact, I relate the following trait: ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... with twinkling eyes, was greatly pleased. Von Moll was evidently another Steinwitz in seriousness and pompous dignity. It was a delightfully amusing trait in the German character. ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... The one distinguishing trait of Leibnitz's genius, and the one predominant fact in his history, was what Feuerbach calls his [Greek: polupraguoshinae], which, being interpreted, means having a finger in every pie. We are used to consider him as a man of letters; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... had lived alone he had never felt as if his art, or perhaps rather his method of giving himself to it, had any trait of effeminacy. It had seemed quite natural to him to be shut up in his own "diggings," isolated, with only a couple of devoted servants, and golden-haired Fan in the distance, being as natural as he was. It had never occurred to him that his life ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... betrothed for more than a year, during which time she had habitually seen him wooing every child he had met as if it were a woman,—which, for Philip, was saying a great deal. Happily they had in common the one trait of perfect amiability, and she knew no more how to be jealous than he to ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... years after Lincoln's death flourished at Washington, and at every State capitol in the Union. By the luck of a catching phrase applied to him by Robert G. Ingersoll, he stood before the imagination of the country "as the plumed knight," although on looking back we search in vain for any trait of knightliness or chivalry in him. For a score of years he filled the National Congress, House and Senate, with the bustle of his egotism. His knightly valor consisted in shaking his fist at the "Rebel Brigadiers " and in waving the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... (later Canon at St. Paul's), whose evening service they habitually attended. While the poet's mother had little training in music, she was a natural musician, and was blessed with that keen, tremulous susceptibility to musical influence that was so marked a trait in her son. William Sharp pictures a late afternoon, when, playing softly to herself in the twilight, she was startled to hear a sound in the room. "Glancing around, she beheld a little white figure ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... letter to the Duke of Savoy, the tone of which is much more moderate than we should have expected, considering that Blake was in the Mediterranean, and master of the coasts of the Duke's dominions. It is impossible to extract from these letters any characteristic trait, unless it is from the speech, which the envoy, Morland, was instructed to deliver at Turin, in which it is said that all the Neros of all ages had never contrived inhumanities so atrocious, as what ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... be known as a writer should be so called. But, as a man, I protest that it would be hard to find an individual farther removed from the character. Over and outside his fancy, which was the gift which made him so remarkable,—a certain feminine softness was the most remarkable trait about him. To give some immediate pleasure was the great delight of his life,—a sovereign to a schoolboy, gloves to a girl, a dinner to a man, a compliment to a woman. His charity was overflowing. His generosity excessive. I heard once a story of woe from a man who was the dear friend ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... The trait in Browning which appeals to the largest number of readers is his strenuous optimism. He will admit no evil or sorrow too great to be borne, too irrational to have some ultimate purpose of beneficence. "There shall ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... poppling plot To the French ruler and our fiercest foe!— Maybe 'twas but a hoax to pocket pay; And yet it can mean more... The man's indifference to his own vague doom Beamed out as one exalted trait in him, And showed the altitude of his rash dream!— Well, now I'll get me on to Downing Street, There to draw up a note to Talleyrand Retailing him the facts.—What signature Subscribed this ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... sex trait it comforted her that he suffered. With the mother instinct she began to regain control of herself that ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... double service, it secures the failure of the imitator and also aids that of the unlucky author who is imitated. As soon as a new thing appears in literature, many people hurry off to attempt something of the same sort. It may be a particular trait and accent in poetry, and the public, weary of the mimicries, ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... sympathy connecting me with that vulgar citizen who weighs out my sugar in a vilely assorted cravat and waistcoat, than with the handsomest rascal in red scarf and green feathers—more needful that my heart should swell with loving admiration at some trait of gentle goodness in the faulty people who sit at the same hearth with me, or in the clergyman of my own parish, who is perhaps rather too corpulent and in other respects is not an Oberlin or a Tillotson, than at the deeds of heroes whom I shall never ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... but nevertheless I found it disquieting. And recognizing how the more sinister manifestations of that singular green-eyed creature (whom I could never think of as a woman, nor indeed regard as anything quite human) were associated with darkness—a significantly feline trait—I confess to a certain apprehension respecting the coming night. This apprehension was strengthened no doubt by my memories of Gatton's last words as I had been on the point of setting ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... trait: "Once in Lyons (N. Y.) when there was great excitement about the 'sin of dancing,' the ministers all preaching and praying against it, Myron Holley quietly said: 'It is as natural for young people to like to dance as for the apple trees ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... "A great trait in life, my dear madam; resignation! I endeavor to inculcate in my pupils the virtue of stoicism. I tell them of the Spartan boy, Mrs. Gage. Perhaps you have heard of the ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... false Traitor to the Government. Loud murmurs then possest the troubled Jews, Who were surprised at the fatal News; His Wisdom they believed their chief support, Against the evil Instruments at Court; Nor, by his Actions, did they ever find, He bore a Trait'rous, or a factious Mind: And now they thought themselves expos'd to all The Arts, and Plots of the hid friends to Baal. Troubled, and discontented, at the last, Their Eyes upon the noble Prince they cast. Who fearing ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... been doled out to suffering humanity in the shape of patent pills, as one who has entered Fifth Avenue by the legitimate way of pork and cotton speculations, if only he have been successful,—which I call a very noble trait ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... about disarmed the hunter of the suspicions which had been lingering with him for a long time. He believed Zeke Hunt an ignorant fellow, who had been left along the Ohio river, as he had related, and who had not yet learned that trait of civilized society, carefully to conceal his thoughts and feelings when in conversation. The impression which he first felt, of having met him before, might easily arise from his resemblance ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... thing you cannot overcome. Say not thy evil instinct is inherited; Or that some trait inborn, makes thy whole life forlorn, And calls for punishment ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... social bit of a chat together about the matter. John was not a bad fellow when once you knew how to take him, but he had qualities of character which at times seemed at variance with what he would have us believe were his straightforward principles. It was this trait of character, at times defying analysis, we had to treat with most care, lest unconsciously it embroil us. My friend Palmerston might without prejudice be taken as an excellent representative of this unfortunate ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... trial. In the decree of pardon issued for Madame la baronne and her servant the king expressed regret for the suffering borne in his cause, adding that 'the zeal of his servants had gone too far in its methods of execution.' But—and this is a horrible thing; it will serve to show you a curious trait in the character of that monarch—he employed Bryond in his ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... Jinks, my boy," he said; "there's no trait of character more characteristic of a great and exalted intellect, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... said. "I know that. That was what started the mischief. I am so constituted that resistance is but fuel to the flame. In that respect I believe I am not unique. It is a by no means remarkable trait of the masculine character, you will find. Well, I made you pay. It was to be two kisses, was it not? You gave me one, and then for some reason you fled. That left you ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and is the father of four children, all boys. The Crown Princess is one of the cleverest, most popular, and most charming characters in Germany, of the brightest intelligence and the most unaffected manners. The leading trait in the Crown Prince's character is his love of sport, from big-game shooting (on which he has written a book) to lawn tennis. In May last he began to learn golf. He is personally amiable, has pleasant ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... upon his beloved son; and his high regard for the demands of public justice would not permit him to set at naught the authority of the law: and but for the possession and manifestation of this last trait of character, the mighty strugglings and yearnings of the first could not have burst forth and appeared with such overwhelming power and transcendent lustre. Hence, every system of redemption which, like that of the Socinian, leaves out of view the administrative justice ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... Robert Ealing who had come to the ball at Cavendish Court that long last year, was a distant kinsman of our family, and unwedded, but a man who went through the world with a silly leer of willingness toward all womenkind. And 'twas this very trait, perhaps, which accounted for his remaining unwedded, although a lord, though the fact that his estates were incumbered may have had somewhat to do with it. Be that as it may, he lived alone, except ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... be stated, as one favorable trait in the character of Prince Alexis, that, however brutally he treated his serfs, he allowed no other man to oppress them. All they had and were—their services, bodies, lives—belonged to him; hence injustice towards them was disrespect towards their lord. Under the fear which his barbarity ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... there shall be no mistake as to who wins the battle? The answer may very easily be so given as to make what is really a token of His love become an unlovely and repellent trait in His character. It is not eagerness for praise that moves Him, but longing that men may have the blessedness of recognising His hand fighting for them. It is for Israel's sake that He is so solicitous to deliver them from the delusion of their having ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... chimney-corner as if she had received a galvanic shock, and spring convulsively towards the ceiling; then she would burst into tears, and it was not till some half-hour had passed that she grew calm as usual. Her father, knowing her hysterical tendencies, was always excessively anxious about this trait in his youngest girl, and feared the attack to be a species of epileptic fit. Not so her sister Julia. Julia had found Out what was the cause. At the moment before the jumping, only an exceptionally sensitive ear situated in the chimney-nook could have caught from down the flue the ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... point to another trait of Greek beauty, which any one who has seen Greek statues must have felt: it does not provoke speculation just as it does not excite desire, because no elements are mingled with it that might stir such feelings. ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... to explore this island before; and now that he had seen signs of others having landed, he began to feel doubly anxious. Perhaps it was the "call of the wild" in his composition; or possibly he had inherited some trait bordering on a love of adventure, handed down from some remote ancestor who may have ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... meddle. Perhaps that is his dominant trait. He could see nothing moving in the community about him and withhold his hand. If Old Man Bogle set about buying a wheelbarrow, Scattergood would intervene in the transaction; if Pliny Pickett stopped at the Widow Ware's gate to deliver a message, ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... long look, one long, silent look, infinitude in its assurance, its glow wrapping her, blue and smiling as heaven itself, reaching him like the evening star seen through tears,—a word, a touch, had profaned with a trait of earthliness so remote, so spiritual a betrothal. He goes, and still the upward-smiling girl sees the sunshine, hears the bird-song,—a boy dashes by the door and down the path to meet the last, close-lingering embrace of two waiting arms at the gate,—and then there is nothing but Vivia bending ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... taste more strongly than another, it was to study character. Many an hour have we two walked upon the deck dissecting our neighbours in a spirit that was too purely scientific to be called unkind; whenever a quaint or human trait slipped out in conversation, you might have seen Jones and me exchanging glances; and we could hardly go to bed in comfort till we had exchanged notes and discussed the day's experience. We were then like a couple of anglers comparing a day's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with Reynard his reputation for cunning," the doctor resumed," and deserve it, but they do not use this trait for self-preservation. They are not suspicious of unusual objects, and, unlike a fox, are easily trapped. They hibernate during the coldest part of the winter, reappearing in the latter part of February or March. They are fond of little excursions, and ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... was not an English trait in him from head to foot—morally, intellectually, or physically. Beef, ale or stout, brandy or port-wine, entered not at all into ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... he had so curiously kept intact. He had been respectable ever since he was born; if he was born with any instinct it was the instinct of respectability, the wish to be honored for what he seemed. It was all the stronger in him, because his father had never had it; perhaps an hereditary trait found expression in him after passing over one generation; perhaps an antenatal influence formed him to that type. His mother was always striving to keep the man she had married worthy of her choice in the eyes of her ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... by his superior education and manners, to get a foothold in a rough community, and saw his way to rising in the world, even to prosperity. In a very short time, said a later letter, he would save enough to pay Maisie's passage out, and then she could join him. The only redeeming trait the story shows of this man is his strange confidence that this girl, whom he had cruelly betrayed, would face all the terrors of a three-months' sea-voyage and travel, alone in a strange land, to become the slave and helpless dependent of a ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... methodical monotony of his life and household affairs. Since general wreck and ruin might soon ensue, he had the impulses of those who try to secure and save what is most valuable and to do at once what seems vitally important. Amid all this confusion and excitement of mind his dominant trait of persistence asserted itself. He would continue trying to the last to carry out the cherished schemes and purposes of his life; he would not stultify himself by changing his principles, or even the daily routine of his life, as far as he could help himself. If events over which he had no control ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... in the film picture is easily ignored, the problem of movement forces itself on every spectator. It seems as if here the really essential trait of the film performance is to be found, and that the explanation of the motion in the pictures is the chief task which the psychologist must meet. We know that any single picture which the film of the photographer has fixed is immovable. We know, furthermore, that we do not see the passing by of ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... youth. It was a pleasure to persons of colder temperament to sun themselves in the warmth of his bright looks and generous humour. His laughter cheered one like wine. I do not know that he was very witty; but he was pleasant. He was prone to blush; the history of a generous trait moistened his eyes instantly. He was instinctively fond of children and of the other sex from one year old to eighty. Coming from the Derby once and being stopped on the road in a lock of carriages during which the people in a carriage ahead saluted us with many ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... need. No other motive has moved her save womanly pity for lonely age and infirmity. She has taught me a lesson by simply offering a kindness without caring how it might be received or rewarded. Is not that a lovely trait in human nature?—one which I have never as yet discovered in what is called 'swagger society'! When I was in the hey-dey of my career, and money was pouring in from all my business 'deals' like water from a never-ending main, I had a young Scotsman for a secretary, as close-fisted ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Grace's resentment died out. She said a formal good-bye to Miss Wharton and hurried from the room. She would go to see Miss Wilder the next day as she had requested. Perhaps Miss Wharton's rude reception of her was due merely to a brusque trait of character. Perhaps she belonged to the old school who believed that youth and responsibility could not go hand in hand. At any rate she would try hard not to judge. Although she usually found her first impressions to be correct, still there were ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... a hundred years of peace between the two great branches of the English-speaking race. More conscious of their differences than anything else, no doubt, these eight peacemakers at Ghent nevertheless spoke a common tongue and shared a common English trait: they laid firm hold on realities. Like practical men they faced the year 1815 and not 1812. In a pacified Europe rid of the Corsican, questions of maritime practice seemed dead issues. Let the dead past bury its ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... say reckless things to him which stirred the blood. Thus: "You and I, Osborn"—he knew, of course, that familiarity with Christian names was a trait of the stage—"have met, and presently we shall part; and what was the good of meeting if this dear little friendship is just to be packed up with ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... morbid belief in the power of money—he probably would have agreed that "every man has his price," and his simoniacal dealings with William Rufus, which procured his preferment to Norwich, afford evidence of this weak trait ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... devoted to the cause they espoused, their descendants have met with their reward. Craignez honte (Fear disgrace) was another motto of the family, and the fear of dishonour has been a characteristic trait from the time when the first Bentinck set foot ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... Mercedes Higgins the less did she understand her. That the old woman was a close-fisted miser, Saxon soon learned. And this trait she found hard to reconcile with her tales of squandering. On the other hand, Saxon was bewildered by Mercedes' extravagance in personal matters. Her underlinen, hand-made of course, was very costly. The table she set for Barry was good, but the table for herself was vastly better. Yet both tables ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... gradual or sudden in her feelings and thought are portrayed with the delicacy of light and shade, the picturesqueness and self-forgetfulness, with which a fine actress renders a part. This dramatic quality is perhaps the most striking trait in His Heart's Desire. Many of its scenes are intensely dramatic, full of passion, striking in situation, and showing a rather rare accomplishment—that of conducting a dialogue which shall be equally brilliant on both sides ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... "you interest me very much. Did all of your portraits reveal some unpleasant trait, or were there some that did not suffer from the ordeal ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... cross-currents. The Hambleton tone and the Hambleton ideas retained their family color, and became, whether worthily or not, a part of the Hambleton pride. More than one son had lost his health or entire fortune, which was apt not to be large, in attempts to carry on a country place. "A Hambleton trait!" they chuckled, with as much satisfaction as they considered it good form to exhibit. In Lynn, where family pride did not bring in large returns, this phrase became almost ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... shrinking, simple Christian statesman and friend always appeared in him. And the nearer you approached him, the more his habit of mind obviously appeared to be modest and lowly. His charity in judging of others, is a farther trait of his Christian character. Of his benevolence I need not speak, but his kind construction of doubtful actions, his charitable language toward those with whom he most widely differed, his thorough forgetfulness of little affronts, were ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... sentences, we will leave to the reader's discrimination; but true it is, that, while Fetter's judgments are always for the state, Fuddle leans to mercy and the master's interests. Again, were Fuddle to evince that partiality for the gallows which has become a trait of character with his legal brother, it would avail him nothing, inasmuch as by confirming Fetter's judgments the fees would alike remain that gentleman's. If, then, the reader reason on the philosophy of self-interest, he may find the fees, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... trumpet and a gun. He liked to march about to noise, and this noise he was pleased to make himself—to blow his own trumpet. The family wrote to Uncle Benjamin, the poet, then in England, in regard to this unpromising trait, and the good man returned the ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... in the character of all the children of the crafty Catherine de Medicis. No! they rambled unrestrained upon the souvenir of an object of woman's preference and princess's caprice, who for some time past had no more crossed her path. It was on that account her brow was clouded, and that a trait of sadness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... day. I think that we began to be influenced by this peculiar trait in his character. It is certain that the inanimate objects by which you are surrounded have a direct action on the brain. It must be that a man who shuts himself up between four walls must lose the faculty of associating ideas and words. How many persons condemned ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... to its young, the authority of KNOX has been quoted, that "the shees are alike tender of any one's young ones as of their own."[1] Their affection in this particular is undoubted, but I question whether it exceeds that of other animals; and the trait thus adduced of their indiscriminate kindness to all the young of the herd,—of which I have myself been an eye-witness,—so far from being an evidence of the strength of parental attachment individually, is, perhaps, somewhat inconsistent with the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... "When once this trait of the national character is properly understood, all the German shoddy which is so much talked about seems no longer the swindling practice of dishonest tradesmen, but is simply the material expression of their ingrained Kantianism, and their congenital inability to ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... Antony, I called upon my Sunday-school teacher, Miss Goss, to report. I never had thought of Miss Goss as a blithe spirit. She was associated in my mind with numerous solemn occasions, and I was surprised to find that on this day she unexpectedly developed a trait of breaking into nervous laughter. I had got as far as "Should the base plebeian rabble—" when Miss Goss broke down in what I could not but regard as a fit of ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... point, however, he acted like a fanatic, and manifested the first symptoms of that weak trait in his character which nearly wrecked his career. As he pondered one day on the state of affairs at Herrnhut, it suddenly flashed upon his mind that the Brethren would do far better without their ancient constitution. He first consulted the Elders and Helpers {Jan. 7th, 1731.}; he then ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Common sense refutes the statement regarding women themselves. Not 75 per cent., not 10 per cent., not 1 per cent. would today vote to relinquish that which belongs to them. It is not an American trait to give up rights.... I challenge any one to find 100 intelligent women in Colorado who will voluntarily request that the word 'male' be restored in the constitution and statutes of the State. Many women may not go to the polls but the man who would try to take away their right ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Catholic Church; that her marriage settlements have been seen in London; that the names of the witnesses to her marriage are known. This sort of vice that we are now come to presents no new or fleeting trait of manners. Debauchees, dissolute, heartless, fickle, cowardly, have been ever since the world began. This one had more temptations than most, and so much may be said ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conscientious listener, giving you her mind and heart, as well as her magnetic eyes. Though the latter spoke an eager language of their own, she conversed slowly, with a conciseness and point that, added to a matchless earnestness, which was the predominant trait of her conversation as it was of her character, made her a most delightful companion. Persons were never her theme, unless public characters were under discussion, or friends were to be praised,—which kind office she frequently took upon herself. One never dreamed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... 1797, the month after her death, is friendly, but there are limitations to its praise. The following is the sentence it passed upon her: "Her manners were gentle, easy, and elegant; her conversation intelligent and amusing, without the least trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness of powers above the level of her sex; and, for fondness of understanding and sensibility of heart, she was, perhaps, never equalled. Her practical skill in education was ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... legend than this true history? Still, let us beware of converting it into a legend; let us piously preserve its every trait, even such as are most akin to human nature, and respect ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... fisherman drew up a two-pound trout, wondering a little at her own subtle changes of mood. Her surrounding played upon her like a virtuoso on his violin. And this was something that she did not recall as a trait in her own character. She had never inclined to the volatile—perhaps because until the motor accident snuffed out her father's life she had never dealt in ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... accept of any assistance." Her charity, as well as her love for genealogy, and her aptitude for story-telling, was transmitted to her son. It found expression in him, not only in material gifts to the poor, but in a conscientious care and consideration for the feelings of others. This trait is beautifully exhibited by many of the facts recorded by Lockhart in his famous memoir, and also by a little incident, not included there, which I have heard Sir Henry Taylor tell, and which, besides illustrating the subject, deserves for its own sake a place in print. The ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the slight form resting in this way. In words Mrs. Boyce would allow nothing, and her calm composure had been unbroken from the moment of their return home, though it was not yet two months since her husband's death. In these days she read enormously, which again was a new trait—especially novels. She read each through rapidly, laid it down without a word of comment, and took up another. Once or twice, but very rarely, Marcella surprised her in absent meditation, her hand covering ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... intractable, abstracted, retract, protract, detract, distract, attractive, contractor, trace, trail, train, trait, portray, retreat; (2) ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... here is founded squarely upon personal and accurate observation of animal life and habits. I now repeat and emphasize that statement. Even when the observations are, for the reader's sake, put into the form of a connected story, there is not one trait or habit mentioned which is not true ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... his father's family in Brooklyn we see him gentle, patient, conciliatory, much looked up to by all. Neighbors seek his advice. He is cool, deliberate, impartial. A marked trait is his indifference to money matters; his people are often troubled because he lets opportunities to make money pass by. When his "Leaves" appear, his family are puzzled, do not know what to make of it. His mother thinks that, if "Hiawatha" is poetry, may be Walt's book is, too. He never ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... "C" were held in camp awaiting orders for special service, and no orders came. "Old Pecksniff" had an eye for pretty girls, a trait by no means rare in soldiers old or young, and prettier girls than Pappoose and Jessie he had never met. Mrs. Stevens was accordingly bidden to invite them to luncheon that very day, and Dean and Loomis were of the party, as were other young ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... innocent, the purest of her sex. Alas! that she was indeed almost the vilest! that she was that rare monster, a woman, who, linked with every crime and baseness that can almost unsex a woman, preserves yet in its height, one eminent and noble virtue, one half-redeeming trait amidst all her infamy, in her proud love of country! Name, honor, virtue, conscience, womanhood, truth, piety, all, all, were sacrificed to her rebellious passions. But to her love of country she could have sacrificed those very passions! That frail abandoned wretch was still ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... The time for random assertion about Shakespeare and unlimited eulogy of him has passed away for ever: the object of this inquiry is to show him as he lived and loved and suffered, and the proofs of this and of that trait shall be so heaped up as to stifle doubt and reach absolute conviction. For not only is the circumstantial evidence overwhelming and conclusive, but we have also the testimony of eye-witnesses with which to confirm ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... a kindness so universal impressed me as studied; a species of refined courtesy in which the children were drilled. But time and observation proved to me that it was the natural impulse of the heart, an inherited trait of moral culture. In my world, kindness and affection were family possessions, extended occasionally to acquaintances. Beyond this was courtesy only for the great busy bustling mass ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... girls made their headquarters at the hotel, and then set forth at once to shop and to look. As the hours of that first day passed Wonota was vastly excited over the new sights. For once she lost that stoic calmness which was her racial trait. The big stores and the tall buildings here in the mid-western city seemed to impress her even more than ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... and mothers so common in the New World, it is but natural that many a high tribute to them should be found in the old records. Not for any particular or exactly named trait are these women praised, but rather for that general, indescribable quality of womanliness—that quality which men have ever praised and ever will praise. Those noble words of Judge Sewall at the open grave of his mother are an epitome of the patience, ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... as another trait of the poor devil of an August, full of good-humor after all, That he and his Royalties and big Lordships having dined, he gave the still groaning table with all its dishes, to be scrambled for by "the janizaries." Janizaries, Imitation-Turk ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... autumn, in the quaint old New England town where his people lived. She had come like a bit of the young West into the staid, old-fashioned setting of the place, and he had rejoiced in every trait that distinguished her from the conventional young lady of his acquaintance. To-day, as they rode side by side toward the broad-bosomed mountain to the southward, he told himself once more that her nature ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... for a moment and I mused idly on the boyhood of little Fyne. I could not imagine what it might have been like. His dominant trait was clearly the remnant of still earlier days, because I've never seen such staring solemnity as Fyne's except in a very young baby. But where was he all that time? Didn't he suffer contamination from the indolence of Captain Anthony, I inquired. I was told ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... destroyed by systematizing how much more so is poetry, which can exist only so long as it is free. The instinct to make an end of everything, and wilfully and arbitrarily to pen up what is not confined to time and space, is the ugliest trait in human nature. Life, in whatever phase it may be, always has a form, though sometimes one not to be seized with hands; it is always in fermentation, never in putrefaction; but its form is lost ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... and the depositary of very curious, if not valuable information. To this object, even her color assisted. Persons who have traveled in the South know the manner in which the colored people, and especially slaves, are treated; they are scarcely regarded as being present. This trait in our American character has been frequently noticed by foreign travelers. One English lady remarks that she discovered, in course of conversation with a Southern married gentleman, that a colored girl slept in his bedroom, in which also was his ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... banging the marble table, with his fist, "Do you see in what a vice he held me? He was a devil, that man! The only human trait about him was a passion for rare apes of which he had a collection at Nevers. Thank Heaven they are dead! Thank Heaven he is dead! Thank Heaven he lost most of the money for which he preyed on his kind. He was a vulture, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... writers on their own ground. The truth is, meanwhile, that it would have been a much surer sign of affectation in us to have abstained from literary comment upon the patent and notable fact of this international rapprochement,—which is just as characteristic an American trait as the episode of the Argonauts of 1849, —and we have every reason to be grateful to Mr. Henry James, and to his school, if he has any, for having rescued us from the opprobrium of so foolish a piece of know-nothingism. The phase is, of course, merely temporary; its ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... because they have pushed themselves into the best places, crowded into the trains ahead of the women, and generally ignored the courtesies due to ladies and gentlemen associated with them. But, in spite of our full recognition of this undesirable national trait, I doubt whether any great number of Americans have permitted a dislike of German manners to affect their opinion as to German morals in the conduct of war, though some do hold that lack of good manners is a characteristic mark ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... on my hands, I have spent a good share of it at the Opera, of which France is proud, and to the support of which her Government directly and liberally contributes. It is not only a National institution, but a National trait, and ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... "De Rome"—incorrectly—in the previous edition. "M. Dibdin poursuit partout d'un trait vengeur le coupable Derome: mais ici c'est au relieur CHAMOT qu'il doit l'addresser." ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... all address their unfortunate brother in the same affectionate, but less impassioned strain; and a little trait of good feeling is mentioned, on the part of an old female servant, that shows what a happy and attached family the Heywoods were, previous to the melancholy affair in which their boy became entangled. Mrs. Heywood says, 'my ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... he always played his part, as in childhood, with full conscious and picturesque effect, as did the great Montrose and the English Admirals, in whom he notes this dramatic trait. He was not a poseur; he was merely sensitively conscious of himself and of life as an art. As a little boy with curls and a velvet tunic, he read "Ministering Children," and yearned to be a ministering ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very dearly for them too, that were not half so finely done! They would ask her to show me her portfolio, and she would do it directly, for she was the kindest creature living. It was not the worst trait in the disposition of these boys, that, whatever might be the subject of conversation, or from whatever point we might start in our discourse, they found pleasure in making all things bear towards the honour ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... a mme des auteurs qui pensent que son autorit s'tendait conjointement sur tous les princes et les pays que nous venons de nommer. Le chtiment du jour de la nue (Koran, xxvi. 189) eut lieu sous le re'gne de Kalamoun. Chob appelant ces impies la pnitence, ils le traitrent de menteur. Alors il les mena,ca du chtiment du jour de la nue, la suite de quoi une porte du feu du ciel fut ouverte sur eux. Chob se retire, avec ceux qui avaient cru, dans l'endroit connu sous le nom d'el Akah, qui est un ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... discipline. Garibaldi's own generals, Bixio, Medici, Cosenz and Sirtori, were now all in the regular army, and therefore not free to join him. He begged for the loan of a few regular officers, indicating amongst other names that of Colonel Pallavicini, who commanded against him at Aspromonte: a trait characteristic of the man. But this assistance, though promised, was not granted, and the same was the case with the guns which were vainly asked for. Without charging La Marmora with a deliberate intention of ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... excellent trait for if you wish to remain on moderately pleasant terms with your neighbors, train your dog or dogs to stay home. Worrying the cat of the man who lives just at the bend in the road to the south, or killing the chickens of the neighbor to the ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... and religious speculations in aesthetic questions only superficially, if at all Shelley, with the tap-roots of his emotions striking deep into politics and philosophy, is only an extreme instance of a national trait, which was unusually prominent in the early part of the nineteenth century owing to the state of our insular politics at the time though it must be admitted that English artists of all periods have an inherent tendency ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... of honest praise of some good feature of his character, or of something he has done or possesses, he says in effect, "I wish it was even as you say; but you are mistaken. I have no such trait as you refer to, and what I have done is far from deserving the eulogium you have passed upon it. I am a very poor creature, and have no such goodness as you attribute to me, and am not capable of doing any such good work as you ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... admired greatly the way in which his future son-in-law did not allow himself to be "done" by those past masters of the art. It argued well for the future, Judge Emery thought, and he called Lydia's attention to the trait with approval. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... characters of a living being, every physical structure and every mental trait, may be placed in one of two categories. Either they are inborn or they are acquired. An inborn or innate character is one which, in common parlance, arises in the individual 'by nature.' Thus arms, legs, eyes, ears, head, etc., and all inborn characters. The child ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... surprised to hear, that of all the lions of literati that I have seen here, there is not one whose countenance has not some unpleasant trait. Mary Imlay is the best, infinitely the best. The only fault in it, is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display; an expression indicating superiority, not haughtiness, not conceit, not sarcasm, in Mary Imlay, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... without restraint. And the greater mechanical command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that suggests effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener, who more than anything else delights in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often said: Pas de trait pour le trait—chantez, chantez! (Not runs for the sake ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... mortal struggles of a society in revolution. In measuring other men of science—as his two volumes of Eloges abundantly show—one cannot help being struck by the eagerness with which he seizes on any trait of zeal for social improvement, any signal of anxiety that the lives and characters of our fellows should be better worth having. He was himself too absolutely possessed by this social spirit to have flinched from his career, even if he had foreseen ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... subject crowd." Something of this elevation, this aloofness from the vulgar, characterized all of his utterances and gave to them at times a solemn fervency akin to that of the Hebrew prophets. This trait is finely portrayed in the following description of the tutor Grey (a thin disguise for Green) in Mrs. ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... beginning to be prosperous Irving was aware; that he did not more earnestly insist upon helping his nephews stimulated their spirit of independence. They knew that they had been left penniless; Irving sometimes suspected his uncle of parsimony, yet this was a trait so incongruous with Mr. Upton's genial nature that Irving never communicated the suspicion to his brother. Irving felt, too, that his uncle cared less for him than for Lawrence. Well, that was ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier |
