"Acquirement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... children of the concierge! But beneath these conventional fictions the truth was that the concierge held the whip. At last he was using it. And he had given himself a half-holiday in order to celebrate his second acquirement of the ostentatious furniture and the crimson lampshades. This was one of the dramatic crises in his career as a man of substance. The national thrill of victory had not penetrated into the flat with the concierge and the law. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... from the lobby owned but the one edge; it was like a cavalry saber; you might make the one slash at a required vote, with as many chances of missing as of cutting it down. Every argument, therefore, pointed to a seat; whereat Patrick Henry Hanway bent himself to its acquirement, and at the age of twenty-six he was sworn to uphold the law and the Constitution and told to vote in the Assembly. In that body he flourished for ten years, while his manhood mildewed and ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... it reached a point where, in selling I could realize a net gain of ten thousand dollars. I was doing well. I was putting by from two to three thousand dollars every year, and was in a fair way to get rich. But, as money began to accumulate, I grew more and more eager in its acquirement, and less concerned about the principles underlying every action, until I passed into a temporary state of moral blindness. I was less scrupulous about securing large advantages in trade, and would take the lion's share, if opportunity offered, without ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... said of the acquirement of foreign languages can be said of the acquirement of goodwill. In remedying the deficiences of the heart and character, as in remedying the deficiences of mere knowledge, the brain is the sole possible instrument, and the best results will ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... and honour, rather than the means of honourable, useful, and happy life. While riches are thus over-estimated, and hold such power in the community, men will forego ease and endure toil, sacrifice social pleasures and abandon principle, for the speedy and unlimited acquirement of property. Money will not be regarded as the means of living, but as the object of life. All nobler ends will be neglected in the eager haste to be rich. No higher pursuit will be recognised than the pursuit of gold—no ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... a lifetime fitting beef for the royal table, and a king of France slighted the business of an empire for the acquirement of this art, and a king of England knighted a roast; but they all died and were buried without tasting beef as it ought to go into a man's mouth. I write it first. A Polled-Angus heifer, fed and watered and cared for ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... years of age. He had already done a prodigious amount of work for his years. He was always busy. Every spare moment of his evenings was devoted either to writing his literary letter, to the steady acquirement of autograph letters in which he still persisted, or to helping Mr. Beecher in his literary work. The Plymouth pastor was particularly pleased with Edward's successful exploitation of his pen work; and he afterward wrote: "Bok is the only man who ever seemed ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... them of the tests and other preliminaries necessary for the acquirement of the Black Art, and without more ado proposed that they—the three of them—should form a Syndicate and call it the Sorcery Company Limited. "To begin with," he said, "we might sell tricks and spells, and ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... tone and treatment hitherto unknown to players. After his return to Genoa he composed his first "Etudes," which were of such unheard-of difficulty that he was sometimes obliged to practice a single passage ten hours running. His intense study resulted not only in his acquirement of an unlimited execution, but in breaking down his health. His father was a harsh and inexorable taskmaster, and up to this time Paganini (now being fourteen) had remained quiescent under this tyrant's control. But the desire of liberty was ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... as the most eligible to attain a knowledge of this important quarter of the globe, and to introduce civilization among its numerous inhabitants; by which means, our enemies will be excluded from that emolument and acquirement, which we supinely overlook and ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... expense of, his proficiency in piano technique. He was not a prodigy, nor was he in the least precocious, though his gifts were as evident as they were various. He was not fond of drudgery at the keyboard, and he lacked the miraculous aptness at acquirement which belongs to the true prodigy. He was unusual chiefly by reason of the versatility of his gifts. His juvenile exercises in composition were varied by an apt use of the pencil and the sketching ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... "For some little time after I first went to school I was still fed from the bosom of my mother." In some ways it is no doubt a source of strength for Japan that her men can spend from their earliest years to the age of twenty-six on the acquirement of knowledge and self-discipline—the privileges of the student class and the generosity of their families and friends and the public at large are remarkable—but the disadvantages are plain. No sight ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... conditions of contemporary life. Part of this, to be sure, is expressive merely of some transient mood of the popular mind. The enthusiasm, happily passing, for the plays of Brieux or the craze for Algerian landscapes in France after the acquirement of the colony, are examples. Such preferences, being superficially motivated, correct themselves with ease, giving way to some new fashion in taste. The preference for works of art that reflect the more serious and permanent problems of contemporary society is more firmly rooted. Men inevitably ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... of place, isn't it, father?" Fred asked, following his father's look and thought from the Morris chair to the student's lamp, and all those other things which nowadays seem an inevitable part of the acquirement ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... entirely foreign to the mood of the present century. This sense of form, the highest and last attribute of a creative writer, provided it comes as the result of a deep necessity of his genius, and not as a mere acquirement of art, is a quality that has not been enough noticed in him; doubtless because it is not enough looked for anywhere by the majority of critics and readers, in these days of adulteration and of rapid manufacture ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... if this is true of all knowledge, it is true also of that special Philosophy, which I have made to consist in a comprehensive view of truth in all its branches, of the relations of science to science, of their mutual bearings, and their respective values. What the worth of such an acquirement is, compared with other objects which we seek,—wealth or power or honour or the conveniences and comforts of life, I do not profess here to discuss; but I would maintain, and mean to show, that it is an object, in its own nature so really and undeniably good, as to be ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... assumed, then, since varieties cross readily and their offspring is fertile inter se, there is a fundamental distinction between varieties and species. Mr. Darwin therefore labors to show that it is not a special endowment, but an incidental acquirement. He does show that the sterility of crosses is of all degrees; upon which we have only to say, Natura non facit saltum, here any more than elsewhere. But, upon his theory he is bound to show how sterility ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... set his mind at rest by an assurance that he understood what was wanted; for how was it possible the good man could form any reasonable judgment about the matter? Mr Stelling's duty was to teach the lad in the only right way,—indeed he knew no other; he had not wasted his time in the acquirement of ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... independent race of thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with none but natural grace, and heartfelt unobtrusive delicacy. They were not at all sophisticated. The mind of their country was great in them, and it prevailed. With their learning and unexampled acquirement, they did not forget that they were men: with all their endeavours after excellence, they did not lay aside the strong original bent and character of their minds. What they performed was chiefly nature's handy-work; and time has claimed it for his own.—To ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... A child should never have suggested to him that he is afraid. He should be constantly assured that he is brave, loyal, and fearless. The daily repetition of these suggestions will contribute much to the actual acquirement of the very traits of character that are thus suggested. This does not mean that a child should not be taught ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... think that Muhammad, Manu, and Confucius would have been great benefactors in saving so many millions of their species from the pain of thinking too much in hot climates, if they had only written their books in languages less difficult of acquirement. Their works are at once 'the bane and antidote' of despotism—the source whence it comes, and the shield which defends the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Phidias, a fascinating woman. Variety is the talisman by which she commands all hearts and gained her monarch's. She is only consistent in being delightful; but, though changeable, she is not capricious. Each day displays a new accomplishment as regularly as it does a new costume; but as the acquirement seems only valued by its possessor as it may delight others, so the dress seems worn, not so much to gratify her own vanity as to please her friends' tastes. Genius is her idol; and with her genius is found in everything. She speaks in equal ruptures of an opera dancer and an ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... on a matter of business, I cut short my stay in Paris, and arrived at Hollins without having advanced much as an artist, but with an important linguistic acquirement. The value of French to me from a professional point of view is quite incalculable. The best French criticism on the fine arts is the most discriminating and the most accurate in the world, at least when it is not turned aside from truth by the national jealousy of England and the ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... understanding, his manners, or his health, must contradict his will. This may not be an easy task; but you will find it much harder to suffer that contempt, which is always the portion of those who neglect the acquirement of wisdom and of virtue. The wisest of men are often obliged to adopt the principle I have been recommending to you. I will tell you an anecdote, in confirmation of this assertion: 'A gentleman appointed to a government abroad, consulted an eminent ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... respectability, had not the raw mists and dropping showers of our island pointed the inclination of Society to another exponent of those virtues. A ribbon of the Legion of Honour or a string of medals may prove a person's courage; a title may prove his birth; a professorial chair his study and acquirement; but it is the habitual carriage of the umbrella that is the stamp of Respectability. The umbrella has become the acknowledged ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the matter in its extreme form. We are entitled to suppose that the bulk of mankind have some time to spend on the acquirement of a knowledge of the natural system of things into which their Maker has thrown them. Grant a little time to such a science, for example, as botany; we would never attempt impressing a vast nomenclature upon them. We would ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... contemptuous "Christaudins!" that hissed from a footboy's lips, and the "Southern dogs!" that died in the moustachios of a bully in the livery of the King's brother. He was engaged in finding the steward, and in aiding him to cloak his mistress; then with a ruffling air, a new acquirement, which he had picked up since he came to Paris, he made a way for her through the crowd. A moment, and the three, followed by half a dozen armed servants, bearing pikes and torches, detached themselves ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... boys, the machinery and methods of instruction shall be carefully adjusted to their organization. If it were possible, they should be adjusted to the organization of each individual. None doubt the importance of age, acquirement, idiosyncrasy, and probable career in life, as factors in classification. Sex goes deeper than any or all of these. To neglect this is to neglect the chief factor of the problem. Rightly interpreted and followed, it will yield the grandest ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... interested in them. Where the concern is large, and can afford a remuneration sufficient to attract a class of candidates superior to the common average, it is possible to select for the general management, and for all the skilled employments of a subordinate kind, persons of a degree of acquirement and cultivated intelligence which more than compensates for their inferior interest in the result. It must be further remarked that it is not a necessary consequence of joint-stock management that the persons employed, whether in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... certainly not manifest itself, without talents, I would advise every scholar, who feels the genial power working within him, so far to make a division between the two, as that he should devote his talents to the acquirement of competence in some known trade or profession, and his genius to objects of his tranquil and unbiassed choice; while the consciousness of being actuated in both alike by the sincere desire to perform his duty, will alike ennoble both. "My dear young friend," (I would say) ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... war, the men had been engaged frequently in conflicts with Indians and marauders, often having men killed and wounded in their ranks. The fights were participated in by small numbers, and the casualties were not numerous, but there were opportunities for the acquirement of skill and the display of gallantry. Altogether the men of the regiment during their experience on the plains engaged in sixty-two battles and skirmishes. This training had transformed the older men of the regiment into veterans and enabled them to be cool ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... of embroidery and needle-work, she will be found to have realised her friends' fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the back-board, for four hours daily during the next three years is recommended as necessary to the acquirement of that dignified deportment and carriage so requisite for every young lady ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... is the reason why so few people have distinct notions of natural philosophy. Learning by rote, or even reading repeatedly, definitions of the technical terms of any science, must undoubtedly facilitate its acquirement; but conversation, with the habit of explaining the meaning of words, and the structure of common domestic implements, to children, is the sure and effectual method of preparing the mind for the acquirement ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... formed a club that met at one another's houses and discussed all the important social and religious topics of the day. They were mostly young people, college-bred, learned, artistic and thoughtful, and of high ideals in intellectual acquirement, religion and social life. They were all agreed that there were many evils to be eradicated from society; in what way—individualistic, governmental or socialistic, or by a combination of ways—few ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... trick of manner with a quickness that is startling. The influence of mind and thought on mind and thought cannot be so quickly recognized, but tells with as much certainty, and enters more deeply into the character for life. The consideration of this is a great incentive to the acquirement of self-knowledge and self-discipline by those who have to do with children. The old codes of conventionality in education, which stood for a certain system in their time, are disappearing, and the worth of the individual becomes ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... the designs for some of whose frescos at Assisi and elsewhere have been wrongly attributed to him, though we may safely believe in his helpful comment and suggestion. To prove his love of music, the episode of Casella were enough, even without Boccaccio's testimony. The range of Dante's study and acquirement would be encyclopedic in any age, but at that time it was literally possible to master the omne scibile, and he seems to have accomplished it. How lofty his theory of science was, is plain from ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... we shall have time for only three. The first is education; it is a gift rather than an acquirement. It comes into our lives when we are too young to decide such questions for ourselves. I sometimes meet a man who calls himself "self-made," and I always want to cross-examine him. I would ask him when he began to make himself, and how he laid the foundations of his greatness. ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... Fotheringay, though silent in general, and by no means brilliant as a conversationist, where poetry, literature, or the fine arts were concerned, could talk freely, and with good sense, too, in her own family circle. She cannot justly be called a romantic person: nor were her literary acquirement great: she never opened a Shakspeare from the day she left the stage, nor, indeed, understood it during all the time she adorned the boards: but about a pudding, a piece of needle-work, or her own domestic ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... road to learning, no short cut to the acquirement of any valuable art. Let photographers and daguerreotypers do what they will, and improve as they may with further skill on that which skill has already done, they will never achieve a portrait of the human face divine. Let biographers, novelists, and the rest ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was immensely rich, and would grow continually richer. She knew how to weigh a man in the balance, and though, even for her, there was mystery in him, she could form a perfectly right judgment of his practical capacity, of his power of acquirement. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... London, in the year 1573. He sprung from a Catholic family, and his mother was related to Sir Thomas More and to Heywood the epigrammatist. He was very early distinguished as a prodigy of boyish acquirement, and was entered, when only eleven, of Harthall, now Hertford College. He was designed for the law, but relinquished the study when he reached nineteen. About the same time, having studied the controversies between the Papists and Protestants, he deliberately went ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... cannot but entertain painful apprehensions. Many a parent would deem it his duty to leave his son without the advantages of a liberal education, rather than thus expose him to the danger of moral shipwreck in its acquirement. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... and yet as if he had only been truly alive and free since love had made him captive. He could not fasten himself down to his work without great difficulty, though he built many a castle in Spain with his imagined wealth, and laid deep plans of study and acquirement which should be made evident as time ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... objection, Socrates; and my opinion is that the acquirement of this art is in many ways useful to young men. It is an advantage to them that among the favourite amusements of their leisure hours they should have one which tends to improve and not to injure their bodily health. No gymnastics could be better or harder exercise; and this, and the ...
— Laches • Plato
... regarding the non-surrender of their native land and the acquirement of foreign territory as matters of equal importance, they [Footnote: I.e., The Carthaginians.] contended with courage and force. For whereas most men defend their own possessions to the very limit of their power but are unwilling to lay claim to the goods of others if it involves danger, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... Cuchulain. He confused the cycles, it is true, taking the Red Branch heroes for contemporaries of the Fianna, which is much as if one should make Heracles meet Odysseus or Achilles in battle; but he had these earlier legends by heart, a rare acquirement among ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... eminent annotator observes on this passage:—"The praise of Lord Braxfield's capacity and acquirement is perhaps rather too slight. He was a very good lawyer, and a man of extraordinary sagacity, and in quickness and sureness of apprehension resembled Lord Kenyon, as well as in his ready use of his profound knowledge ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... era. One thing is tolerably certain:—that the Jew merchant would, as a matter of precaution, keep all his accounts in some secret notation, or in cipher. Whether this should be a modified form of the Hebrew notation, or of the Latin, must in a great degree depend upon the amount of literary acquirement common amongst ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... hints, dropped now and then with a judiciousness which proved the existence of a deliberate purpose, of some duty which awaited him on the other side of the water, a duty which would explain his long exile from his only parent and for which he must fit himself by study and the acquirement of such accomplishments as render a young man a positive power in society, whether that society be of the Old World or the New. He showed his shrewdness in thus dealing with this pliable and deeply affectionate nature. From this time ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... who having had a better experience than themselves, are desirous of training them to domestic usefulness. Ill do they requite parental affection, which has devoted, perhaps, a considerable portion of hard-earned profits to their education in useful branches of knowledge, or to their acquirement of polite accomplishments: by refusing to assist in family arrangements, or to submit to that wise after-discipline, by which they may be prepared to occupy important situations in future life. It is not the proper business of a woman to shine, to court admiration, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... respected friend, Mr. Brandram, my best thanks for his present of 'The Gypsies' Advocate,' and assure him that, next to the acquirement of Mandchou, the conversion and enlightening of those interesting people occupy the principal place in my mind. . ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... treasure before Muda Saffir arrived to claim it, or, failing that, learn its exact whereabouts that he might return for it with an adequate force later. That he was taking his life in his hands he well knew, but so great was the man's cupidity that he reckoned no risk too great for the acquirement ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was evidently never considered as final, or as anything more than a means of progress: the conventional, easily manageable color, was visibly adopted, only that his mind might be at perfect liberty to address itself to the acquirement of the first and most necessary knowledge in all art—that of form. But as form, in landscape, implies vast bulk and space, the use of the tints which enabled him best to express them, was actually auxiliary ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... acquired diction and come in contact with style, for all the arts rest on the imitation of accepted models. Many students in all schools of journalism come from immigrant families and are both inconceivably ignorant of English and inconceivably satisfied with their acquirement of English, as we all are with a strange tongue we have learned to speak. Even in families with two or more generations of American life, the vocabulary is limited, construction careless, and the daily contact with any literature, now ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... as the first step to knowledge, and should be retained in the most advanced classes as the most perfect method of applying the knowledge which has been acquired. It would soon be understood by the pupils that the power of reading, of writing, of designing and of calculating is essential to the acquirement of knowledge, and to any thing like extent and variety of information on subjects relating to individual and social well-being. The desire of acquiring this knowledge would quicken the faculties of the children, augment their industry, ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... enable them to sell their services in the best theatrical markets of the world, which seems to me to be a pretty "useful" sort of a property for one to have in their permanent possession. If I here repeat that frequent practice on the part of the student is necessary for the correct acquirement of Musical Comedy dancing, I am merely stating what is right and necessary that all should understand who desire to make their services in this line of endeavor available for public approval ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... Never in his life had Phil seen anything to equal the easy grace with which these Southern girls sat their horses. Their mothers before them had been born in the saddle. Their ease, their grace was not an acquirement of the teacher. It was bred ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... of the language difficulty, the giving of many tests, such as those in the upper years of the Binet system, could be regarded as most unfair. However, the simpler language tests she did fairly well, especially those where she could understand the commonsense questions. In regard to her acquirement of English, she has done better than her relatives, who continue to live in a neighborhood where their own Slavic dialect is spoken. When it came to dealing reasoningly with concrete situations, such as those presented by our performance tests, this young woman did comparatively ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... whose grave and noble beauty in youth has been preserved in a drawing by Mr. Wirgman, was indeed a "rare and dedicated spirit." When I first knew her she was four or five and twenty, intelligent, alive, sympathetic, with a delightful humor and a strong judgment, but without much positive acquirement. Then after some years she began to learn Latin and Greek with a view to teaching; and after we left Oxford she became Vice-President of the new Somerville College for Women. Several generations of girl-students must still preserve the tenderest and most grateful memories of all that ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "slave-making" instincts of certain species of ants. It may be safely maintained that the slave-making habit forms a subject of more than ordinary interest not merely to naturalists but to metaphysicians given to speculate on the origin and acquirement of the practices of human existence. Pierre Huber, son of the famous entomologist, was the first to describe the slave-making instincts in a species (Polyergus rufescens) noted for its predaceous instincts, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... our Theosophic professions of benevolence, and disinterestedness, and regard for the good of humanity. Well, viewed in a short-sighted way, it is so. But to do good, as in everything else, a man must have time and materials to work with, and this is a necessary means to the acquirement of powers by which infinitely more good can be done ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... object, may be a factor in determining the ideas which the words are intended to express; but this does not in any manner invalidate the conditions which we impose. Whatever theory we may adopt of the relative part played by the knowing subject, and the external object in the acquirement of knowledge, it remains none the less true that no knowledge of the meaning of a word can be acquired except through the senses, and that the meaning is, therefore, limited by the senses. If we transgress the rule of founding each meaning upon ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... from his parent. But, if during its development, or after the completion of the development any one of the inborn characters of an individual is modified by some occurrence, the change thus produced is known as an acquired character, or, shortly, as an acquirement. ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... acquirement of the chunk of hair was his last triumph. His downfall was near; and, although it involved Cecily in a most humiliating experience, over which she cried half the following night, in the end she confessed it was worth undergoing just to get rid ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... interest your admirable book, "Advice to Pupils and Teachers of the Violin." I have no hesitation in recommending it as an indispensable work to all aspiring violinists and teachers. Your remarks on the acquirement of the various bowings, with the many musical examples, are excellent. I know of no work on this important subject so explicit and exhaustive. Wishing your book ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... Wendot, who had a natural love of study, and who had been taught something of these mysteries by his mother — she being for the age she lived in a very cultivated woman — shared his brother's studies, and delighted in the acquirement ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... decision was arrived at by the Gun Club, to the disparagement of Texas, every one in America, where reading is a universal acquirement, set to work to study the geography of Florida. Never before had there been such a sale for works like "Bertram's Travels in Florida," "Roman's Natural History of East and West Florida," "William's Territory of Florida," and "Cleland on the Cultivation of the Sugar-Cane ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... importance of imitation in this process, a matter of common experience, has been given the fullest sociological prominence, by M. Tarde especially.[9] Thanks to these and other convergent lines of thought, we no longer consent to look at the acquirement of the social tradition as a matter requiring to be imposed upon reluctant youth almost entirely from without, and are learning anew as of old, with the simplest and the most developed peoples, the barbarians ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... in the proportion of thousands to one, of cultivation, and still in a great degree enslaved by the popish superstition,—it was nothing to them, in the way of direct influence to draw forth their minds into free exercise and acquirement, that there were, within the circuit of the island, a profound scholarship, a most disciplined and vigorous reason, a masculine eloquence, and genius breathing enchantment. Both the actual possessors of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... he shines gloriously in the winter heavens. Many are able to point out the north star, or pole star, as everybody should be able to do. All this forms a good beginning, and may serve as the basis for the rapid acquirement of a general knowledge of the ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... and deep, beyond most others; it is every day becoming larger, deeper, and in many senses more difficult, more complicated and involved. It requires more than the average intellect, energy, attention, patience, and courage, and that singular but imperial quality, at once a gift and an acquirement, presence of mind—{anchinoia}, or nearness of the {nous}, as the subtle Greeks called it—than almost any other department of human thought and action, except perhaps that of ruling men. Therefore it is, that we hold it ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... want of cultivation," said Mrs. Evelyn, warming "time taken up with other things, you know usefully and properly, but still taken up so as to make much intellectual acquirement and accomplishments impossible; it can't be otherwise, you know neither opportunity nor instructors; and I don't think anything can supply the want in after life. It isn't the mere things themselves which may be acquired the mind should grow up in the atmosphere ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... legato, piano, forte, crescendo, diminuendo, &c. This mode of instruction I find always successful; but I do not put the cart before the horse, and, without previous technical instruction, begin my piano lessons with the extremely difficult acquirement of the treble and bass notes. In a word, I have striven, as a psychologist and thinker, as a man and teacher, for a many-sided culture. I have also paid great attention to the art of singing, as a necessary foundation for piano-playing. I have devoted some talent, and at least ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... at first appear strange that a man so calculating and whose desires seemed to be fixed upon such a material end as the acquirement by artifice or even fraud of the wealth which he coveted, should also nourish in his heart so bitter a hatred and so keen a thirst for revenge upon a woman as Mr. Quest undoubtedly did towards his beautiful wife. It would have ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... I believe, sir, the winged word in daily use to mark those of us who may still cling to the effete and obsolete belief that music remains a science, difficult of acquirement and not either a toy art, or a mere nerve titillater. We are not, sir, by any means ashamed to bear the stigma of being academic; on the contrary, we feel it a genuine compliment—gratifying because, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... people never read the newspapers, not really, only little bits and scraps of them. But in Mariposa it's different. There they read the whole thing from cover to cover, and they build up on it, in the course of years, a range of acquirement that would put a college president to the blush. Anybody who has ever heard Henry Mullins and Peter Glover talk about the future of China will know ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... means, and such pieces of land as could be bought for a song. The two men were in a position to choose their opportunities; none that were good escaped them, and they shared the profits of mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent, the acquirement of the soil by the peasantry. So Dionis took a lively interest in the doctor's inheritance, not so much for the post master and the collector as for his friend the clerk of the court; sooner or later Massin's share ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... nature of the knowledge, which I quarrel with. I know I used to have—I don't know whether I have now, but I had once upon a time—a bad reputation among students for setting up a very high standard of acquirement, and I dare say you may think that the standard of this old examiner, who happily is now very nearly an extinct examiner, has been pitched too high. Nothing of the kind, I assure you. The defects I have noticed, and the faults I have to find, arise ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... one else, how nearly he has done it. In judging his own technical skill in the accomplishment of his aim, it is easy for him to be absolutely unbiased, technique being a thing wholly apart from one's self, an acquirement. But, in a poem, the way it is done is by no means everything; something else, the vital element in it, the quality of inspiration, as we rightly call it, has to be determined. Of this the poet is rarely a judge. To him it is a part of himself, and he is scarcely more capable of questioning ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... to call her, and Lady Betty, her eldest daughter, greatly surpassed the Earl and her eldest brother in every point of knowledge, and even learning, as I may say, although both ladies owe that advantage principally to their own cultivation and acquirement. ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... superintended all the arrangements of the household. The rest of the day was devoted to the enormous correspondence and affairs of administration which devolved upon him as first minister of state and treasury. He was very ignorant. He had no experience or acquirement in the arts either of war or peace, and his early education had been limited. Like his master, he spoke no tongue but Spanish, and he had no literature. He had prepossessing manners, a fluent tongue, a winning and benevolent disposition. His natural capacity for affairs was considerable, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... at all points, but the attack varies from time to time. It may be intense at certain places and other sectors may be quiet for a time. There are occasional reverses, but the whole line in general progresses. Each year witnesses the acquirement of new territory. It is seen that through the centuries there is an ever-growing momentum as knowledge, efficiency, and organization increase the strength of this invading army of scientists ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... to its portion; it would only be incoherent, inactive, and vague. Whereas by seeking it in ourselves, where it truly is; by observing it there, listening to it, marking how it profits by every acquirement of our mind, every joy and sorrow of our heart, we soon shall learn what we best had do ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... neglected nothing. He gave his days and nights to the acquirement of various sciences. He understood anatomy better than any surgeon of his time; he knew history like a Benedictine, and the antiquities of Rome as a botanist does his favourite flora. But architecture was the art which he esteemed most essential to a painter; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... information from physicians, surgeons and alchemists; from executioners, barbers, shepherds, Jews, gipsies, midwives, and fortune-tellers; from high and low, from learned and vulgar. In the sketch I have given of his career in that volume you hold, I have copied out a few words of his upon the acquirement of knowledge which affect ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... had surprised him by some unexpected knowledge of the principles of electricity, and explained the acquirement by telling him that this subject was her father's favourite study. Wilfrid put the question ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... so powerful in bringing out the qualities that can master it, and for any one who has true military courage the acquirement of skill in the more mechanical part of his duty in war is so rapid, that my experience has led me to reckon low, in the comparison, the value of the knowledge a soldier gains in times of peace. I ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... to know why he wanted it. He collected—different types of horses' bits from the earliest times to the present day—but, since he did not prosecute even this occupation with any vigour, he cannot have needed much money for the acquirement, say, of the bit of Genghis Khan's charger—if Genghis Khan had a charger. And when I say that he borrowed a good deal of money from Edward I do not mean to say that he had more than a thousand pounds from him during the five years that the connection lasted. Edward, of course, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... on Interoceanic Canals disagreed, and it is only to the courage and rare ability of the late Senator Hanna and his associates, as minority members of the committee, that the nation owes the abandonment of the Nicaraguan project, the acquirement of the Panama Canal rights at a reasonable price and the making of the project a ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden
... governed not merely a country, but the greater half of a vast Continent. Seeing that the colonial policy of Spain invariably tended to pit one of her subordinate Powers against another in order to avoid the acquirement of too much authority on the part of any special person, it was only natural that the authority of the Viceroy, although great, was not supreme even in his own dominion. There were matters which had to ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... we will take up the Complete Breath in practice, and will give full directions for the acquirement of this superior method of breathing, with ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... least in complex civilizations like our own, one which we carry on simply in order to achieve social perfection, but it is rather something which is necessary for the survival of large and complex groups. Otherwise, as we have pointed out, the conflicts in the acquirement of habit and character on the part of individuals would be so great that there would be no possibility of their working together harmoniously in a common social life. Just so far as the system of education is defective, is insufficient to meet social ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... in the wilderness of a Christian city whose halls of learning should influence the coming ages. The roving life that brought Hartwick into contact with the Indians awakened his desire to Christianize and educate them, and the influence which he gained among them opened the way, through the acquirement of land, for the carrying out of his favorite project. The patent that he obtained from the Provincial government in 1761 covered a tract of land, substantially the present town of Hartwick, which he had purchased from the Indians for one hundred pounds in 1754. In settling the land Hartwick ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... had in his life amongst the unruly children of Mr. Burke; but this lesson was not to be learned only by his ears and eyes; it would not have been enough for him to have seen Tom soused in the mire, or William with his bloody nose; his very bones were to suffer in the acquirement of it, and he was to get such a fright as he ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... disadvantages of the Law as a profession, in spite of the aspersions cast upon it by disappointed suitors, over-nice moralists, and malicious wits, it can boast of one signal advantage over all other business callings,—that eminence in it is always a test of ability and acquirement. While in every other profession quackery and pretension may gain for men wealth and honor, forensic renown can be won only by rare natural powers aided by profound learning and varied experience in trying causes. The trickster and the charlatan, who in medicine and even ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... his skill. Under his instruction, with the stimulus of the Doctor's praise and criticism, Ned soon grew to be the pride of the Frenchman's school, in both the active departments; and the Doctor himself added a further gymnastic acquirement (not absolutely necessary, he said, to a gentleman's education, but very desirable to a man perfect at all points) by teaching him cudgel-playing and pugilism. In short, in everything that related to accomplishments, whether of mind or body, no pains ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... useful member of society, as well as the lighter graces and accomplishments which, too often, in the present day, supercede the cultivation of the mind. Endowed with a brilliant intellect, she excelled in whatever she attempted, and the fond anticipations of her friends were more than realized. The acquirement of literature was to her a source of exquisite delight. Her thirsty soul drank at the fountain of knowledge, with as much avidity as the weary traveller slakes his thirst at the fountain of cool waters, that ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Society might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations of the schoolmen; not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy;" but though such work engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer time than has elapsed since the great fire, its effects were "writ in water," so far as our social state ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... parallels of latitude in which there are not to be found interpreters through its medium. Its prevalence and easy acquisition, while of vast convenience to traders and settlers, has tended greatly to hinder the acquirement of the original Indian languages; so much so, that except by a few missionaries and pioneers, hardly one of them is spoken or understood by white men in all Oregon and Washington Territory. Notwithstanding ...
— Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon • George Gibbs
... accomplishments of his time in literature and the arts,—the display of gorgeous prodigality,—raised him to a sort of chivalrous rivalry with Francis I. In mental culture he excelled George IV., who owes much of his reputation for capacity and acquirement to an imposing manner, and the eagerness to applaud a prince: stripped of this charm, his ideas and language appeared worse than common when he put them on paper. Both had the same dominant ambition to be distinguished ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... middle-class education, notwithstanding the difficulties which the principle has encountered from the disgracefully low existing state of education in the country, which these very examinations have brought into strong light. So contemptible has the standard of acquirement been found to be, among the youths who obtain the nomination from the minister, which entitles them to offer themselves as candidates, that the competition of such candidates produces almost a poorer result than would be obtained from a mere pass examination; for no one would think ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... accomplishment as an "acquirement or attainment that tends to perfect or equip in character, ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... language is spoken from the throat, and, in general, also with the mouth nearly closed. The Italian singer finds no difficulty in bringing out his voice; but the Englishman has first to conquer the habit of his life, and to overcome the obstacles his native tongue opposes to his acquirement of this new but necessary, mode of using the voice. The difficulty, of laying this only foundation of real sterling excellence in the vocal art, is very great, and much care and study is indispensable. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... reality her prominent markings. Artists of a lower order are continually falling into mere mannerisms—peculiarities of style that belong not to nature, but to themselves, just because, contented with acquirement, they cease seeing nature. In order to avoid these mannerisms, there is an eye of fresh observation required—that ability of continuous attention to surrounding phenomena which only superior men possess; and doubtless to this eye of fresh observation, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... squalling and kicking, and the acquirement of the A, B, C, there arose in little March's bosom unutterable love for his mother; or, rather, the love that had always dwelt there began to well up powerfully, and to overflow in copious streams of obedience ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... almost nineteen. I had completed the usual curriculum of study at one of the Scotch universities; and, possessed of a fair knowledge of mathematics and physics, and what I considered rather more than a good foundation for classical and metaphysical acquirement, I resolved to apply for the first suitable situation that offered. But I was spared the trouble. A certain Lord Hilton, an English nobleman, residing in one of the midland counties, having heard that one of my father's sons was desirous of such a situation, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... bread, with the volume of her choice propped up before her; and by the style of the novel jotted down in the rough, almost simultaneously with her reading, we know that to her the study of German was not—like French and music—the mere necessary acquirement of a governess, but an influence that entered her mind and helped to shape the fashion ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Afghan mind. The method of teaching is confined to that wearisome system of loud-voiced repetition which is so annoying a feature in Indian schools; and the Koran is, of course, the text-book in all forms of education. Every Afghan gentleman can read and speak Persian, but beyond this acquirement education seems to be limited to the physical development of the youth by instruction in horsemanship and feats of skill. Such advanced education as exists in Afghanistan is centred in the priests and physicians; but the ignorance of both ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and nine with the reserves; a reduction is made for men serving at remote Asiatic posts; the War Office may send soldiers into the reserve before the end of their terms. Reduction is also made, from eleven to thirteen years and a half, for various degrees of educational acquirement. Exemptions are also made for family reasons and on account of peculiar occupation or profession. Individuals who personally manage their estates or direct their own commercial affairs (with the exception of venders of strong liquors) may have their entry ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... be part of the very structure of the colleges are liberalizing and make for generous culture. In such an air it is easy to study by one's own impetus and to develop in ourselves the passion for perfection. Culture is so different from training or favoring the acquirement of knowledge that it is so often totally lacking in men who have carried both processes to great length; it is indeed rarely conveyed, though it may be greatly aided, by definite instruction. It ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... to their solid aquirements, now see genius and original power of all kinds more esteemed than their learning; but they should reflect that what is learning now is only the diffused form of what was once invention. "Solid acquirement" is the genius of wits become the ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... occurred to one's memory. The live tidbit is supposed to be eaten with the Japanese "Soy"—a sauce that makes everything palatable—but I let my portion of it pass. It is not possible to comply with all Japanese fashions at once. Time is necessary to the acquirement of taste. Cooked fish was next served, and that in great variety, including shell-fish. A sort of lime or small lemon was used as the flavoring to this dish. Then came boiled beans, with ginger roots, ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... stillness, as profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight. Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odours, she has no conception; nevertheless, she seems as happy and playful as a bird or a lamb; and the employment of her intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her expressive features. She never seems to repine, but has all the buoyancy and gaiety of childhood. She is fond of fun and frolic, and when playing with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... imagined that men who sacrificed their friends, their family, and their native land to a religious conviction were absorbed in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which they purchased at so dear a rate. The energy, however, with which they strove for the acquirement of wealth, moral enjoyment, and the comforts as well as liberties of the world, is scarcely inferior to that with which ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... modernization, derive a yearning and a craving towards the unknown simple antique. Unknown to us, in our first studies, as we read upward from our own day into the past glories of our vernacular literature; but which, when, with gradually mounting courage, endeavour, and acquirement, we have made our way up ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... discovered. Sometimes, to be sure, the experiment has at least approached this group of economic questions. For instance, the investigations of the so-called psychophysical law have often been brought into contact with the experiences of ownership and acquirement. The law, well known to every student of psychology, is that the differences of intensity in two pairs of sensations are felt as equal, when the two pairs of stimuli are standing in the same relation. The ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... faults of style, to be sure,—principal among which is a tendency to make too much of the scientific investigation and the acquirement of the writer, extending sometimes almost to pedantry in the use of long words and large phrases; but it contains much information that is important and can be found nowhere else except by troublesome comparison of extended treatises, and a deal of plain common-sense that should commend ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... yourself on the birth of a grand-daughter. I forget whether you have had any previous experience of the "Art d'etre Grandpere" or not—but I can assure you, from 14 such experiences, that it is easy and pleasant of acquirement, and that the objects of it are veritable "articles de luxe," involving much amusement and no sort of responsibility on ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... judges—as the Abyssinian is said to provide himself with steaks from the ox which carries him—to be withheld from criticism of a profound scientific work by the mere want of the requisite preliminary scientific acquirement; while, on the other hand, the men of science who wish well to the new views, no less than those who dispute their validity, have naturally sought opportunities of expressing their opinions. Hence it is not surprising that almost all the critical journals ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... things through their primary causes. 2. The government of the passions, or the acquirement of the habit of virtue. 3. Secure ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... it was only a random thought; I didn't expect you to understand it. How did you get your English; is it an acquirement, or ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens, and the tide of population which has reclaimed what was so lately an unbroken wilderness in more contiguous regions is preparing to flow over those vast districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. In advance of the acquirement of individual rights to these lands, sound policy dictates that every effort should be resorted to by the two Governments to settle their respective claims. It became manifest at an early hour of the late negotiations that any ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... was himself "surrounded, and derived more benefit from that source than from attendance on academical lectures." Considered in its broader sense, education is quite as much a matter of association as of scholarly acquirement. The influence of the companion is as strong and enduring as that of the master. Of this truth the career of young Gallatin is a notable example. During his academic course he formed ties of intimate friendship with three of his associates. These were Henri ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... seal was broken—but the contents still a secret. Poor Agnes had learned to write as some youths learn Latin: so short a time had been allowed for the acquirement, and so little expert had been her master, that it took her generally a week to write a letter of ten lines, and a month to read one of twenty. But this being a letter on which her mind was deeply engaged, her whole imagination aided her slender literature, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... unnatural to them. These ladies, however, neither paint nor tattoo their faces, and in general, painting with red and white is not used by the Libyan and Oriental beauties. In Algeria, however, some of the Mooresses have learnt to paint from their new mistresses, as an acquirement of French civilization in Africa. Dr. Shaw is quite right in his new rendering of the passage referring to Jezebel, "And she adjusted (or set off) her eyes with the powder of lead-ore," (2 Kings ix. 30,) which in the common version is, "And ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... judge upon the bench, surrounded by the usual scenes of a court-house, even if she filled these offices with ability and talent, to render honor rather to her, who laying on the altar of sacrifice whatever of genius, or acquirement, or loveliness she may possess, goes forth to cheer and to share the labors and cares of the husband of her youth, in his errand of love ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... the acquirement of forty years, supervened, and informed her wild heart, with all the cold arrogance of sagacity, that these imaginings were vain. She felt that she must write a brief and firm letter to Arthur and tell him to ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... of bawling costermongers, the inky silver of the barge-laden Thames—such was the background of our days. We went across St. Margaret's Close and through the school gate into a quiet puerile world apart from all these things. We joined in the earnest acquirement of all that was necessary for Greek epigrams and Latin verse, and for the rest played games. We dipped down into something clear and elegantly proportioned and time-worn and for all its high resolve of stalwart virility a little feeble, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells |
