"Aptitude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prevailed, and, in 1760, he was sent to William and Mary College. He remained there two years. His acquirements, during this time, though probably not so great as Mr. Randall would have us believe, must have been large. He had equal aptitude for the classics and mathematics. In the latter his proficiency was remarkable, and he always retained his taste for it. Though never a critical classical scholar, he could read Latin with ease. He was conversant with French, and had some familiarity with Greek. In later life he studied ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... their women like squaws and drudges and then cringe to every policeman and strutting officer who makes them goose-step before him. Bismarck called them a nation of house-servants, and knew that in racial aptitude they are and always will be ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... bewildering vastness and multifariousness of the details with which it is concerned. The modern city has come to be a huge corporation for carrying on a huge business with many branches, most of which call for special aptitude and training. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... innocent, engaging, gay, and airy. But although in this case it would be easy to exaggerate its import, yet, in the Jenkin family also, the tragedy of the generations was proceeding, and the child was growing out of his father's knowledge. His artistic aptitude was of a different order. Already he had his quick sight of many sides of life; he already overflowed with distinctions and generalisations, contrasting the dramatic art and national character of England, Germany, Italy, and France. If he were dull, he would write stories and ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... went on pertinaciously with the body of a new dress, the other two ladies did not put in another stitch that night. From his drawings Aaron got to his instruments, and before bedtime was teaching Susan how to draw parallel lines. Susan found that she had quite an aptitude for parallel lines, and altogether had a good time of it that evening. It is dull to go on week after week, and month after month, talking only to one's mother and sister. It is dull though one does not oneself recognise it to be so. A little change in such ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... little lady has been instructed to copy. The peculiar step to which I allude is to be seen often on the boulevards in Paris. It is to be seen more often in second-rate French towns, and among fourth-rate French women. Of all signs in women betokening vulgarity, bad taste, and aptitude to bad morals, it is the surest. And this is the gait of going which American mothers— some American mothers I should say—love to teach their daughters! As a comedy at a hotel it is very delightful, but in private life I ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... variety of trades. He is painter, carpenter, stevedore, crew-driver, all in one day; and on the next he is doctor, navigator, clerk, tailor, and engineer. And especially he is engineer. He must be able to drive winch, windlass, or crane, like an artist; he must have a good aptitude for using hand tools; and if he can work machine tools also, it is so much ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... stables and a barn, and possess seven head of cattle. Still another had twenty-three houses and one hundred and fifty acres under tillage, raising barley, wheat, potatoes and vegetables, and having thirty-six head of cattle. It is unnecessary to multiply instances, of the aptitude, the Indians are exhibiting, within so recent a period after the completion of the treaties, to avail themselves of obtaining their subsistence from the soil. Their desire to do so, should be cultivated to the fullest extent. They ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... once the idea of offering to finish Pauline's education occurred to me; and the offer was made and accepted in the most perfect simplicity. In this way I came to have some hours of recreation. Pauline had natural aptitude; she learned so quickly, that she soon surpassed me at the piano. As she became accustomed to think aloud in my presence, she unfolded all the sweet refinements of a heart that was opening itself out to life, as some flower-cup opens slowly to the sun. She listened to me, pleased and ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... of three—the Church, the Law, or Medicine. Hate had given him too keen a comprehension of his father to permit him the mistake of argument. He temporized. Let him be sent to college, and there he would discover where his aptitude lay. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... think there is any reason why I should not mention his name—it was Sir Andrew Fraser, the retired Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal—and those instructions as to the temper that was to be inculcated upon newcomers, were marked by a force, a fulness, and a first-hand aptitude that not even the keenest Secretary of State could venture to approach. I know that exile is hard. It is very easy for us here to preach. Exile is and must be hard, but I feel confident that under ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... of Boulanger's name makes it necessary to consider for a moment this almost forgotten writer. Nicholas Antoine Boulanger was born in 1722. As a child he showed so little aptitude for study that later his teachers could scarcely believe that he had turned out to be a really learned man. As Diderot observes, "ces exemples d'enfans, rendus ineptes entre les mains des Pdans qui les abrutissent en dpit de la nature ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... magnificent dreams, your daring visions and outbursts, your impetuous, seething power—but I should not want your return, blooming youth! Only with the greyness of the hair comes clear wisdom, and that great aptitude for unprejudiced reflection which makes of all old men philosophers ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... ramble freely in the island among the natives; considerable liberty being allowed to all hands, who, during their year's absence from the United States, had had little opportunity to visit any inhabited places. Farragut here learned to swim, and the aptitude of the natives to the water seems to have impressed him more than their other peculiarities which have since then been so liberally described in books of travel. "It appears as natural," he wrote, "for these islanders ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... that account all the more difficult. Miss ESM HUBBARD gave us pathos skilfully reserved in her clever study of an old, old countrywoman turned trousers-maker; and little DINKA STARACE showed quite astonishing aptitude (or the most wonderful training) in the part of her granddaughter. Miss BABS FARREN also did well with her rather intrusive part of Lord ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... of the women—of their instant intelligence, quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for organization and cooeperation, which gave their action discipline and enacted the effectiveness of everything they attempted; their aptitude at tasks to which they had never before set their hands; their utter self-sacrifice alike in what they did and in what they gave? Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new luster to the ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... and his natural aptitude for mechanics now stood him in good stead. Reaching out he threw over a lever and the machine moved forward. There was a whirring sound as the plane skimmed over the ground. As the machine began to rise, Hal pressed another lever, and ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... necessary, by the family physician. What may safely be regarded as normal and harmless in one, constitutes, for many reasons, excess in another. When a man performs hard physical or mental labor, his sexual aptitude or capacity is limited, and this limitation cannot be exceeded without risk. Such a limitation may not constitute an excess in a man whose occupation does not call for a great expenditure of physical or mental energy. Any indulgence ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... eighteen months it is fit for the butcher; whilst the Merino, though supplied with excellent herbage, must be preserved for nearly four years before it is ready for the shambles. The crossing of good herds has resulted in the development of numerous varieties, all remarkable for their aptitude to fatten and to arrive early at maturity. The Leicester—itself supposed to be a cross—has greatly improved the Lincoln, and the Hampshire and Southdown have produced an excellent cross. Of course, each breed and cross ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... connection, he contrived to make a living; and that was all. Literary work is not well paid as a rule. There is fair pay to be had on the staff of the best daily papers, but that kind of work requires a special aptitude. It requires, in particular, a supple and indifferent mind, ready to take its cue from other people, with the art of representing things from day to day not exactly as they are, but as an editor or paymaster wants them to appear. If we suffered our journalists ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... patents of nobility, irrespective of means and standing. His father, who held a post of notary in his Lithuanian district and who owned more than one somewhat modest estate, was universally respected for his upright character, which, together with his aptitude for affairs, caused his advice and assistance to be widely sought through the countryside. Kosciuszko spent his boyhood in the tranquil, wholesome, out-of-door life of a remote spot in Lithuania. The home was the wooden one-storied dwelling with thatched, sloping roof and ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... being blamed, and it humiliated him, when, having been given accounts to make fair copies of, Mr. Goodworthy was not satisfied and gave them to another clerk to do. At first the work had been tolerable from its novelty, but now it grew irksome; and when he discovered that he had no aptitude for it, he began to hate it. Often, when he should have been doing something that was given him, he wasted his time drawing little pictures on the office note-paper. He made sketches of Watson in every conceivable attitude, and Watson was impressed ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... satisfaction you showed a decided taste for such a life. At last I got you a place in a store where I thought you could build yourself up, and, in course of time, go into business for yourself. You showed an aptitude for the work, and Mr. Rexford assured me that you were one of the very best clerks that ever worked for him. This, however, was before he was led to suspect you because of the De Vere affair. Now you have ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... Their extraordinarily complex method of governing themselves, and their intricate political machinery would be very distressing to us, and are calculated to make one think that a keen pleasure in governing or in being overgoverned—not a special aptitude or genius for governing—must have been very common among them. From the alarming blunders made in directing public affairs, and from the manner in which beneficial measures were opposed by the party out of office, it appears quite certain that the instincts of true statesmanship did not animate ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... the Marquis d'Harville (a friend of the grand-duke, to whom he had rendered great services in 1815, and a little of a suitor of the lady's while she was in Paris) and of the British Ambassador in Paris, but with that of her own personal appearance. To rare beauty and a singular aptitude of acquiring various accomplishments, was added a seductiveness all the more dangerous, because she possessed a mind unbending and calculating, a disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... the expression may be allowed, marked his bearing in the social circle. Everybody had a kind feeling and a good word for the quiet, brightfaced youth. In the discharge of his duties in the office he was punctual and trustworthy, showing not only industry but unusual aptitude for business It was with special pleasure that I learned that he was turning his thoughts to the subject of religion. During the services in the little Pine-street church he would sit with thoughtful face, and not seldom ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... Scotch descent; in 1839 he entered the service of the Custom House, and during the final eleven years of his service, i.e. from 1874 to 1885, held the position of Accountant and Controller-General. He was a born naturalist, and his "aptitude for exact observation was of the highest order" (Mr. M'Lachlan in the "Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," May 1894). He is chiefly known as an entomologist, but he had also extensive knowledge of Ornithology, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... studious, austere, humble, a diligent reader of the Bible, master of the canon law, rigid in his fasts; he wore haircloth next his skin. His time was divided between study, prayer, and business, for which he had great aptitude. From the poor bishopric of Acherontia he had been promoted to the archbishopric of Bari, and had presided over the papal chancery in Avignon. The monk broke out at once on his elevation in the utmost rudeness and rigor, but the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sculptors. If this were really so, that stolid Englishman might not have been so very far wrong after all, who, on Canova's death, inquired of his brother whether it was "his intention to carry on the business!" Locke, Helvetius, and Diderot believed that all men have an equal aptitude for genius, and that what some are able to effect, under the laws which regulate the operations of the intellect, must also be within the reach of others who, under like circumstances, apply themselves to like pursuits. But while ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... choice for the new western command was "Light-Horse Harry" Lee. But considerations of rank made the appointment inexpedient, and "Mad Anthony" Wayne was named instead. Wayne was the son of a Pennsylvania frontiersman and came honestly by his aptitude for Indian fighting. In early life he was a surveyor, and in the Revolution he won distinction as a dashing commander of Pennsylvania troops at Ticonderoga, Brandywine, Germantown, Stony Point, and other important engagements. Finally he obtained a major-general's commission in Greene's ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... man). Buffon also anticipated Thomas Carlyle's definition of genius ("which means the transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all") by his famous axiom, "Le genie n'est autre chose qu'une grande aptitude a ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... intrusive, ever present mentor who not only shared his father's affections but made use of them to influence that father against the career he had chosen, in favour of one he not only disliked but for which he lacked all aptitude. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... all this? There was insanity on both sides. For him, the prince, to love this woman with passion, was unthinkable. It would be cruel and inhuman. Yes. Rogojin is not fair to himself; he has a large heart; he has aptitude for sympathy. When he learns the truth, and finds what a pitiable being is this injured, broken, half-insane creature, he will forgive her all the torment she has caused him. He will become her slave, her brother, her friend. Compassion will teach even ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... handicrafts. The lower grades of the feeble-minded who require merely custodial care should, as a general rule, be excluded from special schools, but where there is any doubt as to a child's degree of mentality or aptitude for manual training admission to a special school for a probationary period ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... his father’s presence. The older Pascal, having satisfied himself of the astonishing achievement which the youthful mathematician had worked out for himself in solitude, ran with tears of joy to communicate the fact to his friend M. le Pailleur. It was agreed betwixt them that such an aptitude for science should no longer be balked, and the lad was furnished with the means of pursuing his mathematical studies. Before he had completed his sixteenth year he had written the famous treatise on Conic Sections which excited ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... too good," said Miss Blanche, crisply. "Bet we get a flood of aptitude cards from Morgan today. Grimswitch has sent over a couple. That makes eleven from him this month. ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... apprenticed to an engraver, and had shown remarkable aptitude for that profession, but, being of a roving and restless disposition, he ran away from his employer to ship on ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... in English if you please, though for my part I prefer the stronger tongue. You have rolled much; quae regio in terris—what parish in Scotland (to make a homely translation) has not been filled with your wanderings? You have shown, besides, a singular aptitude for getting into false positions; and, yes, upon the whole, for behaving well in them. This Mr. Thomson seems to me a gentleman of some choice qualities, though perhaps a trifle bloody-minded. It would please me none the worse, if (with all his merits) he were soused in the North Sea, for the man, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Casaubon's learning as mere accomplishment; for though opinion in the neighborhood of Freshitt and Tipton had pronounced her clever, that epithet would not have described her to circles in whose more precise vocabulary cleverness implies mere aptitude for knowing and doing, apart from character. All her eagerness for acquirement lay within that full current of sympathetic motive in which her ideas and impulses were habitually swept along. She did not want to deck herself with knowledge—to wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... as representative of reviving Art Ennobling effects of Art when inspired by lofty sentiments Brilliancy of Art in the sixteenth century Early life of Michael Angelo His aptitude for Art Patronized by Lorenzo de' Medici Sculpture later in its development than Architecture The chief works of Michael Angelo as sculptor The peculiarity of his sculptures Michael Angelo as painter History of painting in the Middle ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... language of the Bible, as that of Milton and Shakespeare in a lesser degree—lesser in proportion as they have been less read—has fed in the English race an aptitude, an instinct, for action on a large imperial scale. It is not easy to explain the effect of great literature; but without doubt it molds the race. Now the ethic of the Old Testament, its moral import, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... began to forge chains about them; and soon, however uncongenial their life might be, they were incapable of abandoning it. There were some melancholy instances at Cambridge of men of high intellectual power, who had drifted thus into the academical life without any aptitude for it, without educational zeal, without interest in young people. Such men went on tamely year after year, passing from one college office to another, inadequately paid, with no belief in the value of their work, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... exchange him for another squire, though I were given a city to boot, and therefore I am in doubt whether it will be well to send him to the government your highness has bestowed upon him; though I perceive in him a certain aptitude for the work of governing, so that, with a little trimming of his understanding, he would manage any government as easily as the king does his taxes; and moreover, we know already ample experience that it does not require much cleverness or much learning to be a governor, for there are a ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and delicacy of the skin, but because it is less affected by the heat in summer, and far less subject to cuticular disease than either the white or brindled hog, but more particularly from its kindlier nature and greater aptitude to fatten. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Highlander. He is brave in battle, highly hospitable; delights in simple and plaintive music and poetry, his favourite instruments being the bagpipe and fiddle: but unlike the Greek be shows little aptitude for trade; and unlike the Bulgarian, he is very lazy in agricultural operations. All this corresponds with the Scottish Celtic character; and without absolute dishonesty, a certain low cunning in the prosecution of his material interests ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... as lightly as the freckles on his nose. When occasion or his mother demanded he worked to good purposes with a tenacity that argued well for his future success, but for the most part he played and fought and got into trouble with the aptitude characteristic of the ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... maternal imagination, uninfluenced by what Mr. Thorpe had said below stairs, conjured up an appalling vision of Zack before his father's looking-glass, with his chin well lathered, and a bare razor at his naked throat. The child had indeed a singular aptitude for amusing himself with purely adult occupations. Having once been incautiously taken into church by his nurse, to see a female friend of hers married, Zack had, the very next day, insisted on solemnizing the nuptial ceremony from recollection, before a bride and bridegroom of his own age, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, the utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural aptitude really is. The principle on which our industrial army is organized is that a man's natural endowments, mental and physical, ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... of any thing, implying some continuance or permanence. It may be formed by nature or induced by extraneous circumstances. It is a settled disposition of the mind or body, involving an aptitude for the performance of certain actions, acquired by custom or frequent repetition. There are habits of the body, of the mind, of action; physical, mental, moral and religious habits. All these are included in ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... considered as a whole, and as parts of one system. As a system it stands related to the institutions, usages, and customs presented in the previous chapters. There is not only abundant evidence in the collective architecture of the Indian tribes of the gradual development of this great faculty or aptitude of the human mind among them, through three ethnical periods, but the structures themselves, or a knowledge of them, remain for comparison with each other. A comparison will show that they belong to a common indigenous system of architecture. There is ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... conferred too rapidly upon them. It should not be expected that a people who, by instinct and unbroken heritage, are the children of the worst kind of autocratic and absolute government, should acquire, in one age or century, wisdom or aptitude to rule themselves. The mass of Hindus love to be led ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... ways. It eliminates those parts of the native fetish that were a wholesome restraint on the African. The children in the mission school are, be it granted, better than the children outside it in some ways; they display great aptitude for learning anything that comes in their way—but there is a great difference between white and black children. The black child is a very solemn thing. It comes into the world in large quantities ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... my life is my choice of a profession, and as to that, as a matter of fact, I was given no choice, but from my earliest childhood was destined to be a soldier. My education and my daily environment each pointed to that career, and even if I had shown a remarkable aptitude for any other calling, which I did not, I doubt if I would have pursued it. I am confident that had my education been directed in an entirely different channel, I should have followed my destiny, and come out a soldier in the end. For by inheritance as well as by instinct I was foreordained ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... scarcely helps us; for remember, the option is not given to all. Genius, or talent, or special aptitude, is a necessary equipment for such an undertaking. Great discoverers must be great observers, dexterous manipulators, ingenious ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... relief to-day, having told you everything from the beginning. It sounds like a romance, doesn't it? I think of turning it into a book, and getting it printed. But I am not a writing-man myself. They say my nephew has some aptitude that way—I will get him to write it for me. But the best thing would be, if you would collaborate with him, because the conclusion of the story is not known to me ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... French constitution, whoever is not a Jacobin is excluded from common rights. An intolerant club sets itself up as a holy church, and proscribes others which have not received from it "orthodox baptism, civic inspiration, and the aptitude of languages." To her alone belongs the right of assemblage, and the right of making proselytes. Conservative, thoughtful men in all towns throughout the kingdom are forbidden to form electoral committees, to possess a tribune, a fund, subscribers and adherents, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... unselfishness, such semi-moral qualities as cleanliness, orderliness, carefulness, alertness, industry, punctuality, are capable of being developed by education. It is further admitted that such special qualities as literary or artistic taste, the mathematical or the historical sense, an aptitude for business or finance, are ready to evolve themselves, in response to the fostering influence of practical experience directed by skilful teaching. It is admitted, in other words, that there is much in human nature, apart from what ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... truth which the swagman had brought forth out of his treasury. For philosophy is no warrant against destitution, as biography amply vouches. Neither is tireless industry, nor mechanical skill, nor artistic culture—if unaccompanied by that business aptitude which tends to the survival of the shrewdest; and not even then, if a person's mana is off. Neither is the saintliest piety any safeguard. If the author of the Thirty-seventh Psalm lived at the present time, he would see the righteous well ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... catch the fellow by the middle and give him a back throw which would enlighten him as to my physical aptitude; but I forbore, and allowed him to pump for me, which he did with great willingness, discoursing the while on the infirmities of all his kin. Refreshed by my ablutions, I was nothing loath to follow him to the kitchen, where a red-faced little dumpling of a cook ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... all. And so it comes, that only those can work successfully with animals who have already been frequently present at the teaching, and are then willing to try their luck, calmly and tranquilly—and quite alone with the animal, so as to carefully develop their own aptitude, as well as gain the confidence of their charge. It is true that in the case of the horses, others, besides Herr Krall, frequently did work with them. Indeed, my father got excellent answers from them, although he had to ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... dark, following a prudent tactical system, which hardly allows of a step in advance or retreat even in the course of ten years. The secret intrigues of men who desire above all things to avoid noise requires special shrewdness, a special aptitude for dealing with small matters, and a patient endurance such as one only finds in persons callous to all passions. It is thus that provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely ridiculed in Paris, is full of treachery, secret stabs, hidden victories and defeats. These ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... academically upon the motley crowd as though doubting the aptitude of his salutation. "Fellow-citizens," he corrected, "the phenomenon we have just witnessed is, to the lay mind, inexplicable. To me—and to my honorable colleagues (added as an afterthought) it is quite clear. Quite clear, indeed. We have before ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... light, he will perceive nothing at all; that some time will be necessary for his eye to make experiments for itself; but that it will make these experiments itself, and in its own way, and without the help of touch." This is in harmony with the modern doctrine, that there is an inherited aptitude of structure (in the eye, for instance), but that experience is an essential condition to the development and perfecting of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... replied, who was quite willing to have it thought that his inquiry was concerned with Janet's aptitude for business. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... accelerated by the effective elimination of a definite proportion of the least efficient. There are in every army, and certainly in ours, a number of officers who do not violate their duty in any such way as to give reason for a court-martial or dismissal, but who do not show such aptitude and skill and character for high command as to justify their remaining in the active service to be Promoted. Provision should be made by which they may be retired on a certain proportion of their pay, increasing with their length of service at the time of retirement. There is now ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... prosecution, and of consequence to betray the trust reposed in them by this House, or to bring forward such matter of evidence as they are furnished with from sure sources of authenticity, and which in their judgment, aided by the best advice they could obtain, is possessed of a moral aptitude juridically to prove or to illustrate the case which the House ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... towards the Crown an amount of popularity which it had never enjoyed under his predecessors. The qualities and dispositions of the King were favourable to the cultivation of these opportunities. Without being profoundly versed in the philosophy of character, he possessed a remarkable aptitude in the discrimination of persons suited to his purposes. He had considerable skill (to which Lord Shelburne bears special testimony) in extracting the opinions of others, and turning the results to ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... them not behind Thee! Oh my Son, Wipe Thou the Woman's Henna from thy Hand: Withdraw Thee from the Minion who from Thee Dominion draws; the Time is come to choose, Thy Mistress or the World to hold or lose." Four are the Signs of Kingly Aptitude; Wise Head—clean Heart—strong Arm—and open Hand. Wise is He not—Continent cannot be— Who binds himself to an unworthy Lust; Nor Valiant, who submits to a weak Woman; Nor Liberal, who cannot draw his Hand From that in which so basely he is busied. And of these Four ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... government. But the gentry and men of means and the lawyers very soon took the lead in political affairs. A larger proportion of these classes came from Virginia than was the case with the rest of the population, and they shared the eagerness and aptitude for political life generally shown by the leading families of Virginia. In many cases they were kin to these families; not, however, as a rule, to the families of the tidewater region, the aristocrats of colonial days, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... last find ourselves entering upon it without premeditation when the time approaches. In like manner, if we arrange our studies in accordance with this law, and take up each in the same order, a natural aptitude is soon produced, which renders application more easy than by resuming the subjects ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... countries. Both the English and Spaniards possess a very rich dramatic literature, both have had a number of prolific and highly talented dramatists, among whom even the least admired and celebrated, considered as a whole, display uncommon aptitude for dramatic animation, and insight into the essence of theatrical effect. The history of their theatres has no connexion with that of the Italians and French, for they developed themselves wholly out of the abundance of their own intrinsic energy, without any foreign influence: ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... local constable and also by assisting in a mercantile enterprise carried on by two acquaintances in the town. After a year this hand-to-mouth existence began to pall. Neither then nor in later life did Jackson have any real taste or aptitude for law. He was not of a legal turn of mind, and he was wholly unprepared to suffer the sacrifices and disappointments which a man of different disposition would have been willing to undergo in order to win for himself ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... streets habitually. (Applause). In relation to running up the rigging like a monkey, or in regard to any other monkey performance, I do not believe that women will ever enter into competition with men in these things, because the latter have shown such remarkable aptitude for that business. (Laughter and applause). But after all that may be said on this subject, we fail to reach one class in the community who have spare time, spare energies, abundance of power for work. I mean young ladies of wealth and rank. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... tant bien que mal with much assistance from his mother, who taught herself everything that she thought the boy should know, and shared his lessons in order to push him gently forward. And on the whole, he did very well in this particular of language, showing much aptitude, though not perhaps much application. I would not assert that the ladies, with an opinion very common among women, and also among youth in general, did not rather glory in the thought that he could ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... I uttered in the secret chambers of my heart as I read the above and similar passages of that letter, let the reader imagine who may be disposed to credit me with the least aptitude of appreciating whatsoever in human nature is grand and noble, or in the human spirit, which is lovely, and true, and ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... pass for one good reason for not writing a play, that I cannot form a plot. But the truth is, that the idea adopted by too favourable judges, of my having some aptitude for that department of poetry, has been much founded on those scraps of old plays, which, being taken from a source inaccessible to collectors, they have hastily considered the offspring of my mother-wit. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... of nature he is in this half-hatched civilization of ours, which merely distracts our energies by multiplying our needs and leaves us no better off than we were before we discovered them! He seems to have a natural aptitude for discerning, or even inventing, your wants and supplies them before you yourself are aware of them. While in his hands nothing petty invades you. Great-mindedness becomes possible. "Magnanimus AEneas" must have had an excellent Boy. What is the history of the ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... pine-bark beaten fine; these were made by hand with plaited thread and woollen, so closely wove as to resemble cloth, and frequently had worked on them figures of men and animals: on one was the whole process of the whale fishery. Their aptitude for the imitative arts was very great. Their canoes were rather elegantly formed out of trees, with rising prow, frequently carved in figures. They differ from those of the Pacific generally, in having neither sails nor outriggers; they had harpoons and spears for whale-fishing. ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... It may indeed be set down that his aptitude was their undoing. They had no sooner entered the shop than he pulled out his watch and uttered an exclamation of horror at the sight of the time. Virginia could scarcely look at the lace, so insistently did he keep waving the watch before her. His contempt for everything shown ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... theory, depends. To discover general principles, belongs to the speculative faculty: to discern and discriminate the particular cases in which they are and are not applicable, constitutes practical talent: and for this, women as they now are have a peculiar aptitude. I admit that there can be no good practice without principles, and that the predominant place which quickness of observation holds among a woman's faculties, makes her particularly apt to build over-hasty generalizations upon her own observation; though at the same time no less ready in rectifying ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... Church-quakes and State-quakes in the moral and political world, as well as earthquakes, storms, and tempests in the physical. Thus much, however, must be said in favor of the people and of human nature, that it is a general, if not a universal truth, that the aptitude of the people to mutinies, seditions, tumults, and insurrections, is in direct proportion to the despotism of the government. In governments completely despotic,—that is, where the will of one man is the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... pleasure will not be in the picture as an imitation of it, but will be due to the execution or colouring or some similar cause. Imitation, then, being natural to us—as also the sense of harmony and rhythm, the metres being obviously species of rhythms—it was through their original aptitude, and by a series of improvements for the most part gradual on their first efforts, that they created ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... survived three years. But if a man was originally placed in a position beyond his deserts, the mere lapse of time may have only made him the more dangerous charlatan. If he showed no sign of military aptitude in six months, a probation of three years may have been more costly, but not more conclusive. Add to this the fact that each successive year of the war has seen all officers more carefully selected, if only because there has been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... expressed with respect to national characteristics or aptitude will of course appear crude and rash to those who regard them as based exclusively on the few days' personal observation in which they may seem to have originated. To those who regard them as grounded in some knowledge of history and of the present political and ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... Mrs. Penniman saw no reason to dissent; she possibly reflected that her own great use in the world was owing to her aptitude for many things. ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... detected a real grain of serious purpose behind Rilla's romantic pose. So here was Rilla hemming sheets and organizing a Junior Red Cross in her thoughts as she hemmed; moreover, she was enjoying it—the organizing that is, not the hemming. It was interesting and Rilla discovered a certain aptitude in herself for it that surprised her. Who would be president? Not she. The older girls would not like that. Irene Howard? No, somehow Irene was not quite as popular as she deserved to be. Marjorie Drew? No, Marjorie hadn't ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... The repugnance to evil, if they ever felt it, has long since disappeared from their natures. The man is serious, the woman frivolous, but the criminal tendency in both cases is the same; each performs his or her part in the crime with characteristic aptitude. Mrs. Manning was a creature of much firmer character than her husband, a woman of strong passions, a redoubtable murderess. Without her dominating force Manning might never have committed murder. But he was a criminal ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... exists in a latent state in the seeds of plants, and may be preserved therein, so to speak, indefinitely. In 1853, Ridolfi deposited in the Egyptian Museum of Florence a sheaf of wheat that he had obtained from seeds found in a mummy case dating back about 3,000 years. This aptitude of revivification is found to a high degree in animalcules of low order. The air which we breathe is loaded with impalpable dust that awaits, for ages perhaps, proper conditions of heat and moisture to give it an ephemeral life that it will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... the first place necessary to insure the aptitude of those to whom education should be confided; but as the systems were various, the best methods and a unity of doctrine were to be determined. It was not enough to interrogate the masters, they were to be formed, new ones were to be created, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... that the desire to teach is a real one, and that the girl has aptitude, it ought still to be unnecessary to choose a particular branch of the profession before she has become an under-graduate. A University career means, among other things, the discovery of new powers, new interests, and opportunities; sometimes it brings with it the painful conviction ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... public life as finance minister in Sir John Macdonald's government, and held the office until 1873, when he retired altogether from politics. Until the last hours of his life he continued to show that acuteness of intellect, that aptitude for public business, that knowledge of finance and commerce, which made him so influential in public affairs. During his public career in Canada previous to 1855, he was the subject of bitter attacks for his political acts, but ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... apparently without any calculation whatever, would check off errors as fast as he came to them, saying: 'You have made a mistake; try this one over.' In every case the second test proved that he was right. This wonderful aptitude for infallibly locating an error without an instant's hesitation for mental calculation, has always appealed to me ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... entitles every one to equal place;—not to charity or toleration alone, but to consideration and respect. Inside of the club we are equal sharers of each other's gifts. Each one brings her knowledge, her sympathy, her special aptitude, her personal charm of manner and disposition, and we are all enriched by this outflowing and inflowing, by this equal part and share in a fountain made up of such bountiful and ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... unsuspected by others and even by their possessor, and are evoked only under favorable conditions, sometimes comparatively late in the youthful period of life. In a symmetrical course of study calculated to bring into exercise every mental faculty, somewhere, as by a touchstone, the particular aptitude of the pupil may be discovered, the secret springs of power be opened; and the man, having discovered himself, leaps forward to pre-eminence among his fellows. Scores of such men and women are among the students in the schools for the colored people of the South. A mere common ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various
... Wife of Bath, when called upon to favour the company, protested that she had no aptitude for such things, but that her fourth husband had had a liking for them, and she remembered one of his riddles that might be new to her fellow pilgrims: "Why is a bung that hath been made fast in a barrel like unto another bung that is just falling out ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... altitudes of 20,000 feet; he must be quick with his machine-gun, have a knowledge of artillery, and know, in fact, a little about everything on the front he is trying to cover. This requires training and aptitude. ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... service were passed on topographical duty with this party under Major G. Strahan, R.E., and in the Mysore Party under Majors G. Strahan and H.R. Thuillier, R.E. From the very first he showed special aptitude as a plane-tabler, and was soon recognised in the department as an accomplished surveyor. In the autumn of 1879 he was selected to accompany the Khyber Column of the Afghan Field Force, and was present with that force during the severe ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... could, like Atlas, bear the world about with me. . . . I love to work with my hands; to nail, to glue, to scour, to dig; all these satisfy a yearning in my nature for something substantial and honest. My mother often tells me I was born to be a poor man's wife, I have such an aptitude for all trades." ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... nerve force which can no more be repressed than the power of an engine when it has been once liberated. Success is due to the dynamic quality of energy. It is true that physical energy and bodily strength are not sufficient for success in all fields. One must have aptitude for his chosen work. Your energy must be directed in the proper channels, but without this energy and vitality you can ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... priest was exclusively bestowed, and Luynes accordingly discovered that he must become the architect of his own fortunes. With all the fearless confidence of youth he made his way, as he best could, to the capital, where he enlisted as an archer of the bodyguard, displayed great aptitude and courage, and finally obtained the governorship of Pont-St.-Esprit. While thus prospering in the world he married, became the father of seven children, of whom three were sons; and died without suspecting that his name would be handed ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... scarce a desperate or glorious adventure was essayed, either by sea or land, in which he was not a participator. In this, his first great school of military valor and distinction, he served with so much spirit, and such display of gallantry and aptitude for arms, that he immediately attracted attention, and, on his return to England in 1570, after the pacification, and renewal of the edicts for liberty of conscience, found himself at once a ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... (seminaristes) whom I saw was most satisfactory. They had an intelligent, cheerful look, greatly superior to that of the Roman Catholic seminarists generally in Europe. The priests bear testimony to their aptitude in learning, their docility and good conduct. They have an organ in the cathedral, the pipes of which are all made of bamboo. It seems ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... special gifts. I am thinking now of one who had a fortune, and yet chose to do the hard work of a physician. She had the aptitude for the work and the means for thorough study. She was among the most skillful physicians of her native city. She saved many lives, and relieved much suffering. She gave her priceless services to hundreds of poor people, but she did not give to those who could pay for them. I ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... unworthy of her friendship! See her love of children, her readiness of sympathy, her fondness for society,—all feminine qualities in a woman who is stigmatized as masculine, as she perhaps was in her mental structure, in her habits of command, and aptitude for business: a strong-minded woman at the worst, yet such a woman as was needed on a throne, especially in stormy times and in a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... The aptitude of the Irish for enjoying humorous images was well displayed by one or two circumstances which occurred on this night. A few of both sexes, who had come rather late, could get no other seats than the metal pots to which we have alluded. The young women were dressed ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... opinion, his skill in the solution of political and social problems was only equalled by his aptitude in managing the weaker sex. He never lost his temper with a woman. He might be sarcastic, he was sometimes even severe in his retorts, but he was never violent. In any one else but Mr. Craddock, such conduct might have ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... typical lazy Eastern, who loves to sit in the sun, to suffer the will of Allah, and to fill the years with dreams; that he was cool, clear-headed, and full of the marked commercial ability characteristic of the modern Greek. Whether this aptitude was combined with the sinuous cunning that is essentially Oriental Nigel did not know. He certainly could not perceive it. All that Baroudi said was said with clearness, and a sort of acute precision, whether he discussed the land question, the irrigation works on the Nile, the great ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... newspapers strewn over the table. "Oh! nothing is settled yet," she at last responded; "the newspapers spoke out too soon. The Prime Minister sent for Sacco, and they had a talk together. But Sacco hesitates a good deal; he fears that he has no aptitude for the Department of Agriculture. Ah! if it were only the Finances—However, in any case, he would not have come to a decision without consulting you. What do ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... allowance, and could not receive any assistance from my companions, who had scarcely enough for themselves. But these people think nothing of hardships and privations, and take it for granted, that other people's constitutions are hardened to the same aptitude of enduring thirst and fatigue, as ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... that all the essential movements will come naturally when he first finds himself face to face with the new problems the air has set for him. In this preparatory training a great deal of weeding out is effected, for a man's aptitude for the work shows up, and unless he is by nature especially well fitted he is transferred to the division which teaches one to fly the larger and ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... language is so poor in synonyms in this field that the same word must have two such different and conflicting meanings, for, though the new definition of management be accepted, the "Fringe" of associations that belong to the old are apt to remain.[7] The thoughts of "knack, aptitude, tact, adroitness,"—not to speak of the less desirable "Brute Force," "shrewdness, subtlety, cunning, artifice, deceit, duplicity," of the older idea of management remain in the background of the mind and make it difficult, even when one is convinced ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... His life had been varied, and there were passages in it which he did not narrate even to his most intimate friends. He was of gentle birth, however, and it was said that he had received a public school and university education in England. At any rate he could quote the classics with aptitude on occasion, an accomplishment which, coupled with his refined voice and a bearing not altogether common in the wild places of the world, had earned for him among his rough companions the soubriquet of ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... production of satisfactory phenomena, suffer from this lack. The spirits who seek to use a medium may or may not be fitted for such task. Many spirits are utterly unable to properly develop a medium; some fail by reason of their lack of knowledge, and others fail because of their lack of special aptitude for the task. ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... into use for extreme offences. The staff of masters is usually fairly strong as regards ability and attainments, but, as is too often the case in England, the majority of them are neither trained teachers, nor even with an aptitude for teaching; they have simply taken to this particular profession because they could get more immediate return from it than from any other. The head-masters, or rather those of recent appointment, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Lilburne, the eldest son of the Earl of St Elmer, in whose family I have the honour to be governess. His lordship shewed toleration and kindness unprecedented towards the ungrateful young man, on account of his respectable parentage, and the excellent abilities and aptitude for instruction he displayed. But I grieve to say, John Blomfield was discharged from Lord Lilburne's service, under circumstances which left no doubt on our minds that he was guilty of dishonest practices—of pilfering, in short, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... received both Bachelor's and Master's degrees. The spring he was twenty-three, he returned home for the summer, an attractive young man. A classmate had interested him in tennis, for which he showed some natural aptitude. The year's work had taxed him lightly. The skein of yarn gave promise of ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... Lincoln, a country girl, with no introductions except to some cousins of Mrs. Thomas who lived there, and she was already making clothes for the women of 'the young married set.' Evidently she had great natural aptitude for her work. She knew, as she said, 'what people looked well in.' She never tired of poring over fashion-books. Sometimes in the evening I would find her alone in her work-room, draping folds of satin on a wire figure, with a quite blissful expression of countenance. I couldn't help thinking ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... danger, by revenge, he can exert himself energetically for a time; but his energy is spasmodic. Monotonous daily toil is impossible to him. It is otherwise with the more developed man. The stern discipline of social life has gradually increased the aptitude for persistent industry; until, among us, and still more among you, work has become with many a passion. This contrast of nature has another aspect. The savage thinks only of present satisfactions, and leaves future satisfactions ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... matter of earnestness," he replied, "and a certain aptitude for forming phrases quickly. No one can feel deeply about anything and not find themselves more or less eloquent when they come to talk about it. By the bye, ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... caution his own tastes. Partly in order to conciliate the King, and partly, no doubt, from inclination, he gave up a portion of his time to military and political business, and thus gradually acquired such an aptitude for affairs as his most intimate associates were not aware ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... found that this was no exaggeration. Howe was a splendid comrade and Ranger, full of courage, the hardiest of the hardy, never failing in spirits whatever were the hardships of the life, and showing such aptitude for generalship and command that already he had made his mark amongst the hardy Rangers, and was entrusted with enterprises of difficulty ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... represented; most of the inhabitants are Turks, a quiet, submissive, agricultural population, which unfortunately shows a tendency to emigrate. The Black Sea coast is inhabited by a variety of races. The Greek element is strong in the maritime towns, and displays its natural aptitude for navigation and commerce. The Gagaeuzi, a peculiar race of Turkish-speaking Christians, inhabit the littoral from Cape Emine to Cape Kaliakra: they are of Turanian origin and descend from the ancient Kumani. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... and the passionate outbursts of the other, often hurt the master's pride, and always made him uncomfortable; Colbert had preceded him in the government, and Louvois, whom he believed himself to have trained, had surpassed him in knowledge of affairs as well as aptitude for work; Chamillard was the first, the only one of his ministers whom the king had ever loved. "His capacity was nil," says St. Simon, who had very friendly feelings towards Chamillard, "and he believed that ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... she would answer the letter on the typewriter, having taught herself to write by position and touch, and he would take her reply for posting. Her nurse and companion, an elderly woman with a natural aptitude for silence and discretion, was Banneker's partner in the secret. The third member of the conspiracy was the physician who came once a week from Angelica City because he himself was a musician and this slowly and courageously ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of consideration the political achievements of the Scotch-Irish, it appears to me that the part played in politics by the Irish in America does not testify to any high political genius. They have shown there an extraordinary aptitude for political organisation, which, if it had been guided by anything approaching to political thought, would have placed them in a far higher position in American public life than that which they now occupy. But the fact ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... client, will be the subsidiary means of important progress in his professional acquisitions. "Let any person," says Mr. Preston, "study one or two heads of the law fully and minutely, and he will have laid the foundation or acquired the aptitude for comprehending other heads of the law."[26] But, besides this, he should pursue the systematic study of his profession upon some well-matured plan. When admitted to the Bar, a young man has but just begun, not finished, his legal education. If he have mastered ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... that period he was offered by his employer an ensigncy in the service of the Honourable East India Company, which, however, he respectfully declined. In 1810 he opened a grocery establishment in his native town; but, with less aptitude for business than literature, he lost the greater part of the capital he had embarked in trade. He afterwards exchanged this business for that of auctioneer and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... perceiving that the end was now only a matter of time. His progress was hastened in an agitating manner by the indiscreet activity of one of his proselytes, W. G. Ward. a young man who combined an extraordinary aptitude for a priori reasoning with a passionate devotion to Opera Bouffe. It was difficult, in fact, to decide whether the inner nature of Ward was more truly expressing itself when he was firing off some train of scholastic paradoxes on the Eucharist or when he was ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... that no one shall see us. My father does not want me to show myself on horseback in public until I am able to astonish every one by my fine appearance in the saddle, as he says. If the vanity natural to a father does not deceive him, this, it seems, will be very soon, for I have a wonderful aptitude for riding. ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... for its preservation many other bodies by which it is, as it were, regenerated. The human mind increases its aptitude in proportion to the number of ways in which the body can be disposed. The idea constituting a formal being of the human mind is not simple, but is highly complex. An idea of each component part of the body must necessarily exist ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... Merian displayed an aptitude for drawing and a special interest in insect life. The latter greatly disturbed her mother, but she could not turn the child's attention from entomology, and was forced to allow that study to become her ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... for the abstract sciences amounted to a passion, and was combined with a singular aptitude for applying them to the purposes of war, while his attention to pursuits so interesting and exhaustless in themselves, was stimulated by his natural ambition and desire of distinction. Almost all the scientific teachers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... worthy of note that the same aptitude for affairs and the same keen sense of honor which distinguished this highspirited chief survives in the member of his family who, on the Canadian Reservation, now bears the same title,—Chief John Buck,—whom his ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... think for yourself," said my father, who spoke eloquently on the necessity of early acquiring sound judgment and what he called "commercial aptitude." ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... power of fellowship, of association. No man knew better than he what stimulus comes from the sense of membership in a society, especially a secret society. He had a great fondness for organizing men into associations, and a singular aptitude for creating, conducting, and perpetuating such bodies. The Junto, a child of his active brain, became a power in local public affairs, though organized and conducted strictly as a "club of mutual improvement." He formed it among his "ingenious acquaintance" for ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... sharp attack of illness befell his youngest little daughter, Kate, and troubled him much. Then, after beginning the Italian grammar himself, he had to call in the help of a master; and this learning of the language took up time. But he had an aptitude for it, and after a month's application told me (24th of August) that he could ask in Italian for whatever he wanted in any shop or coffee-house, and could read it pretty well. "I wish you could see me" (16th of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the histrionic prevails,—by facility of association and colloquial aptitude in the common intercourse of life,—by the inventive element in dress, furniture, and material arrangements, plastic to the caprice of taste and ingenuity,—by the habitudes of out-of-door life, giving greater variety and adaptation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... part, and, among other things, it began to make the Elector of Brandenburg with his Prussians particularly prominent as the champion of the Protestant cause. For, of all the warring towns, counties, principalities, and the rest, Prussia had in particular shown military aptitude. ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... demonstrators, will work out facts for themselves and come into that direct contact with reality which constitutes the fundamental distinction of scientific education. Mathematics will soar into its highest regions; while the high peaks of philosophy may be scaled by those whose aptitude for abstract thought has been awakened by elementary logic. Finally, schools of pictorial and plastic art, of architecture, and of music, will offer a thorough discipline in the principles and practice of art to those in whom lies ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... one ever sought, and who never sought any one, was, at five-and-twenty, a great politician, a man with a wonderful aptitude for apprehending the correlation between remote history and the facts of the present and of the future. In 1831, he told me exactly what would and did happen—the murders, the conspiracies, the ascendency of the Jews, the difficulty of doing anything in France, the scarcity ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... frightful dreams, and all of us carried chips on our shoulders at breakfast. Felicity and Dan began a bickering which they kept up the entire day. Felicity had a natural aptitude for what we called "bossing," and in her mother's absence she deemed that she had a right to rule supreme. She knew better than to make any attempt to assert authority over the Story Girl, and Felix and I were allowed some length of tether; but Cecily, Dan, and Peter were ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... their case, proved 'delightful.' We wish this were oftener the case; but to proceed: Aunt Mary, as we have said, was the eldest of these young ladies; she was at the discreet age of four-and-twenty—indeed, she might have been thirty, for the aptitude she displayed in household matters, taking all the care of housekeeping off her good mother's hands, and being looked up to, and appealed to, in all doubtful matters by ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... but one game, tennis, in which I was actively interested. Its quick give-and-take suited my temperament, and so fond was I of it that during one summer I played not fewer than four thousand games. As I had an aptitude for tennis and devoted more time to it than did any of my schoolmates, it was not surprising that I acquired skill enough to win the school championship during my senior year. But that success was not due entirely to ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... finds himself holding the respectable and confidential office of master of stores. Then he succeeds in inducing his master to hear him preach a sermon to his negroes. The major is perfectly willing to allow him the full exercise of his talents, and is moved to admiration at his fervency, his aptitude, his knowledge of the Bible, and the worth there must be in such a piece of clergy property. Master Wiley makes his man the offer of purchasing his time, which Harry, under the alias of Peter, accepts, and commences his mission of preaching on ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... was felt to be severe. From childhood Radcliffe had shown that, in addition to this, he had a marked aptitude for drawing, usually held at the service of his profession, but now and again exercised in ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... see the boy showing the same experimental aptitude which brought scientific renown to the man. Like all American boys living on the coast, he was strongly attracted to the water, and early learned to swim. But ordinary swimming was not enough for Benjamin: with some skill he made a pair of wooden paddles for his hands, which enabled him to move ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... "elegant" speeches. The latter was a rough-faced old hero, and gloried in the name of M'Guffin. On these festive occasions General Magruder wears a red woollen cap, and fills the president's chair with great aptitude. ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... said that they abstained from the flesh of jackals, snakes, foxes and cows and buffaloes. Children were frequently adopted, being purchased in large numbers in time of famine, and also occasionally kidnapped. They were brought up to the trade of dacoity, and if they showed sufficient aptitude for it were taken out on expeditions, but otherwise left at home to manage the household affairs. They were married to other adopted children and were known as Ghulami or Slave Badhaks, like the Jangar Banjaras; and like them also, after some generations, when ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... his resources seemed to be at instant command, according as he had need of them. His reading was wide, deep, and varied; he was a most accomplished classical scholar, and had a marvellous readiness and aptitude for classical allusion. He was a wit and a humorist; he could brighten the dullest topics and make them sparkle by odd and droll illustrations, as well as by picturesque allusions and eloquent phrases. He {254} could, when the subject called for it, break suddenly ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... and were making the best of their way to the squadron, the flames had got possession of every part of the town with so powerful a hold, by means of the combustibles laid for the purpose, and by the slightness of the materials of the houses, and their aptitude to take fire, that it was now quite apparent no efforts of the enemy, who now flocked down in great numbers, could possibly stop its ravages, or prevent the entire destruction of the place and all the merchandize it contained. Our detachment under Lieutenant ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr |
