"Fitness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... educational training, to ascertain what they are in each case and how they work, and to control and dispose them with more systematic care. Different minds will always attach different degrees of importance to natural and acquired fitness, but probably all will agree that training bestowed upon the absolutely unfit is worse than useless, and that there are persons whose natural aptitudes are so great that upon them a minimum of training will produce a maximum effect. Such selective features as our present educational ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... incomprehensible. The former rejoice in the scriptures, just as they are, and willingly yield to the obedience of faith: the latter are ever anxious to lower the standard of divine truth to the level of their views of fitness, and to mould its materials into a form ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... made is, in a word, that the following doctrines are perhaps less reactionary than the ardent suffragette might suppose, compatible as they are with an earnest belief in the fitness and the urgent desirability of women of later ages even as Members of Parliament. It may be added that, on this very point, there is a ridiculous argument against woman suffrage—that it is the precursor ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... this point, once and for ever, Eveena. To me this seems matter of right, not of favour or fitness. But favour and fitness here go with right. I could no more endure to place another before or beside you than I could break the special bond between us, and deny the hope of which the Serpent" (laying my hand on her shoulder-clasp, which, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... should have come. I am persuaded, however, that there were laws of intercourse which they never violated,—a code of the cellar, the garret, the common staircase, the doorstep, and the pavement, which perhaps had as deep a foundation in natural fitness as the code ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... were managing crowds of figures and rendering distances successfully. Altichiero puts in homely touches from everyday life with a freedom which shows he has not yet mastered the principles of selection or the dignified fitness which guided the great masters; as, for instance, in the case of the old woman, among the spectators of the Crucifixion, who shows her grief by blowing her nose. He lets himself be drawn off by all manner of trivial detail and of gay costume; but again in such frescoes as S. Lucia, or the "Beheading ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... enough; but it was not the man he had known one year before. Except for the basic features Hansen would not have recognized him; the shadow was gone, the pallor, the touch of death. He was hale and radiant; his skin had the pink glow of alert fitness; except for being dazed, he appeared perfectly natural. In the tense moment of his arrival the little group waited in silence. What had he ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... medicine-ball—you mark out a tennis-court on the quarter deck, you know, and heave a 9-lb. ball over a 5 ft. net—foursomes. Fine exercise." He spoke with the grave enthusiasm of the athlete, to whom the attainment of bodily fitness is very near to godliness indeed. "You can get a game of rugger when the weather is good enough to allow landing, and there's quite a decent little 9-hole golf course. Oh, you ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... enough. The complete success of such a book as 'Robinson' implies, it may be, the precise adaptation of the key to every ward of the lock. The felicitous choice of situation to which Lamb refers gave just the required fitness; and it is of little use to plead that 'Roxana,' 'Colonel Jack,' and others might have done the same trick if only they had received a little filing, or some slight change in shape: a shoemaker might as well argue that if you had only one toe less ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... which extends over many years and travels into many countries. By a peculiar fitness of circumstance the writer began, continued it, and concluded it among distant and diverse scenes. Above all, he was much upon the sea. The character and fortune of the fraternal enemies, the hall and shrubbery of Durrisdeer, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sun which has set, instead of facing the east and foretelling the glory which is coming. Architecture, properly conceived, should always contain within itself a direct appeal to the sense of fitness and propriety, the common-sense of mankind, which is ever ready to recognize reason, whether conveyed by the natural motions of the mute or the no less natural motions of lines. Now history has proved to us, as has been shown, how, when the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... a paternal salute upon her velvety cheek. Possibly Lady Ruth is ready to believe she is entering the Craig family very rapidly; but with a woman's idea of the eternal fitness of small things, she feels very much pleased to know that her future father-in-law ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... more sensible for those who deny the fitness and necessity of prayer to take the ground of the atheist and say plainly "We do not pray, for there is no God to pray to," for to ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... State in this Union a republican form of government." A republican form of government is one in which the power rests with the people, and the whole machinery of government is worked by representatives elected by them. And here, again, we see the fitness between the symbol and the government which is symbolized; for the horns of the two-horned beast have no crowns upon them as do the horns of the dragon and leopard beast, showing that the government which it represents ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... reasonable nor deliberate. The act of secession once consummated, the state connected itself with the Confederacy and representatives had to be sent to Montgomery. Small wonder that the men most prominent in the secession conventions should secure their own election, as little regard to fitness as ability being ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... during the next few days. Mrs. Raleigh would have telegraphed a good deal more than she did had it not been for the great expense from Sardis to Cape Tariff, and Sarah Block was held in restraint, not by pecuniary considerations, but by Sammy's sense of the fitness of things. He nearly always edited her messages, even when he consented to send them. One communication he positively refused to transmit. She came to him ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... got her—had got her! He was somehow certain that she would not draw back now. And in the wonder and ecstasy of that thought, all the world above her head, the stars in their courses, the wood which had frightened her, seemed miracles of beauty and fitness. By such fortune as had never come to man, he had got her! And he murmured over and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... were mere shells, but well arranged for a camp, embracing the Fair Grounds, and some forty acres of flat ground west of it. I instituted drills, and was specially ordered by General Halleck to watch Generals Hurlbut and Strong, and report as to their fitness for their commissions as brigadier-generals. I had known Hurlbut as a young lawyer, in Charleston, South Carolina, before the Mexican War, at which time he took a special interest in military matters, and I found him far above ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... of that objection on your part, Mrs. Peckover; but let me remind you, that I vouch for the uprightness of his character, and his fitness to be trusted with the child, after twenty years' experience of him. You may answer to that, that I am a stranger, too; and I can only ask you, in return, frankly to accept my character and position as the best proofs I can offer you that ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the main text, the abstract question of the fitness of Episcopacy unapproached, not feeling any call to speak of it at length at present; all that I feel necessary to be said is, that bishops being granted, it is clear that we have too few to do their work. But ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... extensive sugar plantations. These are sneeringly designated by the humble classes as sugar noblemen, and not inappropriately so, as nearly all of these aristocratic gentlemen have purchased their titles outright for money. Not the least consideration is exercised by the Spanish throne as to the fitness of these ambitious individuals for honorary distinction. It is a mere question of money, and if this be forthcoming the title follows as a natural sequence. Twenty-five thousand dollars will purchase ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... indeed the chief. These must be grave, not of a double tongue, Not given to wine, not apt to do a wrong Unto the poor, through love to lucre. (Just In this their office, faithful to their trust) The wife must answer here as face doth face; The husband's fitness to his work and place, That ground of scandal or of jealousy Obstructs not proof that he most zealously Performs his office well, for then shall he Be bold in faith, and get a good degree Of credit with the church; yea what is more, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... nor come up. Only go forward keeping the harmony we have chosen to walk in. I am so ignorant of all but men's dress! or perhaps I could speak more intelligibly. But in general, seek your old ends, of beauty and fitnessonly looking to see that things more precious are not pushed out of the way by them, or ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... to his notes.] A Returning Officer can only deal with objections arising out of the nomination paper. He has no jurisdiction to go behind a nomination paper and constitute himself a court of inquiry as to the fitness ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... and battle, Erik had never known the meaning of fear, and it might almost be said that he had never known defeat. His own bravery and skill had inspired every one of his viking followers with the same qualities. As his men were, so were his ships—they were chosen with the main view to their fitness for encountering the battle and the breeze. His own dragonship, which had stood the brunt of many a fierce fight, was named the Iron Ram. It was very large, and the hull timbers at both bow and stern were plated with thick staves of iron from the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... knight, "if your fitness speaks, mine is ready. Methinks the very stepping on this same old pavement hath charmed away the gout which threatened me. Sa—sa—I tread as ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... invigoration that we can impart to the world is but the communication of that refreshing wherewith we ourselves are refreshed of Christ. In every aspect of our relations to the world, we draw all our fitness for all our offices from that Lord, who is and gives everything that we can be or do. Then let us seek by humble faith and habitual contact with Him and His truth, to have our emptiness filled by His fulness, and our unfitness made ready for all ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... this world conflagration started, a man's physical fitness was merely a matter of individual interest. The general health of the community was important, but that fact was not sufficiently pressing to do much more than attract the attention of the health boards, and perhaps a few recently organized and semi-philanthropic bodies. ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... passage through a thick wood, which covered the distance between entirely. The spot chosen for the meeting was well known to both parties, and we shall not pretend, at this time of day, to limit the knowledge of its sweet fitness for the purposes of love, to them alone. They had tasted of its sweets a thousand times, and could well understand and appreciate that air of romantic and fairy-like seclusion which so much distinguished it, and which ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Miss-Mrs. Norton, Dr. Etherington had walked away the moment his daughter ended her recital, or she might have met with a disagreeable commentary on her notions concerning the fitness of associations. Anna herself looked earnestly at her governess, and I saw a flush mantle over her sweet face that reminded me of the ruddiness of morn. Her soft eyes then fell to the floor, and it was ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... notable occasion of shewing his fitness for this employment of Orator was manifested in a letter to King James, upon the occasion of his sending that University his book called "Basilicon Doron;"[9] and their Orator was to acknowledge this great honour, and return their gratitude to his Majesty ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... And jest behind them come a lot of furrin laborers, rough and rowdy-lookin', with no more expression in their faces than a mule or any other animal. "Do they know enough to vote?" sez I. "As for the fitness for votin' it is pretty even on both sides. Good intelligent men ortn't to lose the right of suffrage for the vice and ignorance of some of their sect, and that argument is jest as strong ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... may also refer to the duty of veracity. The word arete; signifies 'force,' and was originally used as a property of bodies, plants, or animals. {184} At first it had no ethical import. In Attic usage it came to signify aptness or fitness of manhood for public life. And this signification has shaped the future meaning of its Latin equivalent—virtus (from vis, strength, and ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... intimacy with her. He mentions the name of the girl to his parents, and uncles and aunts in the house, and they agree or disagree, as the case may be. Sometimes marriages are arranged by the parents of the young people themselves. Having agreed regarding the fitness of the bride, the young man's parents send a male representative of the family, or in some cases a man unconnected with the family, to arrange matters with the parents of the bride. The latter then ascertain their daughter's wishes. According to the late U Jeeban Roy, the daughters ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... like. How the graces of the Palais Royal will rejoice! There is a peculiar fitness in this appointment; for is not his Lordship son-in-law to old Goldsmid, whilom editor of the Anti-Galliean, and for many years an honoured and withal notorious resident of Paris! Of course BEN D'ISRAELI, his Lordship's friend, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... reluctant '12' from his adored. Fancy a drunken Delaware Democrat—a SAULSBURY—flourishing a revolver, and gurgling out '54.40' to the Sergeant-at-Arms in particular, and decency in general, as a proof of his fitness to be regarded as a mate for his Southern colleagues. Fancy Brignoli singing '1.2.3,' as he reminds us by his good singing and wooden acting of a nightingale ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... totally ignorant of legal forms. There were not three in each hundred who had ever seen the inside of a courthouse, and they were quite as few who had once looked upon a law-book! Where such was the case, some principle of appointment was of course necessary, other than that which required fitness, by training, for the office conferred; and it is probable that the rule adopted was but little different to that in force among those who have the appointing power, where no such circumstances restrict ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... my soul. I recognize the finger of Heaven—the will of the Almighty in the accomplishment of your union, despite of all my projects, all my intrigues to prevent it. I am satisfied, moreover, that there is in this alliance a fitness and a propriety which will insure your happiness: and may the spirit of my sainted mother look down from the empyrean palace where she dwells, and bless you both, even as I now implore the divine mercy to shed its beauties and diffuse its ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... and therefore I wish that I could wash my hands of it." His old friend still stared at him. "It is like sacrilege to me, attempting this without feeling one's own fitness for the work. It unmans me,—this necessity of doing that which I know I cannot do with ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... that favored kingdom was too pure to be breathed by a slave. Lord Stowell, in answering that legal argument, said that after painful and laborious research into historical records, he did not find anything touching the peculiar fitness of the English atmosphere for respiration during the ten centuries that slaves had ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... life-partner, were she disposed to relinquish the chance of future honors for present ease and happiness, there were many aspirants to the distinction; she might choose freely among the eligible bachelors of her acquaintance. Two only of these, however, seemed to appeal to her sense of fitness—Murray ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... observed, "those things which are most surely believed among the disciples."* "It is an account," says Bishop Gore, "which there is no evidence to show the imagination of an early Christian capable of producing; for its consummate fitness, reserve, sobriety, and loftiness are unquestionable. What solid reason is there for not accepting it?" It is extraordinarily difficult to imagine that St. Luke, whose accuracy and care have been, ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... the Divine Will? Then what kind of nature is that by which they act apart from the Divine Will? Again, there is the question—How do these deputy-forces co-operate in each particular phenomenon, if the presiding Will is not there present to control them? Either an organ which develops into fitness for its function, develops by the co-operation of these forces under the direction of Mind then present, or it so develops in the absence of Mind. If it develops in the absence of Mind, the hypothesis ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... railings of Belgrave Square, cursed with consciousness of itself, fears of the judgment of the other railings, and doubts of their fitness to stand in the same row with it. You are cold, mistrustful, cruel to nervous or clumsy people, and more afraid of the criticisms of those with whom you dance and dine than of your conscience. All of which prevents you ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... life by means of a wealthy marriage instead of endeavouring to benefit her generation in becoming a legislator. She was a fitting daughter of the land of the Southern Sun, whose sons were among the first to admit their sisters to equal citizenship with themselves, and she brilliantly proved her fitness for her right by her wonderful ability on the hustings, which had been free from any vocal shortcoming and unacquainted with hesitation in replying to the knottiest question ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... Before the year ended, Mrs. Ware had a boy baby of her own to increase her occupations and her happiness. It lived a few bright years, long enough to become a very attractive child and to give a severe wrench to her heart when it left her. This experience seems to have a certain fitness in a life in which every joy was to bring sorrow and every sorrow, by sheer will, was to be turned ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... usefulness to the public, and enumerate the services, which he has performed to mankind and society. What praise, even of an inanimate form, if the regularity and elegance of its parts destroy not its fitness for any useful purpose! And how satisfactory an apology for any disproportion or seeming deformity, if we can show the necessity of that particular construction for the use intended! A ship appears more beautiful ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... Barton certainly found their romantic proclivities came into collision with their preconceived ideas of the fitness of things. Mrs. Marsden, their landlady, was a kind soul who did her best; but she had all her farm work and a large family of children to cope with, so it was small wonder that cobwebs hung in the passages and the dust lay thick and untouched. It is sometimes wiser not to see behind the scenes ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... in her case which were lacking in all the other cases which suggest a certain fitness, if not inevitability, in her assumption. She was conceived without sin,—never had any breath of sin tainted her. Was it then possible that she should be holden by death? Surely, in any case, it was impossible that her holy body should see corruption: we cannot think of ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... town every day; but I still think it probable that he will go to Scotland.(1155) That country is very clamorous for it. If the King does send him, it should not be with that sword of mercy with which the present family have governed those people. All the world agrees in the fitness of severity to highwaymen, for the sake of the innocent who suffer; then can rigour be ill-placed against banditti. who have so terrified, pillaged, and injured the poor people in Cumberland, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and the counties through which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... see the slaves' cut of hair, cropping out in their minds as well as on their pates; and they come with their barbarous lingo to flatter us and not to rule us. To these, I say, you should look, and then you need not trouble yourself about your own fitness to contend in such a noble arena: there is no reason why you should either learn what has to be learned, or practise what has to be practised, and only when thoroughly prepared enter ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato
... of England, with reference to her fitness to enter upon the impending strife, differed from those of both Holland and France. Although monarchical in government, and with much real power in the king's hands, the latter was not able to direct the policy of the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... Him, whence all blessings emanated, any but the soundest, the most healthy, fat and beautiful animals; which were always examined with the closest and most exact attention. This ceremonial, which doubtless had its origin in gratitude, or in some ideas of fitness and propriety, at length, degenerated into trifling niceties and superstitious ceremonies. And it having been once imagined that no favour was to be looked for from the gods, when the victim was imperfect, the idea of perfection was united with abundance ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... cheapest food you can buy. What you want, my child, is variety. However cheaply you live, secure four things: First, a change of fare from day to day, so as to have a good appetite; Second, simplicity, each day, in the table, so as to lose but little in chips; Third, fitness of things there, as hot plates for your mutton and cold ones for your butter, so that what you have may be of the best; and, first, second, third, and last, love between you and Leander. This last sauce, says Solomon, answers even for herbs. And you know the Emperors ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... General D'Hubert stretched out on his back with his hands over his eyes, or lying on his breast with his face buried in a cushion, made the full pilgrimage of emotions. Nauseating disgust at the absurdity of the situation, doubt of his own fitness to conduct his existence, and mistrust of his best sentiments (for what the devil did he want to go to Fouche for?)—he knew them all in turn. "I am an idiot, neither more nor less," he thought—"A sensitive ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... it is assumed that the men have the power to be moved by these things, and whether they are good or poor artists will depend on the quality of their feeling and the fitness of ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... wages, but the added ten dollar note he waved aside. "No, I thank you, Mr. Featherton," he said, "what I did, I did from a belief in your fitness for the place, and out of loyalty to my employer. I don't want ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Fitness and readiness to act, the positive element in morale, is a matter not of good and bad alone, but of degree. Persistence, courage, energy, initiative, may vary from zero upward without limit. Perhaps the most important dividing line—one that has already ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... preferring a general to any special knowledge. The fitness resulting will depend upon yourself. And when you marry you will, as you know, be rid of the responsibility. So far your father and you are of one mind; he does not think it fair that a married man should be burdened with any ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... can guess pretty well what I have come to say, Bertrand," Everton said, after the door had closed behind the outgoing shorthand man. "I have been putting it off in the hope that your own sense of the fitness of things would come to the rescue. I may be old-fashioned and out of touch with the times and the manners of the new generation, but I can't forget that I am a father, or that common decency ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... boxes, etc., and all the time the boat is bumping up the sloping sand sideways and unharmed apparently by the seas bursting on its outside. Ugly is no word for them, but fit they were, though Ruskin's "Beauty of Fitness" did not appear. They have but few timbers, but these are heavy, and they have only three planks on either side and two on the bottom, heavy teak planks sewn together! This coarse sewing with cocoa-nut fibre cord laces a straw rope against the inside of ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... respecting the relations of lovers I believe you will accept. But what we too often doubt is the fitness of the continuance of such a relation throughout the whole of human life. We think it right in the lover and mistress, not in the husband and wife. That is to say, we think that a reverent and tender duty is due to one whose affection we still doubt, and whose character we as yet do ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... answer to her appeal there came a sudden quietness of nerve and a sense of strength and fitness for her work. Quickly she entered the house and went again to ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... the same time foresaw and foredoomed everything. All that was to happen in this universe did God foresee and foredoom, and lo! it cometh to pass. He appointed me for them and for their sins, that for them I might make prayer and exhortation. Not for my fitness or my strength was I chosen, but only through the grace of His mercy and His long-suffering. For I assure thee, Joshua, not on account of the excellence of this people wilt thou destroy the heathens; all the fastnesses of heaven and the foundations ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... in his judgment it be deemed advisable, he may direct any person in his department to be cited before the regular examining board, and such board shall examine into and report upon the qualifications, efficiency, and general fitness for the position held, or for any position in the same or a lower grade, of the person so cited to appear; and furthermore, any person in the service engaged in active outdoor duties may be cited to appear ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... growing upon him, this delicious realization of what she had come to stand for in his life. She had crept into his heart and he was glad. Innate gallantry and a sense of the fitness of things had kept him from uttering one word of love to this young, trusting, unconscious girl. He was very young—stupidly young, he felt—but he was old enough to know that she would not understand. He was content ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... to the road, or a vineyard with grapes—'twas just the time of the ripening of grapes—then the Turkish horsemen would be upon him. Such loiterers escaped but seldom. And for this business the Turks had a particular fitness, so quickly did they come and depart. The Christian knights were clad in armour, a great defense, indeed, against arrows and stones, but a great hindrance if a man would move quickly; the horses also had armour on them. Why do they set men on horses but that they may ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... is here spoken of; and the affirmative ever, meaning always, or at any time, in stead of being a fit alternative for seldom, makes nonsense of the sentence, and violates the rule respecting the order and fitness of time: unless we change or to if, and say, "seldom, if ever." But in sentences like the following, the adverb appears to express, not time, but degree; and for the latter sense ever is preferable to never, because the degree ought to be possible, rather than impossible: "Ever ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... alive to the exhilarating quality of the air. They curvetted and danced over the sand, tossing their arched necks and lifting their feet daintily as though they were conscious of the beauty and fitness ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... hope, past love—as strong and nearly as springy as a hickory sapling. He had waited half his life for this. Calvin slowly smiled in bitterness and self-contempt; a pretty figure for a young girl to admire, he thought, losing the sense of mere physical fitness. Anyhow Lucy was supremely happy and safe, and he had accomplished it. He was glad that he had been so industrious and successful. Lucy could have almost anything she wanted—pretty clothes and rings with real jewels, necklaces hung ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... regard to the men who are to manage the mines, seeing that a man may not become captain or mate of a river steamboat without some certificate on competency, nor drive her engines before he has passed an examination to prove his fitness, surely it is not too much to say that the mine manager or engineer, to whose care are often confided the lives of hundreds of men, and the expenditure of thousands of pounds, should be required to obtain a recognised diploma to prove his qualifications. The examinations might be made comparatively ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... not, however, imagine, that I was, during this state of abandoned libertinism, so fully convinced of the fitness of my own conduct, as to be free from uneasiness. I knew very well, that I might justly be deemed the pest of society, and that such proceedings must terminate in the destruction of my health and fortune; but to admit thoughts of this kind was ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... obliged to mutter something about ladies and no dress- coats, but this was silenced, and he made a promise contingent on Lance's fitness. He was puzzled by the relations in which Mr. Staples seemed to stand with the lay-rector; but he found that they were not of business, only that elections and county affairs brought them together, and that Mr. Underwood was regarded with a sort of compassion by the men of his own standing, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... intuitive sense of the fitness of things, and she couldn't help thinking that the Van Ness sisters, though good-hearted and good- natured, were of a type apt to be a trifle too conspicuous in a large hotel. The Farringtons were quiet-mannered folk, and Patty had often noticed ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... on this point appear only as the shadow of a speculation, or as one of those impressions upon the mind which are allowable for a time as guides to thought and research. He who labours in experimental inquiries, knows how numerous these are, and how often their apparent fitness and beauty vanish before the progress and development ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... like a porcupine, all curls in the afternoon, like a poodle, with more flounces than curl-papers, and more lovers than curls. Miss Phoebe is fitter for town than country; and to do her justice, she has a consciousness of that fitness, and turns her steps townward as often as she can. She is gone to B—— to-day with her last and principal lover, a recruiting sergeant—a man as tall as Sergeant Kite, and as impudent. Some day or other he will ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... money to Wilmot he was taking a first step toward making it impossible. For Barbara herself Blizzard had at this time no more feeling than for a pawn upon a chess-board. It pleased his sense of fitness to know she was beautiful; and to be told that she was like sunshine ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... to the heads of departments full of details as to the turn-out of his books. Everything, from the beginning to the end of the issue of a work—the first inspection of the MS., the consultation with confidential friends as to its fitness for publication, the form in which it was to appear, the correction of the proofs, the binding, title, and final advertisement—engaged his closest attention. Besides the elegant appearance of his books, he also aimed at raising the standard of the literature which he published. He had to criticize ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... which the government may hope to secure competent weather prognostigators is in the establishment of regular training schools for its prophets. The candidate should be examined as to fitness, just as the applicant for a West Point cadetship. He should possess inherited tendencies toward rheumatism as a primary qualification. Then, after serving three years before the mast and putting in an equal ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... that may contribute to its being more or less wholesome. The killing of animals by the easiest means, and not previously abusing them by over-driving, or in any other way, materially affects their fitness for food, and ought therefore to be carefully attended to. The high flavour, or taint in meat, which so many English palates prefer, is in fact the commencement of putrefaction; and of course meat in this state is very improper for food, particularly for persons with any tendency to putrid ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... given poppa opportunities for confessing this clandestine business, but in his paternal wisdom he had not taken them. I was not prepared, therefore, to be very responsive when, from a mere desire to indulge his sense of the fitness of things, poppa endeavoured to probe my sentiments with regard to Mr. Page by moonlight on the Grand Canal. To begin with, I wasn't sure of them—so much depended upon what Arthur had been doing; and besides, I felt that the perfect confidence which should exist between father ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... which he had secured the presence of Margherita, it was the news of Chigi's approaching marriage which determined Raphael to accede to his request. Though Agostino had worded his allusions to his betrothed so skilfully that they applied with equal fitness to either Imperia or Maria Dovizio, Raphael never doubted that he referred to the latter. The news simply confirmed the suspicions which he had long entertained, and with characteristic magnanimity, he determined to leave Maria the highest masterpiece ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... President of Columbian College, was chosen Moderator, and John S. Poler, clerk. After approving the credentials of the delegates the Moderator stated the purpose of the meeting. He further stated that the council had also been asked to examine William J. Walker as to his fitness and qualification for the gospel ministry, and if found worthy to ordain him, as the church had called him as its pastor and recommended his ordination.[33] It was so ordered and done by ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... do by the judgments of others: Thus did Saul, when he killed the priests of the Lord (1 Sam 22:18); and thus did Darius, when he cast Daniel into the lions' den (Dan 6:7). But rather labour to see the true cause of trouble, which is sin; and to attain to a fitness to be delivered out thence, and that is by repentance, and amendment of life. If any object, That God oft-times delivers his of mere grace: I answer, That's no thanks to them; besides, we must mind our duty. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the mate below, but in the circumstances interference was impossible, and, with a low-voiced good-night, he went below. Here his gaze fell on William Henry, who was slumbering peacefully, and, with a hazy idea of the eternal fitness of things, he raised the youth in his arms, and, despite his sleepy protests, deposited him in the mate's bunk. Then, with head and heart both aching, he retired ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... bring him to see, himself, what is proper or improper," resumed Lady Verner. "He has no sense of the fitness of things. He would go as unblushingly through the village with that black kettle held out before him, as he would if it were her Majesty's crown, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of disillusion came on the occasion of a visit made by the two sisters to Strassburg. In a world that was alien to her Friederike lost something of the charm which was derived from her perfect fitness to her native surroundings, and it was brought home to Goethe that there must be a rude awakening from the dream of the last few months. In May, 1771, he paid a visit to Sesenheim which lasted several weeks, and the picture we have of his state ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... season of stress that is testing the fitness of political systems and the validity of political philosophies. Each stress stems in part from causes peculiar to itself. But every stress is a reflection ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... possessed no pretension, and his selection was a fatal blunder. In saying this, there is no reflection on the private character of the mistaken leader; he paid for the wrong estimation he held of his own fitness with his life, and the fault rests with those who placed him in a position where he also was responsible for the lives of others. After passing in review the different expeditions that have added so much lustre to our history, and striving to judge dispassionately of the ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... well. She had been the Camerons' guest many times that summer, finding in the luxury and beauty of their surroundings something that entered with a strange aptness into her own nature. It was as if it were hers by right of fitness. And this was the life that might be ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... thereby putting herself beyond the pale of rightful sympathy. Even while she protested devotion, self looked out seeking personal advantage. And that devotion, in itself, shocked Damaris' sense of fitness where it involved her father. It wasn't Theresa's place to talk ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... sight of that great mosaic, from the Fillmore-street hill, at once creates a nerve-soothing impression most uncommon in international expositions, and for that matter, in any architectural aggregate. One is at once struck with the fitness of the location and of the scheme of architecture. Personally, I am greatly impressed with the architectural scheme and the consistency of its application to the whole. I fear that the two men, Mr. Willis Polk and Mr. Edward Bennett, who laid the foundation for the plan, will never ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... the Conservatory, the directors put him through his paces, after the usual custom, to prove his fitness for the honor that had been thrust upon him. He played first upon the piano, and the committee advised together in whispered monotone. Then they asked him to play on the organ, and there was more consultation, with argument which was punctuated by rolling adjectives and many ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... that Young's words expressed; for at this definite point to which we had come, the path that we had come by very reasonably might end—so leaving us in this lonely region among the clouds to die slowly for lack of food. And there was a certain fitness in our having made our way so far among the dead only ourselves to die that added sombre fancies to our environment of sombre realities. Yet there was a heartiness in Young's resolutely expressed determination to search for a way ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... hit it. They pay, and this fellow Legrand is satisfied. He has no sense of the fitness of things, yet this house has the name of ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... understand you. But, if Sarudine won't marry you, well—that is a thing to be thankful for. You know now, and you must have known before, what a base, common fellow he really is, in spite of his good looks and his fitness for amours. All that he has is beauty, and you have now ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... almost invariably in every other, a candidate is admitted at first as a postulant for a period of six months—a sort of preliminary trial of her fitness for the religious life. She wears ordinary clothes during this time—plain and black, of course, but not of any prescribed shape. Sometimes, however, she is required by custom to wear a plain black cap. After six months she is admitted as a novice—i.e., she solemnly puts off the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... picked out from the Director of Military Operations' staff to perform the functions of Staff Officer and A.D.C. He possessed the merit amongst many others of being young and of looking younger, and he lost no time in exhibiting his remarkable fitness for the post. For without one moment's hesitation he bereft his club in Pall Mall of the services of a youth of seventeen, who by some mysterious process became eighteen then and there, whom he converted into a private of Foot, whom he fitted out with a trousseau ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... to vital piety, and they cast it out. Today even there are still those among us who oppose and resist the use of the Catechism under the false notion that it is the enemy of practical religion. Their idea of religion is the Methodistic notion. Fitness for church-membership, according to their view, comes through the pressure and appointments of the big meeting. Sinners must come to a bench for mourning, or they must stand up in the congregation, or they must ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... appearance; you were then new to command, doubtful as to your own powers, and diffident with those older than yourself. Now for two years you have thought and acted for yourself, and have shown yourself capable of making a mark even among men like the knights of St. John, both in valour and in fitness to command. You saved St. Nicholas, you saved the life of the grand master; and in the order of the day he issued on the morning we left, granting you three months' leave for the recovery of your wounds, he took the opportunity of recording, ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... love again. People always do. And at any rate by this time he was in a state of moral fitness that made it imperative. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... and daughter concerning this proposal, Evelyn had no reason to give for her opposition, except that she did not love him. This point Mrs. Mavick skillfully evaded and minimized. Of course she would love him in time. The happiest marriages were founded on social fitness and the judgment of parents, and not on the inexperienced fancies of young girls. And in this case things had gone too far to retreat. Lord Montague's attentions had been too open and undisguised. He had been treated almost as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... triumph, but a victory for honest government in which all patriotic citizens might well rejoice. Much against his own will, after repeated solicitation on the part of leading Democrats, and many Republicans, who appreciated his character and fitness, he again consented to become the candidate of his party for responsible office; and, at the election which followed, so great was the desire for a change in municipal matters, and so general the confidence in Mr. Cleveland as the man under whose direction the needed reform might be effected, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... approached these giant dinosaurs in size, and naturally the first point of interest is the architecture of the skeleton. The backbone is indeed a marvel. The fitness of the construction consists, like that of the American truss-bridge, in attaining the maximum of strength with the minimum of weight. It is brought about by dispensing with every cubic millimeter of bone which can ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... women's rights; she quietly took all she wanted, and no one denied her claim, because she did not undertake what she could not carry out, but unconsciously used the all-powerful right of her own influence to win from others any privilege for which she had proved her fitness. Nan attempted all sorts of things, undaunted by direful failures, and clamored fiercely to be allowed to do every thing that the boys did. They laughed at her, hustled her out of the way, and protested against her meddling with their affairs. But she would not be quenched and she would ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... founded in the nature and reason of things: that every man is endued with such powers ana faculties of mind, as render him capable of seeing, and taking notice of this law; and also with such a sense and judgment of the reasonableness and fitness of conforming his actions to it, that he cannot but in his own mind acquit himself when he does so; and condemn himself when he does otherwise.' And as to the second—viz., Phil, iv., 8, where the same apostle recommends the practice of Virtue, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... where these beautiful and eminently sensible ideals you have so eloquently outlined are practiced, where scientists, regardless of biological fitness, share with each other their advances from moment to moment and so add to the security of civilization from day to day. Is it in the great research foundations whose unlimited funds are used to lure promising young ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... selected for this important position. Several other vigorous Radicals were on the same scent. Mr. Campbell-Bannerman said it was quite true the Duke had become Commander-in-Chief. This was because of his fitness; because he was practically the senior officer available, and because he had gained experience in both regimental and staff duties, having filled with great credit the high office of Commander-in-Chief at Bombay. Herculean Mr. Allan, of Gateshead, sought for information how many months the Duke ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... the opportunities for personal development that men have. All the activities hitherto reserved to men must at least be open to them, and many of these activities, certain functions of citizenship[21] for example, must be expected of them. Moreover, whatever the lines may be along which the fitness of women to labor will be experimentally determined, the underlying position must be established that for the sake of individual and race character she is to be a producer as well as a consumer of social values.[22] As soon as this ethical necessity is ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... of her lithe limbs and fell about her as in showers of diamonds. Flowers and ferns upon the pool's edge, caught by the little waves of overflow, her sport sent shoreward, bowed to her as in a merry homage to her grace, her fitness for the spot and for the sport to which she now abandoned herself utterly, plunging gaily into the deepest waters of the basin. From side to side of its narrow depths she sped rapidly, the blue-white of the spring water showing her lithe limbs in perfect grace of motion made mystically ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... are those who feel that to speak of religion on a week-day reveals a lack of the sense of the fitness of things, while other good people are quite sure that it is a wholly irreverent thing to speak of business on a Sunday. We tend to dwell alternately in two sets of apartments, the practical and ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... for address to the Duke only, though the Duchess-mother was present; the parenthetical comparison of Morland to the Son of Croesus is entirely omitted; and there are other verbal changes, apparently suggested by Morland's closer information as he approached Turin, or by his sense of fitness at the moment—in illustration of which the reader may compare the very strong passage about "the Neros of all times and ages" as we have just rendered it from the draft with the same passage as we have ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... the day will then inspect the guard with especial reference for its fitness for the duty for which it is detailed and will select, as prescribed in paragraphs 140 and 141, the necessary orderlies and color sentinels. The men found unfit for guard will be returned to quarters and will be replaced by others found to be suitable, ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... antagonistic political views are presumed to be represented. This indicates that the day is not far off when the so-called race question will cease to be a political factor, and that all political parties will recognize merit and not race, fitness and not color, experience and not religion, ability and not nationality as the tests by which persons must be judged, not only in the administration of the government but in the industrial field as well. For the accomplishment of these desirable purposes, men of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... members of the new Parliament, thus depriving the places they represented of their right of choosing representatives, but they were to constitute a Committee of Revision, and in this capacity to determine the validity of each election and the fitness of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... lay is quite in the medieval manner, and fitly concludes this chapter. We are left absolutely in the dark as to whether the knight and the lady came together at last. I for one do not blame Marie for this, as with the subtle sense of the fitness of things that belongs to all great artists she saw how much more effective it would be to leave matters as they were between the lovers. There are those who will blame her for her inconclusiveness; but let them bear in mind that just because of what ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... strengthens the image, the idea of change from liveliness to quiet; for that which was awake now sleeps; and the more full the picture of stillness, the more awake is the mind of the reader, awakened by the fitness and felicity of the image. The substitution of sweet for calm is, in a less degree, similarly enlivening; for, used in such conjunction, sweet is more individual and subtle, and imports more life, and thus helps the distinctness and vividness ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... also taken for the fitness of the stuff: and there was a plentiful stock of different kinds of cloth, serge, and Goetting stuff, besides the requisite lining; so that, as far as the materials were concerned, we might well venture to be seen. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... significance of some magnitude. So the canon of honorific waste may, immediately or remotely, influence the sense of duty, the sense of beauty, the sense of utility, the sense of devotional or ritualistic fitness, and the scientific sense ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... they chatted formed a violent contrast. If Drew suggested the Viking type, Parmalee would, with equal fitness, have filled the role of a troubadour. The one was powerful and direct, the other suave and subtle. One could conceive of Drew's wielding a broad axe, but would have put in Parmalee's hands a rapier. Each had his own separate and distinct ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... of the death of Attila, under all its manifold variations, is never without a certain natural fitness for consistent and ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... furnished in great abundance and variety small poles for the framework of the kuahu, the altar, the holy place of the halau, and sweet-scented leaves and flowers suitable for its decoration. A spirit of fitness, however, limited choice among these to certain species that were deemed acceptable to the goddess because they were reckoned as among her favorite forms of metamorphosis. To go outside this ordained and traditional ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... homogeneous, attractive, and varied treasury. No one else among lyrists within the period defined, has such unfailing freshness: so much variety within the sphere prescribed to himself: such closeness to nature, whether in description or in feeling: such easy fitness in language: melody so unforced and delightful. His dull pages are much less frequent: he has more lines, in his own phrase, 'born ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... [Specific subservience.] Expedience. — N. expedience, expediency; desirableness, desirability &c. adj.; fitness &c. (agreement) 23; utility &c. 644; propriety; opportunism; advantage. high time &c. (occasion) 134. V. be expedient &c. Adj.; suit &c. (agree) 23; befit; suit the time, befit the time, suit the season, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... penetrating power of spiritual insight. The mystery of conversion. The paradox of Self-attainment and the necessity for selflessness. The Oriental teachings regarding the Self. The wisdom of the Illumined Master. The test of fitness for Nirvana. What caused Buddha the greatest anxiety? Experiences of Oriental sages and their testimony. What correlation exists between Buddha's desire and the attainment of Cosmic Consciousness ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... is not necessarily or usually transmitted from generation to generation, while a seat in the House of Lords is an inheritable privilege, it will be readily believed that there is a considerable number of peers with no natural or acquired fitness for legislative duties,—men whose dullness in debate, and whose utter incapacity to comprehend any question of public interest or importance, cannot be adequately described. They speak occasionally, from a certain ill-defined sense of what may be due to their position, yet are obviously ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... service, had been agitating the village. Under my trees the children gathered of late afternoons and imitated the grown-up folk in their melodies. From the verandas and from the church at night issued the peculiar strain of the himene, somehow bringing to me, lying on my mat under the stars, a sense of fitness to the prospect—the clear heavens, the purple lagoon, the wind in the groves, and the low rumble ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... old veterans of the "press gang," to whom I spoke of my design, shrugged their shoulders, and said I had better try my hand at almost any thing else. But I was sanguine that I could succeed, though hundreds had failed before me. I felt that I possessed a peculiar fitness for the work, and could give a peculiar charm to a newspaper that would at once take it to the hearts ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... in which way the wages of the labourer are consumed, we must follow them into the labourer's own hands. As much as is necessary to keep the productive labourer in perfect health and fitness for his employment, may be said to be consumed productively. To this should be added what he expends in rearing children to the age at which they become capable of productive industry. If the state of the market for labour be such as ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... the logical results would land you in a hole from which I'd feel a call by and by to try to pull you out. See?—As a promise to keep inside of your income would apparently embitter life to you, I won't ask for it, merely suggesting the fitness of trying to observe such a restriction. Even as regards your power to throw it away, there'll be a lot more of it to throw if you respect your capital. However, the money is yours, to do exactly what you please with, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... a good man's duty, in the name of any possible God, to disbelieve; and just because she was true, authority had immense power over her. The very sweetness of their nature forbids such to doubt the fitness of others. ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... that thou wilt not do the same unto me," and Moses swore not to leave him without his consent,[108] and he remained with Jethro, who made him the shepherd of his flocks. By the way he tended the sheep, God saw his fitness to be the shepherd of His people, for God never gives an exalted office to a man until He has tested him in little things. Thus Moses and David were tried as shepherds of flocks, and only after they had proved their ability as such, He gave them ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... neighbourhood. They discovered, partly at this time, and partly from other visitors, that he was the younger son of the squire of Downhill, who had been made to take Holy Orders without any special fitness for it, because there was a living likely soon to be ready for him, and in the meantime he was living at home, an amiable, harmless young man, but bred up so as to have no idea of the duties of his vocation, and sharing freely in the sports of his family, acting as if he believed, like his ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looked abstractedly into the distance and undertook no definite reply. Possibly he had responded to Ruskin; more probably to some divine young sense of truth and fitness such as forms the natural endowment, by no means uncommon, of right-minded youth. Or it may be that he had simply reached the "critical" age, when Idealism calls the Daily Practicalities to its bar and delivers its harsh, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... beginning to submit that he hoped his son, the quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and taught, as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as a hound, might not have been educated on quite a right plan in some undiscovered respect, when Mr Dombey angrily repeating 'The usual return!' led the Major away. And the Major being heavy to hoist into Mr Dombey's carriage, elevated in mid-air, and having to stop and swear that he ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... quickly made up his mind as to the beauty, grace, and wit of the royal maiden, and her fitness to become a king's bride, bent towards her as she was thus humbly employed, and in a low ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... world with necessary products—industrious citizens, contributing their proportion to aid on the advancing civilization of the country;—self-providing artizans vindicating their people from the never-ceasing charge of a fitness for servile positions. ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... Heath look like the Merrie England of a comic opera. Yet they were pretty in their way; many were designed by able architects, and pleased with a balanced sense of proportion and an impression of beauty and fitness. Many, of course, lacked this, were but cheap and clumsy imitations of a prevailing mode, but, taken all together, the effect was agreeable, the effect of the varied reds, russet, and scarlet and warm crimson against the fresh green of the grass and ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... cared for him. Vera, who had been to her always a mother rather than a sister, seemed an infinite age. It was ridiculous that Vera should fall in love—Vera so stately and stern and removed from passion. Those days were over for Vera, and, with her strong sense of duty and the fitness of things, she would realise that. Moreover Nina could not believe that Lawrence cared for Vera. Vera was not the figure to be loved in that way. Vera's romance had been with Markovitch years and years ago, and now, whenever Nina looked at Markovitch, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... may not be able to read or write, he yet has his preferences in music and art, and possesses definite ideas as to the eternal fitness of things. In Italy, many of the best paintings being in churches, and all the galleries being free on certain days, the common people absorb a goodly modicum of art education without being aware of it. I have heard market-women compare the merits of Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, and stupid ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... their marrow-bones, white with terror, praying with extraordinary fervency, each trying his best to master the ridiculous jargon they had heard me use, but employing it with an even greater disregard of sense and fitness than I did. Away over on the next range of hills, toward camp, was something that looked like a giant spider, scrambling up the steep side of the sand-hill, and sliding down a trifle faster than it got up. It was Lame Dave, who had abandoned his equine trust, to come up ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... becomes a very different matter when we are called upon to give an opinion in cases where ossification of the cartilage is only just commencing. Whether the result of our examination is to decide the sale or purchase of an animal, to determine his fitness or otherwise to enter the show-ring, or to merely advise a client as to whether or no a side-bone is in course of formation, our position is equally difficult, and in either case our ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... essentially blind. In its pathological form, it may indicate a want, and even develop an unconscious appetency, but it can not, itself, reveal an object, any more than the feeling of hunger can reveal the actual presence, or determine the character and fitness, of any food. An undefinable fear, a mysterious presentiment, an instinctive yearning, a hunger of the soul, these are all irrational emotions which can never rise to the dignity of knowledge. An object must be conjured by the imagination, or conceived by the understanding, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... conceive that when you are choosing men to fill situations for which the very first and most indispensable qualification is familiarity with foreign languages, it would be difficult to find a better test of their fitness ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Wilfer. 'I make false statements, it appears? So be it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely my husband may. The one thing is not more unnatural than the other. There seems a fitness in the arrangement. By all means!' Assuming, with a shiver ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... seemed to go off very smoothly. He believed the speaker implicitly, when he stated the usual lie about having no pledges to redeem, and that he was free to choose his committee with regard only to superior fitness, etc., and was shocked when Floyd told him that a written contract had been drawn up and signed, before the legislature met, wherein the principal clerkships had been disposed of to party advantage. It was his second introduction ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... his History of Egypt with the conquest of Alexander the Great. There is a sense of dramatic fitness in this selection, for, with the coming of the Macedonians, the sceptre of authority passed for ever out of the hand of the Egyptian. For several centuries the power of the race had been declining, and foreign ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... Polehampton, to beard him in a sort of den that contained a number of shelves of books selected for their glittering back decoration. They gave the impression that Mr. Polehampton wished to suggest to his visitors the fitness and propriety of clothing their walls with the same gilt cloth. They gave that idea, but I think that, actually, Mr. Polehampton took an aesthetic delight in the gilding. He was not a publisher by nature. He had drifted into the trade and success, but beneath a polish of acquaintance ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... own. And now all that remained for him was to slip quietly and unprotestingly into the current which clawed and gnawed at his feet. He had been tried too long; the test, from the first, had been too crucial. He might, in time, even find some solacing thought in the fitness between the act and its environment—here he could fling himself into an obliterating Niagara, not of falling waters, but of falling men and women. Yes, it was a stage all prepared and set for the mean ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... case of a transference of something that was happening in the brain to the extremities. My feet were quite warm to the palm of my hand, but to my sense they were frozen. But what a testimony to the fitness of the American idiom, "cold feet," as signifying a depressed and desponding mood! But, somehow or other, the tale was finished and the "notion" was at last out of my head. I have gone into all this detail about "A Fragment of Life" because I have been assured in many quarters that it ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... the leaf readily suggested the name of lanceolatum, an epithet by which it has been generally distinguished in this country, and which, from its extreme fitness, we have continued, notwithstanding young Professor LINNAEUS has given it that of glaucum, though, at the same time, his illustrious father had distinguished another species by the synonymous term ...
— The Botanical Magazine v 2 - or Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... Ellen joyfully allotted the whole morning to the examination and trial of her new possessions; and as soon as breakfast was over and the room clear, she set about it. She first went through the desk and everything in it, making a running commentary on the excellence, fitness, and beauty of all it contained; then the dressing-box received a share, but a much smaller share, of attention; and lastly, with fingers trembling with eagerness, she untied the pack- thread that was wound round the workbox, and slowly took off cover after cover; she almost screamed ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... indeed they did not know what else to propose. I must observe that now when we had nothing to do with whaling, in which the others had more experience, Andrew fully showed his superiority and fitness to command, so that we all readily obeyed him whenever he thought fit to issue any orders. However, as he felt that he only held his authority on sufferance, he judged it best, as in the present instance, ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... you can eat every day, knowing that it is bringing you nearer and nearer to real Fitness, the Fitness which lasts all day, and survives even ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... laughed: "You can't hurt these clean-blooded young bucks with a flesh wound. As far as fitness is concerned, he can ride to Jericho if he wants to. Too bad he won't quit prospecting and settle down. He'd make some girl a ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... trench raiding; and Canadian cadets thronged that branch of the service, the Royal Flying Corps, where steady nerves and individual initiative were at a premium. In countless actions they proved their fitness to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best that Britain and France and the United States could send: they asked no more than that. The casualty list of 220,000 men, of whom 60,000 sleep forever in the fields of France and Flanders and in the plains of England, witnesses ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... such proportions as to make a full and consequently dangerous ship. In theory, "any old unmasted hulk, unfit to send to sea, would answer to keep pressed men in." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 579—Admiral Pringle, 2 April 1795.] In practice, the contrary was the case. Fitness for sea, combined with readiness to slip at short notice, was more essential than mere cubic capacity, since transhipment was thus avoided and the pressed man deprived of another chance of taking ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... dozen hands under me were to be told off for the express purpose of giving the hull, spars, standing and running rigging, and sails a thorough overhaul, and executing such repairs, etcetera, as might be found necessary to bring the ship to, and maintain her in, a condition of perfect fitness for service ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... God," I answered, and recoiled from the sound of my own words; for they seemed to imply that I believed myself worthy of the position I occupied. I hastened to correct them: "But do not mistake my thoughts," I said; "I do not dream of worthiness in the way of honour—only of fitness for the work to be done. For that I think God has fitted me in some measure. The doorkeeper's office may be given him, not because he has done some great deed worthy of the honour, but because he can sweep the porch and scour the threshold, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... and other places. Shops were closed, and the church-bells tolled dolefully; but whether prayer was offered in sincerity and truth, and in calm devotion, demands a doubt; for when men's passions are inflamed, there can be no fitness for acts of piety. In the mean time the assembly of Massachusets Bay met at Boston, on the 25th of May, for the last time. On that day, General Gage laid before them some common business of the province, and then announced the painful necessity he was under of removing them and all public offices ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... there should be no return to the principles or practice of the Contagious Diseases Act." Referring to the finding of the Royal Commission on Venereal Disease that it would not be possible at present to organize a satisfactory method of certification of fitness for marriage, the National Birth-rate Commission thought this question should now be reconsidered with a view to legislation. "If," says the report, "a certificate of health was to become a legal obligation for persons contemplating marriage, many ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health
... those terms to him. The teacher himself had got it from his teacher, and he from his. There was no tendency to popularize philosophy, for the idea then prevalent was that only the chosen few who had otherwise shown their fitness, deserved to become fit students (adhikari) of philosophy, under the direction of a teacher. Only those who had the grit and high moral strength to devote their whole life to the true understanding of philosophy and the rebuilding of life in ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... world. It was a manner, a habit of thought, which would invade ordinary life, and mould that to its intention. In truth, all the world was already aware, and delighted. The "school" was soon to pay the penalty of that immediate acceptance, that intimate fitness to the mind of its own time, by sudden [58] and profound neglect, as a thing preternaturally tarnished and tame, like magic youth, or magic beauty, turned in a moment by magic's own last word into withered age. But then, to the liveliest spirits of that time it had ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... or virus, then the offspring of consumptives would have an attenuated form of the disease, which, by reasoning from analogy, ought to secure them exemption from any further danger along that line. Such, however, is not the case. But if we say a special fitness is inherited, then we can understand how the offspring of consumptives are prone to develop it, since they are not only born with hereditary qualifications, but not infrequently they are cradled amid the very agencies which fostered the evil ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... from medieval examinations, and at Oxford, there seems to have been little besides this ceremonial element. A candidate had to prove that he had complied with the regulations about attendance at lectures, etc., and to obtain evidence of fitness from a number of masters. A bachelor had to dispute several times with a master, and these disputations, which were held at the Augustinian Convent, came to be known as "doing Austins." The medieval system, as it lingered ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... or shelving ledges the fisherman often sees the nest of the phoebe-bird, which does not cease to please for the hundredth time, because of its fitness and exquisite artistry. On the newly sawn timbers of your porch or woodshed it is far less pleasing, because the bird's art, born of rocky ledges, only serves in the new environment to ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs |
