|
|
|
More "Genius" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... womanhood to the brink of the grave. And with you, mother, has it been the feeling of a moment? Ah! you ever loved him, when his name was never breathed by those lips. You loved him when you deemed he had forgotten you; when you pictured him to yourself in all the pride of health and genius, wanton and daring; and now, now that he comes to you penitent, perhaps dying, more like a remorseful spirit than a breathing being, and humbles himself before you, and appeals only to your mercy, ah! my mother, you cannot reject, you could not reject him, even ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... "H. DYSON (says Hearne) a person of a very strange, prying, and inquisitive genius, in the matter of books, as may appear from many libraries; there being books, chiefly in old English, almost in every library, that have belonged to him, with his name upon them." Peter Langtoft's Chronicles, vol. i., p. xiii. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... time an inmate of the hall; for Sir Piers, though he afterwards abjured it, at that time professed the Catholic faith, and this Checkley officiated as his confessor and counsellor; as the partner of his pleasures, and the prompter of his iniquities. He was your father's evil genius." ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fist into palm. "Superb!" he said, fiercely. "To cull fortune from misfortune, to turn loss into profit, that is to have genius." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... tyrannies." Further, on the general question at issue, Paine remarked: "That men should take up arms, and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is an entirely new species of discovery and suited to the paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke." In reply to the noble passage: "The age of chivalry is gone ...," Paine shrewdly says: "In the rhapsody of his imagination he has discovered a world of windmills, and his sorrows are that there are ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... generation after generation of men are fascinated by his imagination. Discrepancies of race, of character, of institutions, of religion, of age, of the world, are forgotten in the common worship of his genius. In this universal tribute of gratitude, modern Europe vies with remote antiquity, the light Frenchman with the volatile Greek, the impassioned Italian with the enthusiastic German, the sturdy Englishman with the unconquerable Roman, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... "Natera is a genius!" Luis Cervantes said when they had returned to the hotel. "But Captain Solis is a nobody ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... came back, and Dolly made herself scarce. She had a positive genius for knowing just how far she could go ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... has real talent; and her mind has been trained, and her tastes directed, with affectionate skill and vigilance by her gifted brother. She has many accomplishments; but the only one I shall choose here to name is—music. She was one to sing and play before a man of the most fastidious taste and genius! I defy any man to hear the rich tones of Miss Aubrey's voice without feeling his heart moved. Music is with her a matter not of art but of feeling—of passionate feeling; but hark!—hush!—surely—yes, that is Miss Aubrey's voice—yes, that is her clear and brilliant touch; the ladies have ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... in an altered voice; "that thought is an insult. And even now, who knows if she really loves? does she know herself? She is enamored of genius, of the soul and intellect of that seller of verses, that literary quack; but she will study him, we shall all study him; and I know how to make the man's real character peep out from under that turtle-shell of fine manners,—we'll ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... Even the men of genius suffer from this impoverishment. When Goldsmith had written the finest English comedy since Shakespeare he did not know what to call it, and had to leave Johnson to write the label. I like to think that Shakespeare himself suffered from this sterility—that he, ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... much to be feared that more people in England nowadays associate the name of "Trilby" with the late Mr. Du Maurier than with Nodier, and that more still associate it with the notion of a hat than with either of the men of genius who used ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... am I for a bird? I believe no one will know me, and that is just as well; for now I am so fine that I shall myself refuse to know any one. Ho! This ought to give some ideas to that conceited Peacock family! I am a self-made man. I am an artist who knows how to adapt his materials. I am a genius. King Solomon himself will wonder at my glory. And as for the Eagle, King of the Birds, he will grow pale with envy. King of the Birds, indeed! It is now I who should rightfully be King. No other ever wore clothes so fine ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the dead of winter, and strike, like the hammer of Thor, upon his unwary foe, rudely disturbing his complacent dreams, was a conception of exceeding brilliancy, and it at once stamped Washington as a military genius of the first order. And with such an army to make such an attempt! Said one of the officers of the period in his memoirs: "An army without cavalry, partially provided with artillery, deficient in transportation for the little they had ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... shone brightly. He had some little difficulty in getting seated, but he was elated to find that his invention answered all expectations. As he went further out he noticed a great buoy floating a long distance away. His evil genius suggested that it would be a good thing to paddle out to the buoy and back. Many men can drink champagne and show no sign, but few can drink success and remain sober. The eccentric airs assumed by noted authors prove the truth of this. De ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... A miracle! the hermit's daughters thus Will be remembered in the years to come. My pencil will suffice to scratch the lines Upon the wood: my memory will hold The lights, the tints, the golden atmosphere, The genius of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... dollars and a half—for a month's work when one is "jest nat'rally born to it!" And in addition, sleeping out without blankets and living the Lord knows how. There are moments when I am thankful that I was not "jest nat'rally born" a genius ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... to say, just the mid-point between bodily and spiritual nourishment. It acts agreeably, and at the same time, upon the senses and the thoughts. Its very fragrance gives a sort of delightful activity to the wits; it is a genius that lends wings to our fancy, and transports it to the ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... the history of such works, in which genius seems to have pushed its achievements to a new limit. Their bursting out from nothing, and gradual evolution into substance and shape, cast on the mind a solemn influence. They come too near the fount of being to be followed up without our feeling the shadows which surround ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... great numbers. There were children, men, and women, the latter being animated traders, who, as regards a genius for bargaining, could only be compared ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... our old towns, being almost entirely constructed of wood, were liable to periodic and devastating conflagrations, which fact suggested to that genius, William the Conqueror, the institution of Couvre-feu, or in its more popular form, Curfew, which rang at eight o'clock in the evening, when all lights were to be extinguished. The ringing of curfew has survived ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... delaying, and it was not until after the indifferent dinner I got at the tavern where I stopped, that I found courage to go and present Lowell's letter to Hawthorne. I would almost have foregone meeting the weird genius only to have kept that letter, for it said certain infinitely precious things of me with such a sweetness, such a grace, as Lowell alone could give his praise. Years afterwards, when Hawthorne was dead, I met Mrs. Hawthorne, and told her of the pang I ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the greatest conquerors of the Middle Ages. He was a soldier of genius but he cannot be called a truly great man. His vast empire speedily fell to pieces after his death. Since his day there has been no leader like him in that ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... profane on such occasions, and the gasps of feminine delight at each new evidence of genius were the only sounds that might be heard even if you listened at the door, as, I admit, I was often mean enough to do. Yet the manifestations of the object of worship, as overheard by me, appeared sufficiently human and ordinary to be passed ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... did prove herself an adept in one respect. She had never sewed much, but she had an inventive genius in dress, and, when she once took up ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of the child should be encouraged and developed. It is the richest vein in the whole mental machinery of man, the faculty within which genius most frequently lurks, and where it can be most easily and permanently destroyed. Grown-up people should remember that an indiscreet answer to a childish question, or a snub administered to an inquiring mind, is often ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... So soon as you have talked that business over, write to me about it. [What is the business? Whither is the dusky Swan of Padua gone?] In all these three hundred miles I have found no human creature comparable to the Swan of Padua. I would willingly give ten cubic leagues of ground for a genius similar to yours. But I perceive I was about entreating you to return fast, and join me again,—while you are not yet arrived where your errand was. Make haste to arrive, then; to execute your commission, and fly back to me. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... this low orb is lost a shining light. Useful, resplendent, and tho' transient, bright! For scarce has soaring genius reach'd the blaze Of fleeting life's meridian hour, Than Death around the naming meteor plays, And spreads its cypress o'er the short liv'd flower. The great projector of that grand design,[1] In time's remotest annals, long will shine; While ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... Shakespeare's works, and Shakespeareana of all possible kinds, said, at the tercentenary meeting, that the idea originated with George Dawson, but perhaps the honour should be divided, as their mutual appreciation of the greatest poet whose genius has found utterance in our language is well known. The first practical step taken was the meeting, held (July 10, 1863) of gentlemen interested in the tercentenary, for the purpose of considering a proposal to celebrate that event by the formation of a Shakespearean library. The Rev. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... jacobins is found an order of the old committee of public safety to pay 100,000 livres for printing the correspondence of that society. A journalist in Paris ventures to write thus: "Legislators, do not exhaust your strength and "genius in discovering that which has been done "before your time; give us the best government you "can; consider that the people of France were the "happiest and the longest so of any people; give us "the laws we have ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... as you have so deftly embedded in the Atalanta article that small remark on his acting. Your paper is pleasant and modest: most of R. L. Stevenson's admirers are inclined to lay it on far too thick. That he is a genius we all admit; but his genius, if fine, is limited. For example, he cannot paint (or at least he never has painted) a woman. No more could Fettes Douglas, skilful artist though he was in his own special line, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... before the flood; men of lofty stature and giant intellect, who, yielding to the control of fallen angels, devoted all their skill and knowledge to the exaltation of themselves; men whose wonderful works of art led the world to idolize their genius, but whose cruelty and evil inventions, defiling the earth and defacing the image of God, caused Him to blot them from the face of His creation. There are kings and generals who conquered nations, valiant ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... University, like those of the College de France, were packed to the doors and the effect of his message was enhanced by his eloquence of delivery and charm of personality. The pragmatic character of his philosophy appeals to the genius of the American people as is shown by the influence of the teaching of William James and John Dewey, whose point of view in ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... exclusively to the sexuality. In reference to the manifestation of the anger trend, for instance, it may be not only a definitely conscious manifestation, but it may perhaps produce a crisis even in dream-thought. I am speaking of a case. A young boy at boarding school who was a musical genius had been very much bullied. He suffered a great deal from this, but did not retaliate until one night in the dormitory with eight boys while asleep, he being badgered by neighbors, got up while asleep and attacked these ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... people understood the riddle, and were not slow to profit by it. This house, although one of the best known, was not the only one of its kind to be found in Paris. Legrand was a man of business as well as a doctor, a better man of business than he was a doctor, and perceived, almost by a stroke of genius, how he might profit by the Revolution. To many a revolutionary leader gold was better than the head of an aristocrat, although by that curious twist of conscience which men can so easily contrive for themselves, direct bribery was not to be thought of. Dr. Legrand seemed to thoroughly ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... troubadour, greeted with a magnificent prize, was escorted to the royal palace amid a cortege of minstrelsy and chivalry; "thus manifesting to the world," says the marquis, "the superiority which God and nature have assigned to genius over dulness." [91] ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... "What is genius without opportunity?" said she. "What is a brave heart without the ability to do brave deeds? I give to thee many ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... self-consciousness, from any eccentricity of either temper or manner. 'Hers was a mind well balanced on a basis of good sense, sweetened by an affectionate heart, and regulated by fixed principles; so that she was to be distinguished from many other amiable and sensible women only by that peculiar genius which shines out clearly . . . in her works.'[208] Her tastes were as normal as her nature. She read English literature with eagerness, attracted by the eighteenth-century perfection of style—and still more by the return to nature in Cowper and ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... steady spirit in all his undertakings; and, although of a strong and impulsive will, I never knew it misdirected in his required pursuit of study. He was a most orderly scholar. The future ramifications of that noble genius were then closely shut in the seed, and greedily drinking in the moisture which made it afterwards burst forth so kindly into ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... toward the abyss and whom a secret horror unceasingly warned of the awful fate to come! I, who, if I had shed blood with these hands, could yet repeat that my heart was not guilty; that I was deceived, that it was not I who did it, but my destiny, my evil genius, some unknown being who dwelt within me, but who was not born there! I, do evil! For six months I had been engaged in that task, not a day had passed that I had not worked at that impious occupation, and I had at that moment the proof before my eyes. The man who had loved Brigitte, ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... brought all his ability to bear in preparing the Wonders of the Invisible World. It is marked throughout by his peculiar genius, and constructed with great ingenuity and elaboration; but it was "water spilt on the ground." So far as the end, for which it was designed, is regarded, it died before ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... individuals obtain. We might, indeed, have to qualify this doubt if the great fortunes of the world fell to the great geniuses. It would be impossible to determine what we ought to pay for a Shakespere, a Browning, a Newton, or a Cobden. Impossible, but fortunately unnecessary. For the man of genius is forced by his own cravings to give, and the only reward that he asks from society is to be let alone and have some quiet and fresh air. Nor is he in reality entitled, notwithstanding his services, to ask ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... Forge's heat and ashes— O'er the Engine's iron head— Where the rapid Shuttle flashes, And the Spindle whirls its thread; There is Labour lowly tending Each requirement of the hour; There is genius still extending ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... provincials. Among the latter were the two Virginia regiments, nineteen hundred strong, under the command of Washington. Yet vast as were the preparations of the army, Forbes never would have seen the Ohio had it not been for the genius of Washington, although then but twenty-six years of age. The army took up its line of march from Philadelphia in July, and did not reach Raystown until the month of September, when they were still ninety miles distant from Fort du Quesne. It was Washington's earnest advice that the army ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... not doubt this, because he had seen something of the other's mathematical powers. He was not a fool at figures himself, but Bethune could solve by a flash of genius problems that cost him laborious calculation. It was strange that such a man should be content to make a very modest ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... most conceited dogs that I ever met with,' replied the King. 'He thinks he is a great genius, and perhaps he has some little talent for ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... establish a dramatic movement upon the popular passions, as the ritual of religion is established in the emotions that surround birth and death and marriage, and it was only the coming of the unclassifiable, uncontrollable, capricious, uncompromising genius of J. M. Synge that altered the direction of the movement and made it individual, critical, and combative. If his had not, some other stone would have blocked up the old way, for the public mind of Ireland, stupefied ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... Though a genius—at any rate according to Brantome—it was now David Verne, instead of Lilla, who suffered from the feeling of inferiority. To hold her, he had only his music, and perhaps his bodily feebleness that excited her compassion. Yet this feebleness, profound, insurmountable, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... here and there a few feeble parties, who were incapable of checking our march upon Milan. Bonaparte's advance astonished and confounded the enemy, who thought of nothing but marching back the way he came, and renouncing the invasion of France. The bold genius which actuated Bonaparte did not inspire General Melas, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian forces. If Melas had had the firmness which ought to belong to the leader of an army—if he had compared the respective positions of the two parties—if he had considered that ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... honor. From it is derived the creditable love of independence which operates upon the manners of the people and the physical soil of the country so obviously, that the natural appearance of the one may be considered as an appropriate exponent of the moral condition of the other. Aided by the genius of a practical and impressive creed, whose simple grandeur gives elevation and dignity to its followers;—this class it is which, by affording employment, counsel, and example to many of the lower classes, brings peace and comfort ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... securities. The first fall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to English excursionists, anxious, let us suppose, to improve their minds by foreign travel; and I—the slight check of the "hundred days" removed, by the genius of Wellington, on the field of Waterloo—was now added ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... he did not discuss, in memorable phrase and trenchant, clever epigram. For he saw that I believed in him, worshipped whole-heartedly at his shrine of genius, and he gave me, in return, of his best. For the first time I saw what human language is for. I thought of Goethe at Weimar ... Wilde's clever ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... acquaintance of Coleman's, who knew him, said he was a capital fellow, but very odd—though in what the oddity consisted did not appear. Moreover, Coleman confirmed me in my preconceived idea, that Mullins's genius lay at present chiefly in the eating, drinking, and sleeping line—adding that, in his opinion, he bore a striking resemblance to those somewhat dissimilar articles, a muff and a spoon. In converse such as this, the time ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... is a spot fordable for horses, and, of course, fordable also for a cycler; but the prevailing mud and the chilliness of the morning combine to influence me to try another plan. A happy plan it seems at the moment, a credit to my inventive genius, and spiced with the seductive condiment of novelty, the stream is sufficiently narrow at one place to be overcome with a running jump; but people cannot take running jumps encumbered with a bicycle. The bicycle, however, can quickly and easily be taken ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... leave were unexpended still. He must think it over. He must have advice. So, as a first instalment of duty, he scrawled a recklessly affectionate letter, full of gratitude to her who had been his good genius and the guardian angel of his boy. He did not disguise his envy of the general merchant, whose vows of love could not have excelled in fervent expression the good wishes of the writer for the happiness ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... another Newton, or his equivalent. No ordinary man, and no succession of ordinary men, could have achieved it. I will not go the length of saying that what Newton did in a single life, might not have been done in successive steps by some of those who followed him, each singly inferior to him in genius. But even the least of those steps required a man of great intellectual superiority. Eminent men do not merely see the coming light from the hill-top, they mount on the hill-top and evoke it; and if no one had ever ascended ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... with choriambic fossils as well as later dolerite dykes, amid which the feline amenities of the Princess were illustrated with miraculous agility by Miss Agneesh Crannoge—compares favourably with the most ambitious enormities ever perpetrated by the genius of BAKST, DIAGHILEV, or even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... Of the genius of the inhabitants of the Philippines, and the peculiar punishments inflicted by the religious on the women who do not attend ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... hopes, and to undeceive others. M. d'Argenson has strongly impressed me with the same opinion, and has succeeded in destroying all my respect for him." This is what the King said, according to my friend Quesnay, who, by the bye, was a great genius, as everybody said, and a very lively, agreeable man. He liked to chat with me about the country. I had been bred up there, and he used to set me a talking about the meadows of Normandy and Poitou, the wealth of the farmers, and the modes ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... Genius but excites: That tasks the reason; this the soul delights. Talent from sober judgment takes its birth, And reconciles the pinion to the earth; Genius unsettles with desires the mind, Contented not ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... whose unconquerable pride has ever proved a great impediment to the regeneration of the empire. Moslem talent was not equal to the exigencies that arose from the impolitic measures of Mahmoud. We find a parallel case in Russia. Had Peter trusted to Muscovite genius to form and command the troops which superseded the Strelitzes, Charles XII would have quartered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... little genius of a Rebecca all you can!" she said that night. "I don't know what she may, or may not, come to, some day; I only wish she were ours! If you could have seen her clasp the flag tight in her arms and put her cheek against it, and watched the tears of feeling start in her eyes when I ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unusually muscular. His face bears a remarkable resemblance to the pictures of NUMA POMPILIUS; the benign smile of each is the same. His chin is round and full, although partially concealed by a slight beard; his nose, which is of a truly German outline, is marked by the 'dilated nostril of genius;' and his whole aspect is that of a thorough man of the world. I will continue my reminiscence by extracting verbatim a page or so from my imperfect, though as far as it goes, authentic diary. I ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... can pass for more subtle observers than others, and they find themselves sharper, in not giving credit to so many wonders." The love of truth does not consist in denying its existence, where so many persons of first-rate genius have found it; it does not depend on rendering obscure the light it sheds, nor in giving to the public Lives of Saints accompanied by a dry, bitter, and licentious criticism, calculated to throw doubt on all that is extraordinary in them, ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... the effect of her beauty in this and that costume; so that she sported through the great grand halls and down the long aisles of the garden much like a bright-winged hummingbird, or a damsel-fly all green and gold. She was a genuine child of Italy,—full of feeling, spirit, and genius,—alive in every nerve to the finger-tips; and under the tropical sunshine of her mistress's favor she grew as an Italian rose-bush does, throwing its branches freakishly over everything in a wild labyrinth of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... her against a possible relapse. I save poor Mother—that is I rid her of the deadly Eliza—forever and a day! Despised, rejected, misunderstood, I nevertheless intervene, in its hour of dire need, as the good genius of the family; and you, dear little quaint thing, I take advantage of the precious psychological moment to whisk YOU off to Europe. We'll take Peg with us for a year's true culture; she wants a year's true culture ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... they are what are called odd characters; but for that, are no more original, than what is called an odd genius, in his way, is. But, if original, whence came they? Or where did the novelist ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... of those mighty detectives whose proceedings form a school, as it were, and whose names will always remain inscribed on the judicial annals of Europe. He lacks the flashes of genius that illumine a Dupin, a Lecoq or a Holmlock Shears. But he possesses first-rate average qualities: perspicacity, sagacity, perseverance and even a certain amount of intuition. His greatest merit lies in the fact that he is absolutely ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... devil-may-care young fellow. And all the time this quiet country house of yours is the centre of half the mischief in England, and the sporting squire the most astute secret-service man in Europe. Genius, my dear Von Bork—genius!" ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... checking all their pretensions to be familiarly acquainted with their religion. But as the reformers pretended in some few particulars to encourage private judgment in the laity, the translation of the liturgy, as well as of the Scriptures, into the vulgar tongue, seemed more conformable to the genius of their sect; and this innovation, with the retrenching of prayers to saints, and of some superstitious ceremonies, was the chief difference between the old mass and the new liturgy. The parliament established this form of worship in all the churches, and ordained a uniformity ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... soulmate, fast friend; amicus[Lat]; usque ad aras[Lat]; fidus Achates[Lat][obs3]; persona grata. acquaintance, neighbor, next-door neighbor, casual acquaintance, nodding acquaintance; wellwisher. favorer, fautor[obs3], patron, Mecaenas; tutelary saint, good genius, advocate, partisan, sympathizer; ally; friend in need &c. (auxiliary) 711. comrade, mate, companion, familiar, confrere, comrade, camarade[obs3], confidante, intimate; old crony, crony; chum; pal; buddy, bosom buddy; playfellow, playmate, childhood friend; bedfellow, bedmate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... doubt that is so, Osgod, and heartily glad am I that you showed no genius for smith's work. Nature evidently intended you to damage casques and armour rather than to repair them. You have not got all my clothes with you," he added, as he looked round at ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... the prophets that foretold it. Gloomy, fanatic, implacable and, it may be, mad, yet inspired at least by genius which itself, while madness, is a madness wholly divine, they heralded the future, they established the past. Abraham they drew from allegory, Moses from myth. They made them live, and so immortally that one survives in Islam, the other in words that are a law ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... quiet, well-mannered youth, invaluable just then to Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, a woman never happy unless slightly leading a genius ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the time lies in the fact that European, or more particularly Greek, civilization was spared to develop its own individuality. Had Xerxes succeeded, the paralyzing regime of an Asiatic despotism would have stifled the genius of the Greek people. Self-government would never have had its beginnings in Greece, and a subjugated Athens would never have produced the "Age of Pericles." In the two generations following Salamis, Athens made a greater original contribution ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... man of the greatest genius, and of the most various knowledge, being excited by the glory of the rhetorician Isocrates,[5] commenced teaching young men to speak, and joined philosophy with eloquence: so it is my design not to lay aside ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Scotia's ancient bard, The genius of the past; Saw ghosts upon the fleecy clouds, And heard ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Men of genius have devoted some of their hours, and even governments have occasionally assisted, to render the people happier by song and dance. The Grecians had songs appropriated to the various trades. Songs of this nature would shorten the manufacturer's tedious task-work, and solace ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... developing a tact and self-command, a knowledge of finesse that he would not have believed possible in a rough and uneducated mountaineer. But the same quality, the wonderful perception, or rather intuition, that had made Wood a military genius, was serving him here, and though he perceived at once the drift of the Secretary's remarks and their intention, he preserved his coolness and contented himself for awhile with apparent ignorance. This, however, did not check the attack, and by and by Wood, too, began to deal in veiled ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... best part of the whole thing. It was all very well for Alice to talk about creeping and spying, but, if you considered it without bias, there was nothing degrading about it at all. It was an art. It took brains and a genius for disguise to make a man a successful creeper and spyer. You couldn't simply say to yourself, 'I will creep.' If you attempted to do it in your own person, you would be detected instantly. You had to be an adept at masking your personality. You had to ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... of Larry's who advised the convent in the first place. Angele was her maid, taken over from a princess—an Albanian one, or something Balkanic or volcanic. The old friend is a Marquise, and my opinion is that her genius lies in finding safe harbours for incubuses (is there such a word, or should it be "incubi?"). Heaven knows what explosive thing may happen if the high-powered Angele doesn't fancy her new ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... meditating on the melancholy uncertainty of human life, when I contrasted the comforts, the pleasures, the pride of conscious usefulness and genius felt by this gentleman a short time since, with the agony which that trying and bitter hour brings to the stoutest and most callous heart—when it must quit this state of being for another, of which it knows so little, and over which ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... was all compliance, and with a readiness so obliging and so well bred that I am sure he is his father's true son in manners, though there was no opportunity to discover whether the resemblance extended also to genius. He was not, however, cheered when he brought word that neither carriage nor ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Jim Hooley about Dakota Joe. She did not wish to bother the director in any case. She had come to appreciate Hooley as, in a sense, a creative genius who should have his mind perfectly free of all other subjects—especially of annoying topics of thought—if he was to turn out a thoroughly good picture. Hooley fairly lived in the picture while the scenes were being shot. He must not be troubled by the knowledge of the possibility of Dakota ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... upon the point in which, you must confess, my genius always stood unrivalled—acknowledge, if you are not dead to gratitude—acknowledge how often should you have gone supperless to bed in our bivouacs in the Peninsula, had it not been for the ingenuity of your humble servant—avow, that ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... twenty-four thousand men he marched boldly into Bohemia. The queen dispatched an army of forty thousand to meet him. The fierce encounter took place at Lowositz, near the banks of the Elbe. The military genius of Frederic prevailed, and the Austrians were repulsed, though the slaughter was about equal on each side, six thousand men, three thousand upon each side, being left in their blood. Frederic took ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Some say the Genius so Cries 'Come!' to him that instantly must die. Bid them have patience; she ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... left hand—the victim of a cloth loom; and here a pallid-looking man, showing when he spoke or laughed slate-colored gums—a case of lead-poisoning, with a painful death as the inevitable result. And it seemed as if over all these cripples and sickly people the Genius of Work hovered as the black angel of Eastern stories, tracing on their foreheads with his brush—on this one mutilation, on this one an early death. Schrotter's observations and explanations placed the whole meeting in a different light to Wilhelm. The coarseness ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... to tell you about him; there doesn't seem to be anything to say. He is T. J. Haydon, a man who inherited both money and a genius for speculation. Not a plunger, you know; but one of those pursy, far-seeing fellows who always put their money on the right number and wait patiently until it wins. I might tell you that he was sentimental once in his life, ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... stratagem of hers, which was a strong proof of her wit and ingenuity, is said to have first opened her way to Caesar's heart, and her conquest advanced rapidly by the charms of her speech and person. The genius of Shakspeare has well depicted the power of her beauty at this time. He makes her to say, at a later period of life, when chagrined at the expected ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local and respective influence; nor could the Romans who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every art and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... soldier, of course." Margaret ran her eyes down the page, but found nothing sober enough to read aloud. "He seems to be a very wonderful person," she said, timidly. "Handsome, and a miracle of courage,—and a military genius; if war should come, Rita thinks he will be commander-in-chief of the Cuban army. You don't think it will really come to ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... their noisy haunts retire, And add your voices to the quire That sanctify the cottage fire With service meet; There seek the genius of your Sire, His ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... One of these men is genius to the other: And so of these, which is the naturall man, And which the spirit? Who deciphers them? S.Dromio. I Sir ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... congratulate you, my dear Enfield," observed Vacuum courteously, "on your genius for prophecy. At our last meeting, you foretold the near overthrow of Mr. Nixon and the Croker regime. The papers inform me that all came to pass within the two days following ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... to enough arithmetic to enable her to keep accounts, her art to the gift of singing a very lovely contralto by ear, and her notions of history bordered on the miraculous. She was obstinate, superstitious, and at times quick-tempered. But she had a positive genius for loving. That raised her into the first rank, and enabled her to bestow as much happiness on Prosper as if ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... exquisite sensibility. And of these three qualities, the last is the most important; since, after all that can be said on the utility or necessity of rules and precepts, it must be confessed that the merit of all works of genius must be determined by taste and sentiment. "Why do you so much admire the Helen of Zeuxis?" said one to Nicostratus. "You would not wonder why I so much admired it (replied the painter) if you had my eyes."—WARTON: Note to Pope's ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... is still uncertainty; you are about to appear at the States; you are about to show what sort of man you are; your eloquence and genius for business are the buckler and sword that will serve to defend you, if not to conquer with. The Bretons do not know you; and when they become acquainted with you your cause is won! Oh! let M. Colbert look to it well, for his lighter is as much exposed as yours ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I liked her—she rested me so from literature. To myself literature was an irritation, a torment; but Greville Fane slumbered in the intellectual part of it like a Creole in a hammock. She was not a woman of genius, but her faculty was so special, so much a gift out of hand, that I have often wondered why she fell below that distinction. This was doubtless because the transaction, in her case, had remained incomplete; genius always pays for the gift, feels the debt, ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... long sweep. The cleverest of women cannot class with anything like precision the man who has stamped himself into her imagination. Betty knew that there were six men in the Senate who ranked as equals; their quiet epoch gave them little chance to discover latent genius other than for constructive legislation; nevertheless she arbitrarily conceived the Capitol to-day as the great setting for one man only; and the building and the man became one in her imagination henceforth. ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... be understood that none of these speeches were heard by Antony. Cicero had at this time become the acknowledged chief of the Republican party, having drifted into the position which Pompey had so long filled. Many of Caesar's friends, frightened by his death, or rather cowed by the absence of his genius, had found it safer to retreat from the Caesarean party, of which the Antonys, with Dolabella, the cutthroats and gladiators of the empire, had the command. Hirtius and Pansa, with Balbus and Oppius, were among them. They, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... merchant's penalties? or shall not rather this ideal, feminine element of life, shall not Art, like woman, warm and inspire a sweeter, richer, more ideal, though it be a humbler home for us, with all the tenderer love and finer genius, now that man's enterprise is wrecked abroad? Shall we have no Music? Has the universal "panic" griped the singers' throats, that they can no longer vibrate with the passionate and perfect freedom indispensable to melody? It must not be. The soul is too rich ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... walls are hung with pictures by the Flemish masters, wherever space can be found for them. In the Cathedral, is the Descent from the Cross, by Rubens, which proves, what one might almost doubt who had only seen his pictures in the Louvre, that he was a true artist and a man of genius in the noblest sense of ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... Stewart had a genius for trade, but he had no gift for giving. The world needs a school for millionaires, so that, since they can not take their millions with them, they can learn to leave their money wisely and well. After an up-and-down—mostly down—career of a decade, the Business Palace was bought by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... of the best races of his life that night. It was a trial of stamina and nerve. Lethe was primarily a sprinter, and the gelding, raised to his greatest effort by the genius of his rider, outfought her, outstayed her. As he flew down the moon-swept road, bright as at any noontime, Garrison knew success would be his, providing Sue kept her seat, her nerve, and ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... skeptic: Once, nearly twenty centuries ago, a young preacher travelled and taught through the villages and by the wayside in an obscure oriental country. He addressed a subject race, insular in their prejudices, lacking in political genius and in artistic culture. He lived in days calculated to chill the most fervid religious enthusiasm. He was at first ignored and then hated by His own people; the religious leaders became His implacable foes. His work ended in apparent failure, ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... Cardinal's friend, 'we entreat you to grant us the life of this poor man. His genius deserves some consideration; and he has just shown an almost superhuman amount of courage and dexterity. We do not know what may be the crimes for which your Holiness has seen fit to imprison him, but if they are pardonable we ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... for the invention of episodes in his stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary genius. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... that moment the wind came up with a sudden puff, and filled the sail which the genius of the General had added to the motive power of that "yot." It was just at the wrong moment, for Captain Tommy Conners and Commodore Gus Martin were having an argument over an extra oar they had found in the bottom of the boat, and they were rocking ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sighed to myself; "I am dull, tame, and commonplace beside these children of genius. How poor and mean is the work that ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... the stamping press of the mint, is more sharply impressed with its image and superscription than was the formative period of our government by the genius and personality of ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... the difference," demanded Joan, "between a man owning one paper with a circulation of, say, six millions; or owning six with a circulation of a million apiece? By concentrating all his energies on one, a man with Carleton's organizing genius might easily establish a single journal that would ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... been speaking of anything less dignified than death and genius, Havelock might have sounded a little austere and silly. As it was—Chantry bit back, and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... is true; I knew it before I asked you to go to him, and I knew you would find it out; but please to remember that he is a man of genius, whom it is not for such as ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... a whole scene she will be little better than a stick. The change, when it comes, is like a sudden fire from Heaven. Something flashes into her face, she becomes inspired, she holds us breathless, hanging upon every word; it is then one realizes that she is a genius." ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for the part by turning his dress-coat inside out, and putting on a turban and a Liberty sash, by way of indicating the eccentricity of genius; the Ladies adorn themselves with a similar regard to realism, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... song, mademoiselle, answered he, which my master ordered me to give you, and to desire you will let him know how you like it:—he says it might be turned into an admirable duetto, and begs you would employ your genius on that score and ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... would turn everything around in his own way, if the power were in his hands. "Russia," said he,—"has lagged behind Europe; she must catch up with it. People assert, that we are young—that is nonsense; and moreover, that we possess no inventive genius: X ... himself admits that we have not even invented a mouse-trap. Consequently, we are compelled, willy-nilly, to borrow from others. 'We are ill,'—says Lermontoff,—I agree with him; but we are ill because we have only half converted ourselves into Europeans; that is where we ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... solicitor. Enough of these have been printed to indicate the pecuniary difficulties which undoubtedly influenced his life and character; but it was not considered necessary to publish the whole series. Men of genius ask money from their lawyers in the same language, and with the same arguments, as ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... on the livery of greatness, While genius idle withers from the sight, And in its triumph takes no note of lateness, For time exists not ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... that might become necessary on the springing up of a new breeze. Of the speedy occurrence of such a change there was now every symptom, the heavens lighting up at the north-west, a quarter from which the genius of the storms mostly delights in making a ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... seemed to have released them from an enchantment. For the most part they were strange people, these magical attendants, never mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it, and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of their unquestionable genius. Still, Audrey reckoned that she owed about twenty-five thousand ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... the pursuit, he would have attained excellence, and left behind him some enduring monument of his powers,' 'He lacked, however,' he tells us, 'one thing, the want of which is but too often fatal to the sons of genius, and without which genius is little more than a splendid toy in the hands of the possessor—perseverance, dogged perseverance.' It is when he is thus commenting on his brother's characteristics that Borrow ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... followed, and was a surprise to them all, for this dainty, helpless girl, who had been brought up to know nothing of the practical side of life, had developed a real genius for cookery; and during the past two months she had spent many a happy hour in the kitchen, helping the cook to concoct her elaborate dishes with a skill which won the praise of even that accomplished tyrant, and Florence was making rapid progress towards being able to take charge of the house ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... it goes to work this way and that, making straight the road for an inrush of important and awakened souls. Having in mind to get from Greece a startling harvest presently, it called one Homer, surnamed Maeonides, into incarnation, and endowed him with high poetic genius. Or he had in many past lives so endowed himself; and therefore the Law called him in. This evening I shall work up to him, and try to tell you a few things about him, some of which you may know already, but some of which may be ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... modest little cafe; in fact it was not a cafe at all, but a Marchand des vins with a zinc counter inside, and a couple of iron tables outside on the pavement to convey the air of a terrasse. Septimus, with his genius for the inharmonious, drank tea; not as the elegant nowadays drink at Colombin's or Rumpelmayer's, but a dirty, gray liquid served with rum, according to the old French fashion, before five-o'cloquer became a verb in the language. When people ask for tea at a Marchand des ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... aware of her scrutiny he gave no sign of it and leaned forward intently, his gaze on the portrait—alone, to all appearances, with the fires of his genius. Hermia's eyes followed his, the superficial and rather frivolous comment which had been on her lips stilled for the moment by the dignity of his mental attitude, into which it seemed Olga Tcherny had also unconsciously fallen. But the silence irritated Hermia—the ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... Bacon, I think, was the latest author of note in the library bequeathed by John Harvard; and Lord Bacon rejected the Copernican system. English literature had had its great Elizabethan age; but little of the genius of that literature had penetrated the Puritan mind. It is doubtful if a copy of Shakespeare had found its way to these shores in 1636. Milton's star was just climbing its native horizon, invisible as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... officers and men alike misconducted themselves, as soldiers always do in a conquered country. The exasperation of the natives became more and more manifest: Akbar Khan, a son of Dost Mahomed, hovered about the country, the evil genius, as it is supposed, of the rising storm; and at length an insurrection broke out in the city. In this tissue of surprising blunders, perhaps none is more remarkable than the facts, that the general selected to command an army so critically placed was a poor old man, feeble in body and mind, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... intelligence. Classification of intelligence quotients. Feeble-mindedness. Border-line cases. Examples of border-line deficiency. Dull normals. Average intelligence. Superior intelligence. Very superior intelligence. Examples of very superior intelligence. Genius and "near" genius. Is the I Q ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... the creature of American genius. Of course she is. In fact she is the first concrete symbol of the Anglo-American Alliance, and when the daughter of her creator has gone into partnership with the man who made her we'll have two flagstaff's, and the Jack and Old Glory will float ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... on the banks of the Rhine, and being the birthplace of no less celebrated a composer than Beethoven, it naturally attracts a goodly number of pilgrims every year, these coming from many distant lands to do homage at the shrine of genius. But Bonn and its neighbourhood have older associations than this—associations which carry the mind of the traveller far into the Middle Ages—for hard by the town is Rolandseck; while a feature of the district is the Siebengebirge (Seven Mountains), a fine serried ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Valla's critical genius next attacked the schoolman's idol Aristotle and the humanist's demigod Cicero. More important were his Annotations on the New Testament, first published by Erasmus in 1505. The Vulgate was at that time regarded, as it was at Trent defined ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... strong is he who has the moral genius of his years. He does not deny that man lives by bread, but he does deny that man lives by bread alone. He has faith in the upward trend of the world; and he has the hope which can give to faith its adequate translation. ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... the budding of genius because they are areas of isolation, confinement, remote from the great currents of men and ideas that move along the river valleys. They are regions of much labor and little leisure, of poverty to-day and anxiety for the morrow, of ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... on the side of mercy," said his wife pathetically. "And he does not seem to realize that Jeanie lacks the vitality of the others,—though how they ever got through their tasks I can't imagine. It must have been dear Avery's doing. She is a genius with children. They all managed it but poor Jeanie. How ever we shall get on without her I ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... dazzling beauty, and all-commanding presence, of Nina,—to her the pomp and crowd seemed an unreal pageant, from which she retired to the truth of life,—the hopes and musings of her own heart. Poor girl! with all the soft and tender nature of her dead brother, and none of the stern genius and the prodigal ambition,—the eye-fatiguing ostentation and fervour of the living—she was but ill-fitted for the unquiet but splendid region to which ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... discovery was that of Dr. Gall, which embraced not only the anatomy but the functions of the brain as a mental organ—a discovery twenty times as great, whether we consider the superior importance of the brain, or the greater investigating genius necessary to the discovery. It easily ranks at the head of the physiological ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... NIKARR, victor, a conqueror; to move, to agitate; to thrust forward, to take by violence; to repel, to impede. G. m. Nix, fern. Nixe, an aquatic genius. We may remark that the monks having transformed Odin into the devil, our designation of his Satanic Majesty, as Old Nick appears to be a mere corruption of these appellations ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... practised the arts of design more in Tuscany than in any other province of Italy, and perhaps of Europe, yet it is none the less true that in every age there has arisen in the other provinces some genius who has proved himself rare and excellent in the same professions, as has been shown up to the present in many of the Lives, and will be demonstrated even more in those that are to follow. It is true, indeed, that where there are no studies, and where men are not disposed ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... these early days of the contest are recorded. 'Brother Martin,' he said, 'is a man of a very fine genius, and this outbreak the mere squabble of envious monks;' and again, 'It is a drunken German who has written the theses; he will think differently about them when sober.' Three months after the theses had appeared, he ordered the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... head-winds, his very mishaps ripened into the rarest fortune, for he discovered Brazil, and thus added to his master's realm what was destined to be one of the richest kingdoms of the world. With the instinct of genius, and a courage as rare as it was heroic, he did not return to notify his king of the new continent which had risen out of the deep before him, but sending back a single caravel with the marvellous news, he turned his battered prows to that point of the compass where he judged the Cape of Good Hope ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... and one evil in the world—life and death. The pomp of rank, the assumption of power, the possessions of wealth vanished like morning mist. One living beggar had become of more worth than a national peerage of dead lords— alas the day!—than of dead heroes, patriots, or men of genius. There was much of degradation in this: for even vice and virtue had lost their attributes—life—life—the continuation of our animal mechanism— was the Alpha and Omega of the desires, the prayers, the ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... and made so many spirits, young and old, indebted to him from thenceforth for ever—That this man, with his enormous capacity and will for doing his duty like a valiant man, and doing each duty better than any of us his clergy had ever seen it done before—with his genius too, now so rare, and yet so needed, for governing his fellow-men—That he, in the fulness of his power, his health, his practical example, his practical success, should vanish in a moment: and that immense natural vitality, that organism of forces so various and so delicate, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... threatened again and again only to be converted each time into new and formidable fronts. The nature of the country, and the comparative mobility of the opposing forces rendered these rapid changes of front easy of execution, but they demanded promptness, and a genius for the appreciation of the value of ground, not only on the part of the Boer leaders, but also on that of the rank and file. In the ranks of the commandos persuasion had to take the place of word ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... and branch off into a variety of beautiful or grotesque forms—beings who were ever present to the fancy of the Greeks, as a convenient step by which they could approach more nearly to the presence of the Divinity." But even out of that seemingly bare chaos, Athenian genius was learning how to construct, under Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes, that elder school of comedy, which remains not only unsurpassed, but unapproachable, save by Rabelais alone, as the ideal cloudland of masquerading wisdom, in which the whole universe goes mad—but ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... mere negation: what was desired by it above all things just then was a demonstration that the evidences of design could be explained without resort to the hypothesis of a personal designer. If only some genius, whilst admitting Paley's facts, could knock the brains out of Paley by the discovery of a method whereby watches could happen without watchmakers, that genius was assured of such a welcome from the thought of his day as no natural ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... expeditions. At last his father threatened to take him home, and, with this awful punishment before his eyes, he put his thumb in his mouth, perched upon a rock, and philosophically watched the preparations for supper. Maggie was the presiding genius of the occasion, and looked like the light-hearted girl that Leonard had wooed more than a dozen years before. She ordered him around, jested with him, and laughed at him in such a piquant way that Burt declared she ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... agreement with him, though intended, and therefore they might have cavilled at it, if they would. Thence abroad calling at several places upon some errands, among others to my brother Tom's barber and had my hair cut, while his boy played on the viallin, a plain boy, but has a very good genius, and understands the book very well, but to see what a shift he made for a string of red silk was very pleasant. Thence to my Lord Crew's. My Lord not being come home, I met and staid below with Captain Ferrers, who was come to wait upon my Lady Jemimah ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of rhythm unparalleled. Of this the long rag is their instrument. They draw it once or twice across the shoe to set the key and then they go into a swift and pattering melody. If there is an unusual genius in the bootblack—some remnant of ancient Greece—he plays such a lively tune that one's shoulders jig to it. If there were a dryad or other such nimble creature on the street, she would come leaping as though Orpheus strummed a tune, but the dance ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... Anonymous is an upholder of the tradition of true, restrained wit. But unlike some of his contemporaries, he has a formula for discounting faults. "But we should be very cautious in finding Fault with Men of such exalted Genius as our Author certainly was, lest we should blame them when in reality the Fault lies in our own slow Conceptions ..." This is the language of tolerance, a tolerance that can overlook faults for the sake of greater beauties—one of the distinct ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... think that an evil genius had taken pleasure in playing with her destiny, like a child playing at ball? She was born of poor parents. Her father, a carpenter, was a drunkard and frequently out of work. He would often come home at night intoxicated, ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... at the head of about two thousand men, one half of whom were militia, with only a sufficiency of provisions for three days, in an exhausted country, and with a scanty supply of ammunition. With the quick eye of military genius, he determined at once to divide his army, small as it was, and provide the needful supplies in different localities. Relying upon Gen. Davidson's militia, as a central force and protection, to be called out upon emergencies from the surrounding counties, he led the ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... the fewest and rudest—little more than small palisaded hamlets, built of frame or log, poised near the water of the river James. The genius of the land was for the plantation rather than the town. The fair and large brick or frame planter's house of a later time had not yet risen, but the system was well inaugurated that set a main or "big" house upon some fair site, with cabins clustered near it, and all surrounded, save ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... composed of men of quality with a genius for investigation, and men of learning eager for further knowledge. Persons of all nationalities, religions, and professions were admitted members; and it was continually enriched by the addition of curiosities, amongst which in ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... paying a much smaller one than what was exacted of other people. The usual corporation spirit, wherever the law does not restrain it, prevails in all regulated companies. When they have been allowed to act according to their natural genius, they have always, in order to confine the competition to as small a number of persons as possible, endeavoured to subject the trade to many burdensome regulations. When the law has restrained ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... our evil genius, and every incident seemed to be used by him for one settled purpose of hate. A Kaserumini Chief, for instance, and seven men took away a young girl in a canoe to Aniwa, to be sold to friends there for tobacco leaf, ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... of Dulness, then, is Truth—not simply wit or genius. The night of mind is all that Dulness labours to produce. Misdirected wit and genius help on this consummation, and therefore deserve her smile—all the more that they are her born enemies, turned traitors to their native cause; and most formidable enemies too, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... lesson, together with the two following, in which the probable method of subduing fire is portrayed, marks the climax of interest in the story of the Tree-dwellers. No greater conquest has ever been made. In writing of this subject, Mr. Geiger says: "And if we admire in genius not only superior intellectual endowment but the boldness of attempting to think of what has never been thought of by any one before, and to undertake what has never been done before, it was surely an act of genius when man approached ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... temper which disgrace the early pages of volumes we now associate with sound and dignified, if somewhat conventional, utterances on the art of Literature as viewed from the table-land of authority. And, as inevitably the most famous reviews are those which attend the birth of genius, we must include more respectable errors of judgment, if we find also several remarkable appreciations ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Stage (as this work) might have liv'd and lov'd; Her Lines; the austere Skarlet had approv'd, And th' Actors wisely been from that offence As cleare, as they are now from Audience. Thus with thy Genius did the Scaene expire, Wanting thy Active and inliv'ning fire, That now (to spread a darknesse over all,) Nothing remaines but Poesie to fall. And though from these thy Embers we receive Some warmth, so much as may be said, we ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... Myuingwa (a vague conception of the god of the interior) and Baholinkonga (plumed serpent of enormous size, genius of water) their old men obtained a seed from which sprang a ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... trade the riverman was the fundamental factor. Only by means of his brawn and his genius for navigation could these innumerable tons of flour, tobacco, and bacon have been kept from rotting on the shores. Yet the man himself remains a legend grotesque and mysterious, one of the shadowy figures of a time when history was being made too rapidly to be written. If we ask how he ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... going of the tides." He was indeed so aware of this underlying paganism, that we find it blending with Christian ideas in practically the whole of his work. Nothing could be quoted as a more distinctive note of his genius than that blend. It is seen perhaps most clearly in such stories as The Last Supper and The Fisher of Men. In these tales of unsurpassable power and beauty, Fiona Macleod has created the Gaelic Christ. The Christ is the same as He of Galilee and of the ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... there glowed with stronger radiance the charm of his quaint genius and his magnetic personality—tragic, homely, gentle, humorous, honest, ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... of the reign of Louis XIV., a plant of Mocha coffee was brought to the king's garden, which very soon increased; and the genius of the government of that day thought that, by transplanting into their West India colonies this shrub, an immense source of riches might be opened to the country. The carrying out of this idea was entrusted to Chevalier Desclieux, who, provided with a young coffee-plant, ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... damnable and disgusting things in the world is that the medical profession remains so ignorant concerning the real cure for such cases. I believe the late Sir William Osler was the greatest physician of his generation. He was not only a man of talent, he was a genius, and his knowledge of medicine almost passes understanding. Yet Osler himself was as much in the dark concerning the real cure for so-called neurasthenia as the physicians who read his works on practice. If one wants to find out how ignorant the whole profession is on the subject ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... the genius and the lady shut up in a glass box The fable of the ass, the ox, and the labourer The fable of the dog and the cock The story of the merchant and genius The history of the first old man and the bitch The story ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... will be on the land which was Zoe's, which he bought for her. If he is alive—then!' So it was, and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like Virginie, who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they met on that three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of Jean Jacques to have done that one right thing which would save him in the end—a thing which came out of his love for his child—the emotion of an hour. Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his salvation after he learned of Zoe's death, and the other ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... their notes, and credit was gone. The moneyed men had drawn in their funds, and loaned their money at the ruinous rates of three or four per cent per month. The situation seemed desperate; in case of attack, none could hope to be saved only by miracle, or by the wisdom and genius of a ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... great man before he has, like a tree, put forth his blossoms, is the manner, various and dissimilar, in which such persons evolve their powers. For as in nature the finest days are sometimes in the morning overclouded and dark, so the developement of genius follows no rule, but is hastened or retarded by position and circumstance. But to a keen eye there always appear, even in the first obscurity of extraordinary men, certain internal commotions and throes, denoting some magna vis ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... because they were poor and miserable, and it was only when he found Innismaan and the Blaskets, where there is neither riches nor poverty, neither what he calls 'the nullity of the rich' nor 'the squalor of the poor' that his writing lost its old morbid brooding, that he found his genius and his peace. Here were men and women who under the weight of their necessity lived, as the artist lives, in the presence of death and childhood, and the great affections and the orgiastic moment when life outleaps its limits, and who, as it is always with those who have refused or escaped the trivial ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... instruction, where the object was merely to convey information: I was astonished to hear a critic as eloquent as an orator, and who, far from falling upon defects, which are the eternal food of mean and little jealousy, sought only the means of reviving a creative genius." ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... who said that the absenteeism of her men of genius was a worse wrong to Ireland than the absenteeism of her landlords. This evil the Union accentuated by reducing Dublin from the seat of Government, which in the middle of the eighteenth century had been the second only to London in size and importance, to the ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... your coloring; and I promise you that, if you do not break the spell, you shall not only in a few years be able to produce as beautiful a copy of these flowers as can be wished, but your name shall become known to fame, and your genius shall be honored, and your pictures admired ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... variable fortunes of the scene, I was content to hazard certain toil For an uncertain gain. I undertook To rescue those same plays from condemnation, And labor'd to reverse your sentence on them; That the same Poet might afford me more, And no ill fortune damp young Genius in him. My cares prevail'd; the plays were heard; and thus Did I restore an Author, nearly lost Through the malevolence of adversaries, To study, labor, and the Poet's art. But had I at that time despis'd his ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... have risen to the administration of public affairs in France. Though in him it was vocation that had led to study, nature had been generous and bestowed all that cannot be acquired—keen perceptions, self-command, a nimble wit, rapid judgment, decisiveness, and, what is the genius of these ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... tenor of his solitary life. In addition to an ingenious imagination (a quality with its own defects, as the sequel will show), he had that capacity for taking pains which has no disadvantageous side, though in Langholm's case, for one, it was certainly not a synonym for genius. ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... we have separated and sorted exhaustively, an operation in which Phoebe shows a delicacy of discrimination and a fearlessness of attack amounting to genius, we count the entire number and find several missing. Searching for their animate or inanimate bodies, we "scoop" one from under the tool-house, chance upon two more who are being harried and pecked by the big geese in the lower meadow, and discover one ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... who would get at the spirit and meaning of "Leaves of Grass" must remember that its animating principle, from first to last, is Democracy,—that it is a work conceived and carried forward in the spirit of the genius of humanity that is now in full career in the New World,—and that all things characteristically American (trades, tools, occupations, productions, characters, scenes) therefore have their places in it. It ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... It was, he thought, typical of the man, and the contrast between him and his friend became more forcible. Kermode exercised a curious charm. His gay, careless nature made him excellent company, and he had a strain of somewhat eccentric genius; but he was irresponsible and erratic, one could not depend on him. The Canadian was of different temperament: slower, less subject to impulse, but more stubborn and more consistent. When dealing with him one would know what to expect. He would reason out a purpose ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... few who condescended to pay them any attention scowled at them from under their brows, as if resenting their appearance as an intrusion. Ronald was very little moved by the want of courtesy with which he was received, but, walking up to the presiding genius of the place, he inquired, in the best Spanish he could command, whether he and his followers could have beds and food. The old woman looked up with a sinister expression without speaking, while she continued stirring the pot boiling on the huge wood fire. Her eyes were bleared ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... and belongs to the vegetable rather than the mineral kingdom. It may be described as composed of wet, spongy black earth, held together by decayed vegetables. Formerly it covered extensive tracts in England, but has greatly disappeared before the genius of agricultural improvement. Charcoal is a kind of artificial coal, used principally where a strong and clear fire is desired. It is a black, brittle, insoluble, inodorous, tasteless substance, and, when newly-made, possesses the remarkable property of absorbing certain quantities ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... of the day the Terror applied his indisputable constructive genius to the creation of cat-hutches. That evening Erebus wrote his warm letter of ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... the affair of Varennes, it is not impossible that his genius might have given a different complexion to the result. He had already treated with the Queen and the Princess for a reconciliation; and in the apartments of Her Highness had frequent evening, and early morning, audiences of ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... myself, but this is merely an individual opinion, that Savage was a man of genius, or that anything of his writing would have attracted much notice but for the bastard's reference to his mother. For these reasons combined, I should not be inclined to add my subscription of two ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... it—I shall never forget it. When Cicero asked how he should arrive at the height of glory, the oracle answered, 'By making his own genius, and not the opinion of the people, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... split into two parts which endeavoured to ignore each other, Augustin has made us conscious of the nameless regions, the vague countries of the soul, which hitherto had lain shrouded in the darkness of barbarism. By him the union of the Semitic and the Occidental genius is consummated. He has acted as our interpreter for the Bible. The harsh Hebraic words become soft to our ears by their passage through the cultivated mouth of the rhetorician. He has subjugated us with the word of God. He is a Latin who ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... the death of that pope, who was, out of his religion, a very good friend of my mother, we fell into great distress, and were at length reduced to walk the streets of Rome; nor had either of us any other support but a fiddle, on which I played with pretty tolerable skill; for, as my genius turned naturally to music, so I had been in my youth very early instructed at the expense of the good pope. This afforded us but a very poor livelihood: for, though I had often a numerous crowd of hearers, few ever thought themselves obliged to ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... genius for commerce and trade. They scented a bargain from afar, and knew how to exchange "their broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate" (I Kings xxvii. 16), their glassware and their wonderful cloths ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... remarkable of Americans, he surely was destined to a more picturesque career than ever fell to the lot of any of his countrymen of like eminence. Born on a Massachusetts farm, he was a typical "down-east Yankee," with genius added to the usual shrewd, inquiring mind and native resourcefulness. He was self-educated and self-made in the fullest sense in which those terms can be applied. At fourteen he was an unschooled grocer-lad—Benjamin Thompson by name—in a little New England village; at forty ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... stage with it three times. He loves this classic touch. Then he calls out to George (we must suppose), whom we guess to be the presiding genius at the ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... Laville it is different. He is a French noble; and maybe, someday, you will be king of France. He is of a brave and adventurous spirit; but methinks that the young Englishman has a greater genius for war. His cousin, although older, I observe generally appeals to him for his opinion; and has frankly and nobly given him the chief credit, in the affairs in which he has ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... is not at bottom very objective, lends himself so perfectly to an objective representation. He became figurative, while believing himself to be only eloquent—one more proof of his incomparable genius. In Goethe we find the exact opposite. While he is ordinarily called objective and is so to a great extent, his characters lose in the actual representation. His figurativeness is only for the imagination; in the representation ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Italy, in Spain, Denmark, and Russia. He was in the first rank of those benefactors of humanity, who perform prodigies of power in the control and management of their own private affairs, whose labours are extended over the whole world, and who leave on every shore the monuments of their own genius and the memorials of the power and resources of their country. For the greater portion of his eventful life he was doing a large share of the peaceful business of Europe, and nearly everywhere throughout the empire, in the erection of gigantic public ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... greater gifts of genius; Not for thoughts more grandly bright, All the dying poet whispers Is a prayer for ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... humanity.[137] Even on the intellectual side there are no great Londoners. It is well known that a number of eminent men have been born in London; but, in the course of a somewhat elaborate study of the origins of British men of genius, I have not been able to find that any were genuinely Londoners by descent.[138] An urban life saps that calm and stolid strength which is necessary for all great effort and stress, physical or intellectual. The finest body of men in London, as a class, are the London police, and Charles Booth ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... bright room, and it was Mandy's pride to keep it shining. Aunt Sukey sat by one of the windows with the mending basket beside her, and the presiding genius stood at the spotless table rolling ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... it, Dave was on the staff of The Call. His beat comprised the police court, fire department, hotels, and general pick-ups. And the very first day, as though to afford fuel for his genius, a small fire ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... most convincing tribute to the overwhelming genius of the great Finnish romancer is the quatrain recently written in his honour ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... graces had once descended upon the monastic orders, making them ministers of mercy, patterns of celestial life, breathing witnesses of the power of the Spirit in renewing and sanctifying the heart. And then it was that art and wealth and genius poured out their treasures to raise fitting tabernacles for the dwelling of so divine a soul. Alike in the village and the city, amongst the unadorned walls and lowly roofs which closed in the humble dwellings of the laity, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... book a real treasure; since the examples selected are not those of men who became intoxicated with their success, or gave up useful occupation for mere elegant literature or experimental knowledge; but the instances are chiefly of such as have turned their genius to good account, or for the benefit of themselves and their fellow men. We call such men the honourables of the land, whose examples should be written in letters of gold, and on monuments of marble, as helps to social duties and for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... your letter. For the library it cannot have the Strawberry imprimatur: the double arches and double pinnacles are most ungraceful; and the doors below the book-cases in Mr. Chute's design had a conventual look, which yours totally wants. For this time, we shall put your genius in commission, and, like some other regents, execute our own plan without minding our sovereign. For the chimney, I do not wonder you missed our instructions: we could not contrive to understand them ourselves; and therefore, determining nothing but to have the old picture stuck ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... prophets that foretold it. Gloomy, fanatic, implacable and, it may be, mad, yet inspired at least by genius which itself, while madness, is a madness wholly divine, they heralded the future, they established the past. Abraham they drew from allegory, Moses from myth. They made them live, and so immortally that one survives in Islam, the other in words that are ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... composition of "Women Beware Women," is an objection which cannot be brought against the graceful tragicomedy of "The Spanish Gipsy." Whatever is best in the tragic or in the romantic part of this play bears the stamp of Middleton's genius alike in the sentiment and the style. "The code of modern morals," to borrow a convenient phrase from Shelley, may hardly incline us to accept as plausible or as possible the repentance and the redemption of so brutal a ruffian ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... fabrications of the poets about her subsequent career, but to this day nothing authentic has turned up. For some months strenuous efforts were made to recover the wicked Lieutenant's body. Every appliance which genius could invent and skill could wield was put in requisition; until one night the landlord, fearing these constant efforts might frighten away the seals, had the remains quietly removed and secretly interred. ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... one for a day, and succumb to it for a month; while the smallest amount of praise is sufficient to render her incapable of deserving a word of commendation for a week. She is intensely stupid, with a remarkable genius—yes, genius—for cooking. My father says that all stupidity is caused, or at least maintained, by conceit. I cannot quite accompany him to his conclusions; but I have seen plainly enough that the ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... affectionate contempt, who conducted all their affairs, as I have seen a trustworthy and experienced old nurse rule the infinite perplexities of a room full of children. His clear-sightedness and mental grip seemed independent of age and experience, like the ability of genius. He had an imaginative eye for detail, and, starting from a mere hint, would go scheming onwards with astonishing precision. His plan, to which we were committed—committed helplessly and without resistance—was based upon the necessity of our ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... Hermon had won by great genius and ability had gratified him more than he expressed, and he could not contradict Daphne when she asserted that, in spite of the aimless life of pleasure to which he devoted himself, he had remained the kind-hearted, noble ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... beginning to an interview whose object was as yet incomprehensible to her. One minute a blinding glimpse of the room whose details were so varied that many of them still remained unknown to her,—the next, everything swept again into shadow through which the tall form of the genius of the place loomed ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... The Mother of Tomorrow The Nations of the Occident The Nations of the Orient The Alaskan The Lama The Genius of Creation The Rising Sun Descending Night Winter The Portals of El Dorado Panel of the Fountain of El Dorado Youth The American Pioneer Cortez The End of the Trail Panel from the Column of Progress The Feast of the Sacrifice The Joy of Living ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... remember," he said, "that he tried to save her. Some lives are so. At the very end a little reparation is made. In life he was her evil genius. When he died they trampled him underfoot in order to reach her. Mademoiselle, will ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... The Escape of Mr. Trimm, His Plight and Other Plights (Hodder and Stoughton) had been one continuous whole, instead of a number of separate items, for though Mr. Irvin S. Cobb tells a tale well he has not such a genius for the short story that he needs must express himself through that medium. Moreover, the people of his imagination are too interesting to be readily parted with; I should, for instance, have liked to see how that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... more than a year, and then returned home, where he may be said to have loitered, for two years, in a state very unworthy his uncommon abilities. He had already given several proofs of his poetical genius, both in his school-exercises ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... ruminate the stuff, and turn it over and over in his mind in the most miserable, inwardly whining perplexity. He would take the meanest possible view in the end, and discover the meanest possible course of action by a sort of natural genius for ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... peculiar style. From this combination resulted a heterogeneous kind of structure, forming, as it were, the link between the Pyramids and the Parthenon,—monuments in which you discover a sombre, yet bold and elevated genius, associated with a ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... said; At which she turned very angrily red, For she couldn't endure the remotest hint Of the grocery-store, and the mackerels in't. Weeks and months she plotted and planned To raise herself from the common level; Apart from even the few to stand Who'd hundreds of thousands on which to revel. Her genius, at last, spread forth its wings— Stilts, golden stilts, are the very things— "I'll walk on stilts," Mrs. Mackerel cried, In the height of her overtowering pride. Her husband timidly shook his head; ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... respectable musician and organist in a neighboring town. To give his little brother lessons on the clavier, and send him to the Lyceum to learn Latin, singing and other school subjects seemed to Christoph to include all that could be expected of him. That his small brother possessed musical genius of the highest order, was an idea he could not grasp; or if he did, he repressed the boy with indifference and ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... at the monstrous hive of men the wonder of Helen's personality came to him. That she alone, and unaided (save by her own inborn genius and her beauty), should have succeeded in becoming distinguished, even regnant, among so many eager and striving souls, overwhelmed him with love ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... was a genius, and that accounted for his position as chief engineer at the age of twenty-two. He was born a machinist, and his taste in that direction had made him a very hard student. His days and a large portion of his ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... of such works, in which genius seems to have pushed its achievements to a new limit. Their bursting out from nothing, and gradual evolution into substance and shape, cast on the mind a solemn influence. They come too near the fount of being to be followed up without our feeling the shadows which surround ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Folsom, on the return of the party, that she would prefer not to appear, and would be glad to keep her room, as she did not feel it at all necessary for the housekeeper to meet strangers, and Folsom felt a sense of relief. It was so much sweeter not to have any presiding genius other than Pappoose, not that he was forgetful of Mrs. Fletcher's merits and services—which were great—but it was plain to see that his daughter would have been happier had no such office existed as ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... loving everything she was doing, whatever it might be. She went to church on Sundays: but the feeling of religion had practically no place in her life. She admired enthusiasts, like Christophe, who had faith or genius: but she did not envy them: what could she have done with their ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... struggles of fierce power, love, hate, grief, frenzy—in a word, all the worn-out heart of the old earth—had been revealed to him under a new form. His portfolio was filled with graphic illustrations of the volume of his memory which genius would transmute into its own substance and imbue with immortality. He felt that the deep wisdom in his art which he had sought so far ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... studio, and was at work there from dusk to dusk, and his father used to steal up the ladder from time to time to watch his son's progress. He used to say there was no doubt that he had been forewarned, and his wife had to admit that it did seem as if he had had some pre-vision of his son's genius: how else explain the fact that he had said he would like to have a son a sculptor three months before the ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... therefore, to direct observation of any kind. Secondly, their operations are compatible with any social, political, and physical conditions of environment. The same parents, living in the same environing conditions, may at one birth produce a genius, at the next an idiot or a monster. The visible external conditions are therefore not direct determinants of this cycle; and the more we consider the matter, the more we are forced to believe that two children of the same parents are made to differ from each other ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... by which our Savior tries the character of his professed disciples, shed a strong light upon the genius of the gospel. In one connection[F], an inquirer demands of the Savior, "What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" After being reminded of the obligations which his social nature imposed upon him, he ventured, while ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of England, being peculiarly adapted to the preservation of this inestimable blessing even in the meanest subject. Very different from the modern constitutions of other states, on the continent of Europe, and from the genius of the imperial law; which in general are calculated to vest an arbitrary and despotic power of controlling the actions of the subject in the prince, or in a few grandees. And this spirit of liberty is ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... so absorbed in listening that I had almost forgotten the object of my search, but I was suddenly recalled by a loud voice at one side, and the lively genius of the place was on hand in his usual role. Indeed, he rather surpassed himself in mocking and taunting cries that morning, either because he wished, as my host, to entertain me, or, what was more probable, to ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... convinced. It is the first war of the world that is not a miltary war, although miltary genius is demanded, although it is the bloodiest war in history. But other qualities are required; men and women who are not professional soldiers are fighting in it and will aid in victory. The pomp and circumstance of other wars ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... alliteration the question had already been given by default. Revived, after long disuse, by Langland and other poets of the West Midlands in the fourteenth century, it had soon again been swept out of fashion by the irresistible charm of the genius of Chaucer. The Tale of Gamelyn, dating apparently from the first quarter of the fifteenth century, is probably the last poem of note in which the once universal metre is even partially employed. And what could prove more clearly ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Tsiwratte-Kan, where we breakfasted. Here the small streams forming the Terek meet. I was so glad to have reached the end of my journey, that I poured a glass of Hungarian wine into the river, and made a second libation to the genius of the mountain in which the Terek rises. The Ossetes, who thought I was performing a religious ceremony, observed me gravely. On the smooth sides of an enormous block of schist I engraved in red the date of my journey, together with my name and those of my companions, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... pass sentence on the state of learning, and the fine arts, in Vienna. I found, indeed, that it was fashionable to pay court to men of acknowledged talent and genius, and that to music and dancing the Viennese are just as much addicted as any other members of the Germanic family. But except from an evening spent at the theatre, I had no opportunity of determining how far they were or were not gifted ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... of sources of information, and your own genius for discovering secrets, ought to be able to reveal the true nature of Sir Henry's business. Is it an ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... omnipotence of God, and the impotence of humanity is brought into juxtaposition. The Coriolanus overture is another instance among the many at hand illustrating this point. Here we see how the forceful, aggressive, bold, masterful genius, is subdued by the power of conjugal and filial love, a power in this case as irresistible as that of a glacier, which will make its way against any odds. Each side in striving for the mastery, displays its own peculiar characteristics ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... Progress in the developments of arts, sciences, and institutions depends on fortunate individual variations. The smaller the race the less the number of variations possible, including those on the side of what we call genius. Again fortunate variations depend not so much on the general average intellectual capacities of the race as on its variability. So one race may possess a relative superiority of achievement because of its high variability, just as, as we have already ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... continued to write, supporting his idea that the only salvation for the colonies lay in war with Spain. At the end of that year he published a memorandum of so great importance that it can be considered as the first real revelation of his true genius. He explained the reasons for the defeat of Venezuela, and set them forth as a lesson of the urgent need of unity and firmness on the part of the American colonies. He denounced the weakness of the first government, evidenced in the treatment accorded Coro, which was not conquered immediately, ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... World to Majesty may bow Exalt the brave, & idolize Success But more to Innocence their Safety owe Than Power & Genius ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... plagues swept over Europe in 1348. In these years he rose from the vivid but confused and exaggerated manner of Filocopo to the perfection of polished literary style. The Decameron fully revealed his genius, his ability to weave the tales of all lands and all ages into one harmonious whole; from the confused mass of legends of the Middle Ages, he evolved a world of human interest and dazzling beauty, fixed the kaleidoscopic picture of Italian society, and set it in the ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... estimation of those who wrought with him, was easily first in his class. Ranald could have adopted no better plan for the enhancing of his reputation than by allowing Colonel Thorp to go in and out among the workmen and his friends. More and more the colonel became impressed with his manager's genius for the picking of his men and binding them to his interests, and as this impression deepened he became the more resolved that it was a waste of good material to retain a man in a country offering such a limited ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... afraid or ashamed to use the best helps you can get. Divest yourself of the idea that all you need is to wait till a toast is proposed and your name called, and then to open your mouth and let the eloquence flow forth. The greatest genius in the world might succeed in that way, but would not be likely to venture it. Use a book and ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... was pleasant to think that there was some one to remove the stumbling blocks from the road, so that the feet of him who had risen from obscurity might find a place to walk. But the little slave was filled with the admiration of the Jew, born in poverty and oppression, for the genius of the other race. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... with a natural history of county people and of people who are just below the level of county people and live in the eager hope of being taken notice of by them. There is more caste snobbishness, I think, in Jane Austen's novels than in any other fiction of equal genius. She, far more than Thackeray, ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... alone, but always took with her two children, of whom she was very fond—Cornichon, a boy of fourteen, bought in his childhood at a slave-market, and Toupette, a few months younger, who had been entrusted to the care of the fairy by her guardian, the genius Kristopo. Cornichon and Toupette were intended by Selnozoura to become husband and wife, as soon as they were old enough. Meanwhile, they travelled with her in a little vessel, whose speed through the air was just a thousand nine hundred and fifty times greater than that of the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... own kind warbling from among the shrub-roots, and the lark, though alone on earth, would sing the hymn well known at the gate of heaven, so all untaught but by the nature within her, and inspired by her own delightful genius alone, did Mary Morrison feel all the measures of those ancient melodies, and give them all an expression at once simple and profound. People who said they did not care about music, especially Scottish music, it was so monotonous ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... would have invited her again (there was no question of inviting the Count); but Osmond, after his marriage, had not scrupled to say frankly that Amy was a fool of the worst species—a fool whose folly had the irrepressibility of genius. He said at another time that she had no heart; and he added in a moment that she had given it all away—in small pieces, like a frosted wedding-cake. The fact of not having been asked was of course another obstacle to the Countess's going again to Rome; but at the ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They must therefore be told again and again that labour is the only price of solid fame; and that, whatever their force of genius may be, there is no easy method ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... was first proposed, much ingenuity was employed in conjecturing, and much eloquence displayed in expatiating upon, the various evils that might result from them; yet the genius of party, however usually successful in gloomy perspective, did not at that time imagine half the inconvenience this measure was fraught with. It was easy, indeed, to foresee, that an immense circulation of paper, like any other currency, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... when we approach him. The greatest happiness of the greatest number was a great original idea when enunciated by Bentham, which leavened a generation and has left its mark on thought and civilization in all succeeding times. His grasp of it had the intensity of genius. In the spirit of an ancient philosopher he would have denied that pleasures differed in kind, or that by happiness he meant anything but pleasure. He would perhaps have revolted us by his thoroughness. ...
— Philebus • Plato
... Emperor, with his haughty brow, fierce eyes, and determined lips, the very impersonification of self-will and human pride, now brought down to the very dust; but, haughty as was that brow, the expression of the countenance gave no sign of talent or true genius. It was indeed wanting. He had the sense to take advantage of the ideas of others, and the determination to carry them into execution. The colonel stopped to look at the picture, but there was no smile of affection on his countenance. There were also full-length portraits ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... some respects, a remarkable man, but not a very good sort of one for a boy to be bound apprentice to. He paid very little attention to his business, which he seemed to think unworthy of his genius. He was a kind-hearted man, fond of company and frolics, in which he indulged himself freely, and much given to speeches and harangues, in which he had a good deal of fluency. In religion he professed to be a Universalist, holding to doctrines and ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... no important literature, nor art, nor real freedom and happiness, among any people until they feel their uniform a livery, and see in every battlefield an inglorious arena of human degradation.... The only cause that can uplift the genius of a people as the anti-slavery cause did in America is ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... out of which, I am sure, a novelist could make a good short story, or a pleasant opening chapter of a romance. What is the mysterious art by which these things are done? What makes the well-told story seem real, rich with life, actual, engrossing? It is the secret of genius, of the novelist's art, and the writer who cannot practise the art might as well try to discover the Philosopher's Stone, or to "harp fish out of the water." However, let me tell the legend as simply as may be, and as it was told ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... publish a book called "Memoirs of my Life," which is looked for with great expectations by both the admirers of her genius and the lovers of scandalous gossip. It is certain that if she makes a clean breast of her adventures and experiences, the world will have reason both for admiration and disgust over the confessions: admiration for the generosity of her character—for she never did a mean thing, and probably ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... and Times, under the title of SIR JAMES TURNER'S MEMOIRS. From this curious book I extract the following passage, as an example of how Captain Dalgetty might have recorded such an incident had he kept a journal, or, to give it a more just character, it is such as the genius of De Foe would have devised, to give the minute and distinguishing features of truth ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... crippled or aged who cannot run the distance in twenty seconds. Only in the fables has the hero the strength of a dozen men. But where dexterity or knowledge enters things become different, and one man can do what the most of men cannot even prepare to do. Where abstract thought or talent or genius is involved the greatest human variability is seen. There we have Pascals who are mathematicians at five and discoverers at sixteen; there we have Mozarts, composers at three; there we have our inspired boy preachers already consecrated to their great ideal ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... not understand the great need of our constantly growing population for uncomfortable houses in inconvenient suburbs, and in their failure to comprehend they became cavilers. But others—those who admire the genius which enables a man to make unproductive land productive, who hail as benefactor one who supplants a profitless oak of a thousand years' standing with a thriving butcher-shop—these people understood what was being done for Dumfries Corners, but wondered how the venture ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... attractive, he seems able to organize and control others in a most singular way. Perhaps it is because he has a genius for taking pains and planning successful entertainments for his friends, even to the minutest detail, and giving them the subtle distinction of both originality and finish, without troubling their givers to think for themselves. Miss Lavinia-says that he has the ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... to inquire concerning him from the Biographical Dictionaries and Popular Histories of the day, will find in them all the same brief and peremptory decision concerning his character. They all pronounce him to have been a man of wonderful sagacity, endowed with a native genius for both war and government; but savage in warfare; hypocritical in religion—using piety as a political mask; and, in all his affairs, the very prince of dissemblers. It is true that this account ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... 'for there is yet much for a prince to do, after the best system of laws has been established: the government of a nation as a whole, the regulation and extent of its trade, the establishment of manufactories, the encouragement of genius, the application of the revenues, and whatever can improve the arts of peace, and secure superiority in war, is the proper ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... I. His genius and the greatness of his age.—II. His qualifications. —III. His early career.—IV. The character of Niccolo Niccoli, who abetted him in the forgery.—V. Bracciolini's descriptive writing of the Burning of Jerome of Prague compared with the descriptive writing of the Sham Sea Fight ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Fountain of Beauty and the Beast Entrance to Palace of Varied Industries Group above Doorway of Palace of Varied Industries Avenue of Palms at Night Avenue of Progress at Night Arcaded Vestibule in Entrance to Palace of Machinery "Genii of Machinery" "The Genius of Creation" Tower in Court of the Ages Fountain of the Earth "The Stone Age" "Fruit Pickers" Entrance to Court of the Ages, at Night "The Triumph of Rome" "The Thirteenth Labor ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... to a small cabinet, unlocked it, and produced a miniature, which she placed in my hands. If the painter had not flattered him, Cousin Latimer was indeed a handsome boy. There was genius on his wide, bold forehead, and resolution in his firm, well-cut mouth; his large dark eyes betrayed strong passions and keen intelligence, whilst high birth was stamped on his fine features and chivalrous expression of countenance. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... "His evil genius, the man who, secretly, unknown to his parents, enticed him away from school, the man who led him astray, who corrupted him, who took him from us, who taught him to lie, to waste his substance and ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... response. "I ditched it, sir. It oppressed me to bear about such a store of wisdom. The marvel of the ages, the compendium of universal knowledge, reposes in the dust-bin. Mayhap some aspiring dust-man, in whose mind smolders untaught genius, will chance upon it. It may prepare some dim soul for future brilliancy—the arts, the crafts, the sciences, are all contained in that wonderful volume. Who knows, out of that black dust-bin may rise a radiant glow of light. The janitor, the collector ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com
|
|
|
