"Trait" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been in her power, she had never felt a wish of inquiring. His countenance, voice, and manner had established him at once in the possession of every virtue. She tried to recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of integrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of Mr. Darcy; or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those casual errors under which she would endeavour to class what Mr. Darcy had described as ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... perfection, so soothed and amused him that he soon forgot any momentary displeasure, and more than once gave up his evening visit to the club at Moate to listen to her as she sang, or hear her sketch off some trait of that Roman society in which British pretension and eccentricity often ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... and disobedient who incur displeasure and receive punishment; and such reward is just. But whenever God has dealings with the world, it shows what a rotten fruit it is by hating, persecuting, and putting to death as evil-doers and impostors its very benefactors. This trait it inherits, John tells us, from its ancestor Cain, the great fratricide saint. He is a true picture of the world of all times, and ever its spirit and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... lovable, and meditative scholar—not haughty like Dunstan, not arrogant like Becket, not sacerdotal like Ambrose, not passionate like Chrysostom, but meek as Moses is said to have been before Pharaoh (although I never could see this distinguishing trait in the Hebrew leader)—yet firmly and heroically braving the wrath of the sovereign who had elevated him, and pursuing his toilsome journey to Rome to appeal to justice against injustice, to law against violence. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... Hambleton ideas retained their family color, and became, whether worthily or not, a part of the Hambleton pride. More than one son had lost his health or entire fortune, which was apt not to be large, in attempts to carry on a country place. "A Hambleton trait!" they chuckled, with as much satisfaction as they considered it good form to exhibit. In Lynn, where family pride did not bring in large returns, this phrase became ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... another characteristic trait of her father's. She could ignore when she chose. She ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... insistence was the one trait in his character which his mother had found hardest to deal with from his babyhood; from it, however, if it should develop happily into perseverance, she hoped the most. This trait he inherited from his father, Warren Googe, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... less active than they are to-day. It is coming to be pretty generally realized that the Interstate Commerce legislation has not fulfilled the expectation of its friends. But this is a frequent trait of tentative legislation. It is not reasonable to expect that the first efforts to solve a problem the factors of which are so hidden and complex will be followed by ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... sea and in port from Dantzic to Flessingen and Bayonne, from Cadiz to Toulon and Gaeta, from Tarentum to Venice, Corfu, and Constantinople.[1169]—On the psychological and moral atlas, besides a primitive gap which he will never fill up, because this is a characteristic trait, there are some estimates which are wrong, especially with regard to the Pope and to Catholic conscience. In like manner he rates the energy of national sentiment in Spain and Germany too low. He rates too high his ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... acquainted with them, that her father would not allow a copy of their books to come freely into his home, and Gracie was much too honorable to read them in private. But it is also true that while professing to admire this trait in her, as charming in a young daughter, the professor had also, pityingly and gently, told this young daughter that these things were her father's concessions to the narrow age and trammelled profession ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... is assumed. But in reality, is this necessary? It seems to be as natural for a young mind to set eagerly to work for a short time at each new bit of knowledge, as it is for a nursing child to require refreshments every two or three hours. It is an adult trait to stick to a task, even though a very long one, until it is accomplished. The youthful trait is to take kindly to a clutter ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... Curiosity is a valuable trait. It will make the simians learn many things. But the curiosity of a simian is as excessive as the toil of an ant. Each simian will wish to know more than his head can hold, let alone ever deal with; and those whose minds are active will wish to ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... desirable trait in one connected with a pawnshop, that is also reputed to be a fence, to show surprise or curiosity. So Isaac's reply was confined to a few ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... trait of the Balungu up here is, they retire when they see food brought to anyone, neither Babisa nor Makoa had this sense of delicacy: ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... lies entirely within the boundary of his own art. He has selected a personage for his drama with whom a certain fate is so indissolubly associated, that it is impossible to think of her without recalling it to mind; and this ineffaceable trait in her history he has attempted, for the time, to obliterate from our memory. By this procedure, the imagination of the reader is divided and distracted. The picture presented by the poet is and is not a portrait of the historical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... not one plunged more whole-heartedly into the folly of the moment than Quita. She had stationed herself opposite the door where Lenox stood, and the very spirit of devilry seemed to have entered into her, driving her to italicise every trait in herself that must needs grate on his fastidiousness where a woman's conduct was concerned. Her effervescent gaiety dominated the 'set,' which speedily degenerated into a romp till, in the third figure, an incident occurred which partially brought ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... you on another ground. Remember that it is the minority that is asking for these guarantees. You are just coming into power. The country has approved of your action in the election of Mr. LINCOLN. You can afford to be liberal. Liberality is a noble trait in any character, whether it be that of an individual ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... prepared for some such invasion, and had an excellent rabbit-pie awaiting them. There was a delightful trait of old Mrs. Talbot's which I would like to record, a curious chronological method of remembering great occasions and startling events by the food of the day. Thus, for example, when with eyes that would still fill with tears, though it was ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... those dear little ones whom extreme youth or other pressing considerations detain from scenes of festivity—a trait of affection by no means uncommon among our thoughtful people—dignifies those social meetings where it is manifested, and sheds a ray of sunshine on our common nature. It is "an oasis in the desert,"—to use the striking expression of the last year's "Valedictorian" of the Apollinean Institute. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... we are told, loves a joke at another's expense, a trait in his character essentially barbaric. Raemaekers reproduces the twinkle in the Imperial eye as William of Potsdam offers to a quondam ally the foot which belongs to his senile and helpless brother of Hapsburg. The roar of anguish from the prostrate octogenarian provokes, as we see, not ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... the universal self-interest. That's the trait of human nature which we have in mind when we speak of enlightenment. The aim of practical Radicalism is to instruct men's selfishness. Astonishing how capable it is of being instructed! The mistake of the Socialist lies in his crediting men with far ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... will get beyond what is mechanical and formal. The reason that recitations are so largely memory tests, too, is that teachers put mere memory questions more easily than they put questions that provoke thought. It is, therefore, a well- established natural trait that is back of so ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... very different from that of the preceding day—quiet, courteous, and, as Herkimer thought, watchful both over his guest and himself. This unnatural restraint was almost the only trait that betokened anything amiss. He had just thrown a book upon the grass, where it lay half opened, thus disclosing itself to be a natural history of the serpent tribe, illustrated by lifelike plates. Near it lay that ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mr. Wilson did when, having studied law and having been admitted to the bar, he abandoned practice and went to teach in a girls' school. That was the early sign in him of that sense of unfitness for the more arduous contacts of life which was so conspicuous a trait during his presidency. He could not endure meeting men on an equal footing, where there was a conflict of wills, a rough clash of minds, where no concession was ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... act on his advice. The king swore not to hand him over to the princes; so Jeremiah promised that if Sedekiah would give himself up to the Chaldeans he and his house would be spared and the city saved. The king—it is another credible trait in this weak character—feared that the Chaldeans would deliver him to the mockery of those Jews who had already deserted to them. Jeremiah sought to reassure him, again urged him to surrender, and then burst out with the vision—an extraordinarily ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... feeling that Balzac was disapproving of her conduct in writing to him first, but Balzac assured her that such was not his intention, and that he considered this demarche of hers as royale and reginale. Another trait, which she probably did not recognize, was that just as the great poet Canalis was at first indifferent to the letters of the heroine, and allowed Ernest de la Briere to answer them, so was Balzac rather indifferent to hers, and Madame Carraud—as already stated—is supposed to have ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... face looked hard. Was it, he seemed to be turning over in his mind, that she loved him a little in the depths of her heart? That was an irritating trait of feminine stupidity. But one intelligent glance at her calm face rendered that supposition impossible. She was merely largely human, with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... rabbits all by himself. He really didn't have any spite against the rabbits, but when he struck a fresh trail, he felt that he just must follow it. And when he had puzzled out a balk or break in the trait, he couldn't for the ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... for some days had not been gracious to the sight of Jane, went out to meet her in a state of mind so dazed that it bordered on the humorous. At heart most things were jests with this devil-may-care young man (it may have been a trait cultivated through sheer necessity) and whether Dale killed or were killed might some weeks ago have passed into his continuous performance of human comedies and tragedies. But there was a new element about this which shocked him to the foundation of his nature, and the revulsion became more ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... So singular a trait in his character was by no means the result of eccentricity, but the result of an exceptional assembly of rare qualities which met for the first time in one man, and which, shining in the midst of a most corrupt society, constituted almost more an anomaly which became ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... desirable trait in any one, especially an angler who aspires to things, but that was left out in the ordering of my complex disposition. However, to get angry makes a man fight harder, and ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... must often have heard the substitution. He would certainly have forbidden its use, had he not approved of it, for he was particularly averse to having changes made in his music. The following anecdote illustrates this trait in his character. It was related by the late Mme. Marie Saxe, better known under her Italianized name of Marie Sasse. This distinguished soprano singer, a member of the Paris Opera for a number of years, was engaged ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... keep the family laughing for a week; and they made it a serious business to study the comic points of their beneficiaries, who severally lived in the family records by some grotesque mental or physical trait. They had an irreverent name among themselves for each of the humorless abolition lecturers who unfailingly abode with them on their rounds; and these brethren and sisters, as they called them, paid with whatever was laughable in them for the ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... blessings held out to the savage by civilization, and they are only some of them. The picture is neither fanciful nor overdrawn; there is no trait in it that I have not personally witnessed, or that might not have been enlarged upon; and there are often other circumstances of greater injury and aggression, which, if dwelt upon, would have cast a still darker shade upon the prospects ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... about his ears, take thirty rupees' worth of satisfaction out of his royal highness, and then go up to court and pay my fine." It will be seen that Mr. Hornaday is a true-born American, and not disposed to stand any nonsense that conflicts with the great law of human equality. But though this trait makes him appear somewhat uncharitable toward prejudices that have survived the Declaration of Independence, it shows itself in its most amiable light in his own free and sociable disposition, his readiness to be on terms of good-fellowship with men of all sorts and conditions, and his heartiness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... about the modern man as regards poetry is, that he prefers poetry that has this reserved turbine-wheel trait in it. It is because most of the poetry the modern man gets a chance to see to-day is merely going over the Falls that poetry is not supposed to appeal to the modern man. He supposes so himself. He supposes that a dynamo (forty street-cars on forty streets, flying through the dark) is not poetic, ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... looking at him, said, "It is so utterly impossible for us women to comprehend love without folly in a man; the trait by which we recognize it! Merthyr, you dear Englishman, you shall know everything. Do we not think a tisane a weak washy drink, when we are strong? But we learn, when we lie with our chins up, and our ten toes like stopped organ-pipes—as Sandra says—we ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... men. This is historical. His probable private victims amount to as many more. He wears his hair braided behind, and done up in a knot with a back-comb, like a woman's. He has a face full of bull-dog courage,—but vastly good-natured, and without a bad trait in it. I went out riding with him on the Fourth of July, and enjoyed his society greatly,—though I knew that at a word from Brigham he would cut my throat in as matter-of-fact a style as if I had been a calf instead of an author. But he would have felt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... health had not given way in 1873 he might even have become President in the place of Hayes; for he was a person whom every man felt that he could trust. His loyalty to Sumner bordered on veneration, and was the finest trait in his character. There was no pretense in Henry Wilson's patriotism; everyone felt that he would have died ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... to point out one trait rather than another that makes Bernard Shaw, for so brilliant a man, so ineffective as a leader, or literary statesman, or social reformer, it would be his modesty. He ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... trait is the quite unaffected conception that the lowly are on a plane of equality with the so-called upper classes. When the Englishman Dickens wrote with his profound pity and understanding of the poor, there ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... War. The union was, however, of little immediate service, useful rather as an example for the far future. Its failure was due partly to the distance of the colonies apart, and to the strength of the instinct for local self-government, a distinguishing political trait of New England till our day. Its main weakness, however, was the overbearing power and manner of Massachusetts, especially after her assumption of Maine in 1652. In 1653 the Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut commissioners earnestly wished war with ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... are reminded both of Thackeray and Dickens. But when the Squire, coming down to the Small House to discuss his niece's marriage, just avoids a quarrel with his sister about the propriety of early fires, we acknowledge, that, as it stands, the trait belongs to Trollope alone. Dickens would have eschewed it, and Thackeray would have expanded it. The same remark applies to their pathos. With Trollope we weep, if it so happen we can, for a given shame or wrong. Our ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... learned by their parlance and Bible phrases to construct "short sentences of small words," but he had all along the idea that "the plain people are more easily influenced by a broad and humorous illustration than in any other way." It is the Anglo-Saxon trait, distinguishing all great preachers, actors, and ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... actively willing to share technical tricks, software, and (where possible) computing resources with other hackers. Huge cooperative networks such as {Usenet}, {FidoNet} and Internet (see {Internet address}) can function without central control because of this trait; they both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that may be hackerdom's most valuable ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... chiefly excited where he suspects deceit or imposition; and in that respect, perhaps, his character was formerly misunderstood by one who was dear to him. He has, too, a tinge of romance in his disposition; and I have seen the narrative of a generous action, a trait of heroism, or virtuous self-denial, extract tears from him which refused to flow at a tale of mere distress. But then Brown urges that he is personally hostile to him. And the obscurity of his birth, that would be indeed ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... readers have probably heard of the "Luck of Edenhall," for besides Longfellow's[1] well-known poem, the legend relating to it has often been told in print. I refer to it here merely to mention a curious trait of character in Sir George Musgrave in connection with it. The "Luck of Edenhall" is an ancient decorated glass goblet, which has belonged to the Musgraves time out of mind, and which bears on it ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... among the rabble, but stood apart, with his back against a shop window. Thus, he was free to move to right or left as he chose. That was a slight thing in itself, an unconscious trick of aloofness—perhaps an inherited trait of occupying his own territory, so to speak. But it is these slight things which reveal character. They oft-times influence human lives, too; and no man ever extricated himself more promptly from the humdrum of moneyless existence in London than did Richard ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... 360): "It seems clear, upon reviewing the whole problem, that if Chaucer used Marco Polo's narrative, he either carelessly or intentionally confused all the features of the setting that could possibly be confused, and retained not a single really characteristic trait of any person, place or event. It is only by twisting everything that any part of Chaucer's story can be brought into relation with any part of Polo's. To do this might be allowable, if any rational explanation could ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... be surprised to hear, that of all the lions of literati that I have seen here, there is not one whose countenance has not some unpleasant trait. Mary Imlay is the best, infinitely the best. The only fault in it, is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display; an expression indicating superiority, not haughtiness, not conceit, not sarcasm, in Mary Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... refused to barter except I would double the quantity of beads; the next day with a great deal of importunity on his part I received the skin in exchange for a few strans of the same beads he had refused the day before. I therefore believe this trait in their character proceeds from an avaricious all grasping disposition. in this rispect they differ from all Indians I ever became acquainted with, for their dispositions invariably lead them to give whatever they are possessed off no matter how ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... "that I've seen a horse draw a cart, but I niver before saw a cart drawing a horse." There was one trait in the character of the boy which pleased me much; he was very grateful for any little act of kindness. He often got into difficulties with the family, owing to his rashness and want of consideration, and I often succeeded ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... an indescribable, undefinable air that hung about him. Many Russians have it, and the French have embodied the idea it conveys in their proverb that if you scratch a Russian you will find the Tartar. It is rather a trait of Orientalism in the blood, and it is to be noticed as much in Servians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, and even Hungarians, as in Russians. It is the peculiarity of most of these races that under certain circumstances, if thoroughly roused, they will ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the third act, when Sardanapalus calls for a mirror to look at himself in his armour, recollect to quote the Latin passage from Juvenal upon Otho (a similar character, who did the same thing: Gifford will help you to it). The trait is, perhaps, too familiar, but it is historical (of Otho, at least), and natural in an effeminate character."—Letter to Murray, May 30, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 301. The quotation was not made in the first edition, 1821, nor in any subsequent issue, till 1832. It ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... for his native country was the leading trait of his character; he seems to have begun his three hours' voyage with a firm determination to be displeased at every thing he saw out of Old England. For a meagre, powdered figure, hung with tatters, a-la-mode ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... tuppenny, ha'penny chit, with eyes like two holes burnt in a blanket, and a nose Mr. Micawber might have waited for, but you'll do. You get everything you want, without effort, and that's a rare trait. What do ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... from her. Moral distinctions are determined by our sense of the agreeable and the disagreeable. We pass an immediate judgment of taste on the actions of our fellow-men; the good pleases, evil displeases. The sight of virtue gives us satisfaction; that of vice repels us. Accordingly an action or trait of mind is virtuous when it calls forth in the observer an ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... manners because they have pushed themselves into the best places, crowded into the trains ahead of the women, and generally ignored the courtesies due to ladies and gentlemen associated with them. But, in spite of our full recognition of this undesirable national trait, I doubt whether any great number of Americans have permitted a dislike of German manners to affect their opinion as to German morals in the conduct of war, though some do hold that lack of good manners is a characteristic mark of inferior civilisation. On the whole, we have ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... performed the duty as well as did the young officer whom he selected, and some who would have done their part better; but, during the whole war, no change was made, although not to remove him often required that firmness—not to say obstinacy—which was a prominent trait of Mr. Davis's character, and which, right or wrong, but especially when he was right, he exercised to a ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... real apprenticeship in the school of virtue. Once received, she was soon distinguished for zeal and fervor, and was to be seen everywhere, exercising the duties of Christian charity. Her distinguishing trait, however, was the instruction of the ignorant, and teaching young girls the principles of religion, as well as the rudiments of education. It may be truly said of her from that period, that the animating principle of all her ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... a moment and I mused idly on the boyhood of little Fyne. I could not imagine what it might have been like. His dominant trait was clearly the remnant of still earlier days, because I've never seen such staring solemnity as Fyne's except in a very young baby. But where was he all that time? Didn't he suffer contamination from the indolence of Captain Anthony, I inquired. I was told that Mr. Fyne was very little at ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... which "the most eminent botanist of antiquity observes the doings of men with the keen and unerring vision of a natural historian" (Gomperz). In the Hippocratic writings, there are mentioned 236 plants; in the botany of Theophrastus, 455. To one trait of master and pupil I must refer—the human feeling, not alone of man for man, but a sympathy that even claims kinship with the animal world. "The spirit with which he (Theophrastus) regarded the animal world found no second expression till the present age" (Gomperz). ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... an animal, not a human shape. And it was light-footed and swift and noiseless—and it was white. It had, indeed, every distinguishing trait of Cookie's phantom pig. Only it was not a pig. My brief shadowy glimpse of it had told me that. I knew what it was not, but what it was I could not, as I stood there rooted, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... to say that it is a trait of the entire Mainwaring family, or only of this branch in particular?" he inquired, ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... cheeky sort of boy—if I may be allowed such an expression. He treats me with the pleasantest deference and respect—and when I think of his father's wealth and political influence, that seems to me a charming trait! There ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to me by a young missionary. I thought it might prove not uninteresting, as a trait of character of one of these singular people. Chiboya (for that was the name of the Indian) was one of the Chippewas of Rice Lake, most of whom are now converts to Christianity, and making considerable advancement in civilisation and knowledge ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... long accustom'd to receive In deep-engraven lines, each varying trait Past Times and Seasons wore, can find no date Thro' many years, O! MAY, when thou hadst leave, As now, of the great SUN, serene to weave Thy fragrant chaplets; in poetic state To call the jocund Hours on thee to wait, Bringing each day, at ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... tent to find that the zaptiehs had been given the best places and best covers to sleep in, and that we were expected to accommodate ourselves near the door, wrapped up in an old Kurdish carpet. Policy was evidently a better developed trait ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... evidence of the survival of the most primitive human trait, the condition of hostility among the local groups produced by the struggle for women. "The possession of a girl appears to be connected with all their ideas of fighting ... after a battle the girls do not always follow their fugitive husbands from the field, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... or sudden in her feelings and thought are portrayed with the delicacy of light and shade, the picturesqueness and self-forgetfulness, with which a fine actress renders a part. This dramatic quality is perhaps the most striking trait in His Heart's Desire. Many of its scenes are intensely dramatic, full of passion, striking in situation, and showing a rather rare accomplishment—that of conducting a dialogue which shall be equally brilliant on both sides without ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... conceited—rather bashful, I should say. But embarrassment in him is attractive. No hero should be conceited. There is a wide difference between impertinence and frankness. Ferguson seems to speak frankly, but with a subtle shade. I think this is a very agreeable trait for a hero ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... inhabitants, including the clams. And yet it was remarkable how many of the latter were mere empty shells when Ham finished his breakfast that morning. He preferred them roasted, and his mother-in-law had not forgotten that trait in his character. ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... paid very dearly for them too, that were not half so finely done! They would ask her to show me her portfolio, and she would do it directly, for she was the kindest creature living. It was not the worst trait in the disposition of these boys, that, whatever might be the subject of conversation, or from whatever point we might start in our discourse, they found pleasure in making all things bear towards the honour and renown of their young mistress. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... to say reckless things to him which stirred the blood. Thus: "You and I, Osborn"—he knew, of course, that familiarity with Christian names was a trait of the stage—"have met, and presently we shall part; and what was the good of meeting if this dear little friendship is just to be packed up ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... ladies laughed and making peace between them, set food before the Calenders. When they had eaten, they all sat down again to carouse, the portress serving the new comers, and the cup passed round awhile, till the porter said to the Calenders, 'O brothers, have ye no story or rare trait to divert us withal?' The Calenders, being warm with wine, called for musical instruments; so the portress brought them a tambourine and a lute and a Persian harp; and each Calender took one and tuned it and played and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... month after her death, is friendly, but there are limitations to its praise. The following is the sentence it passed upon her: "Her manners were gentle, easy, and elegant; her conversation intelligent and amusing, without the least trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness of powers above the level of her sex; and, for fondness of understanding and sensibility of heart, she was, perhaps, never equalled. Her practical skill in education was ever superior to her speculations upon that subject; ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... especially in him his scrupulous attention to cleanliness of person and of environment. He washed like a very Mussulman, five times a day; loved cleanliness in all things, to a superstitious extent; which trait is pleasant in the rugged man, and indeed of a piece with the rest of his character. He is gradually changing all his silk and other cloth room-furniture; in his hatred of dust, he will not suffer a floor-carpet, even a stuffed chair; but insists on having all of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... showed so much veneration for their unhappy calling, would hesitate before they turned informers, and laid bare the secrets and exposed the haunts of their fellows: — among the more civilized ruffians of Europe, we often find the one chivalrous trait of character, which makes them scorn a reward that must be earned by the blood of their accomplices: but in India there is no honour among thieves. When the approvers are asked, if they, who still believe in the power of the terrible goddess Davee, are not afraid to incur ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Phalanx from retaliation, else they possessed none of the characteristics of a courageous, sensitive and high tempered people. The negro is not naturally docile; his surroundings, rather than his nature, have given him the trait; it is not naturally his, but something which his trainers have given him; and it is not a difficult task to untrain him and advance him beyond his apparent unconsciousness of self-duty and self-preservation. Let him feel that he is to be supported in any transaction uncommon to ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... exist. As between a stationary paradise and a progressive purgatory, I should prefer the latter, for the sake of the permanent well-being of the human race; but what I should choose in preference to either is a progressive paradise. The capacity for further improvement is the essential trait of the best condition now in sight. The reformer can point to his delectable mountains and trace an unending route to and over them, as they rise range beyond range and lose themselves in the distance. Men are, in general, following the route, and each generation advances beyond the point attained ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark
... achievement we shall see better what the pioneer accomplished. Every gift that Carleton had—and pathos and humour, things complementary to each other, he possessed in profusion—every gift is obscured by faulty technique. Nearly every trait is overcharged; for instance, in his story of the Midnight Mass he rings the changes interminably upon the old business of the wonderful medicine in the vagrants' blessed horn that had a strong odour of whisky; but what an admirably humorous figure is this same Darby O'More! Out of the Poor ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... as the plume in Porthos's hat made the wooden candles suspended over the front jingle together, a melancholy presentiment seemed to eclipse the delight Planchet had promised himself for the morrow. But the grocer had a heart of gold, ever mindful of the good old times—a trait that carries youth into old age. So Planchet, notwithstanding a sort of internal shiver, checked as soon as experienced, received Porthos with respect, mingled with the tenderest cordiality. Porthos, who was a little cold and stiff in his manners at first, on account ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of witnesses, each testifying to some public or private act of philanthropy, some noble trait of character. It was the sort of thing which the defense lawyer in the Whately case had been so willing to stipulate. Sidney, of course, tried to make it all out to be part of a sinister conspiracy to establish a Solar League fifth column on New Texas. ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... arrived dead, or in the article of death. That was another scene Ernst August had to witness in his life. I suspect him at present of a thought that M. de la Bergerie, with his pious commonplaces, is likely to do no good. Other trait of Ernst August's life; or of the Schloss of Hanover that night,—or where the sorrowing old Mother sat, invincible though weeping, in some neighboring room,—I cannot give. M. de la Bergerie continues ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... modest; but those who have read so far through my work will credit me with enough decency, tact, savoir faire, what you will, to prevent me from making a song for my own glory out of the words of other people. No! The true motive of my selection lies in quite a different trait. I have always had a propensity to justify my action. Not to defend. To justify. Not to insist that I was right but simply to explain that there was no perverse intention, no secret scorn for the natural sensibilities of mankind at the bottom of ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... inevitable." And yet, in the face of overwhelming evidence that Moslems in all things bow to the stroke of destiny, it is singular to note that a Turkish scholar like Mr. Redhouse, translator of the "Mesnevi," fails to realise this most characteristic trait of Mahometan belief, and confuses it with the Christian idea of Providence and Premonition. The folk in Arabian tales, as might be expected, meet calamity in the shape of death with fortitude. The end of life ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... a gem of the first water. He reveals every day some new trait of interest or agreeableness. I saw immediately that he was a man of fine taste; I have since learned to respect him as a man of enlarged intellect and earnest feeling; and now I am just beginning to discover that he is master of all those agremens which constitute ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... chapter, to efface all the marks of their circumcision, that they might enter the games with as much freedom as the Romans or other uncircumcised nations; so that the present aversion to out-of-door sports evinced by the Jew is not necessarily a racial trait; the persecutions and political inequality that until lately he has been made to suffer have driven him into retirement and seclusion. Although seeking neither converts nor political power and influence, he has been hunted down, massacred, and chased about as a dangerous ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... The Mutiny of the Bounty, perhaps the most romantic incident of these South Seas, was the result of an effort to transport breadfruit-tree shoots from Tahiti to the West Indies. It is a beautiful trait in humankind, which, maybe, designing nature has endowed us with to spread her manifold creations, that even the most selfish of men delight in planting in new environments exotic seeds and plants, and in enriching the fauna of faraway ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... has portrayed, with here and there a happy trait of grace or humour beyond the wording of the text, the very scene and people. Each of the illustrations has a charm and ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... quite sinking to the bottom. Indeed, if he had not been careless in the matter of incurring demerits from small infractions of the rules, he might have attained respectable, if not high rank in the corps, for he was a clean living, clean spoken boy, without a vicious trait of any kind. Even as it was, he became a sergeant, but inattention to details of discipline finally cost him his promotion and reduced him again to the ranks. At no time, however, did he acquire any real love for the military profession. His sole ambition was to ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... young woman discovers a patch on her new dress, it indicates that she will find trouble facing her when she imagines her happiest moments are approaching near. If she tries to hide the patches, she will endeavor to keep some ugly trait in her character from her lover. If she is patching, she will assume duties for which ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... donkey-back; and on all such occasions patronised a poor old woman, whose stud had been reduced, by a succession of misfortunes, to a solitary donkey, who answered to the name of "Moses." At the close of her visit, her majesty, with that kindness of heart which was such a distinguishing trait in her character, not only liberally rewarded the poor old woman, but asked her if there was anything that she could do for her which would be likely to bring back her former prosperity. The old woman turned ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... that day he was unusually gentle with Thekla. He talked of his youth and the struggles of the early days of the firm; he related a dozen tales of young Lossing, all illustrating some admirable trait that he certainly had not praised at the time. Never had he so opened his heart in regard to his own ideals of art, his own ambitions. And Thekla listened, not always comprehending but always sympathizing; she was almost like a comrade, ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... [Footnote 4: This trait is confirmed by Busch, who in his record of the conversations of Bismarck observes that with one or two exceptions he seldom had a good word to ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... Precedents did not exist. Man had gone savage again, and it was the beginning. Yet this savage, willing to live as a savage in a land which was one vast encampment, was the Anglo-Saxon savage, and therefore carried with him that chief trait of the American character, the principle that what a man earns—not what he steals, but what he earns—is his and his alone. This principle sowed in ground forbidding and unpromising was the seed of the law out ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... he said. "I know that. That was what started the mischief. I am so constituted that resistance is but fuel to the flame. In that respect I believe I am not unique. It is a by no means remarkable trait of the masculine character, you will find. Well, I made you pay. It was to be two kisses, was it not? You gave me one, and then for some reason you fled. That ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... a part of his constant thoughts. It seemed to be his highest earthly delight to increase her happiness and to relieve her trials. He never forgot his mother. He might be called "the boy who always loved his mother." Beautiful trait of character! And God blessed him in his own character and life, according to his promise. After he had gone from his native home to enter upon the business of life, this trait in his character was ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... The one distinguishing trait of Leibnitz's genius, and the one predominant fact in his history, was what Feuerbach calls his [Greek: polupraguoshinae], which, being interpreted, means having a finger in every pie. We are used to consider him as a man of letters; but the greater part of his life was spent in labors of quite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... as sweet and womanly as it was, there was a look of power, somehow, a look of strength, as if she would venture much, dare much, for them she loved. She had the gift, not always a happy one, of loving,—a strength of devotion that always has for its companion- trait a gift of ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... computer scientists often like to call the first chapter of a publication 'Chapter 0', especially if it is of an introductory nature (one of the classic instances was in the First Edition of {K&R}). In recent years this trait has also been observed among many pure mathematicians (who have an independent tradition of numbering from 0). Zero-based numbering tends to reduce {fencepost error}s, though it ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... the average man, yet no bias to sentimental weakness; with all this, the heaven-sent gift of leadership, power of speech, calm and justified self-confidence. Lashmar's face beamed as he recognised each trait. Breakspeare, the while, regarded him with half-closed eyes in which twinkled ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... spite of the efforts of his wife, who is by far the more civilized of the two, again and again recurs to it, even though he is in mortal danger. When Lady Macbeth at last breaks down, she also shows the same trait in regard to her bloodstained hands. It is not so far from Scotland to the Polar regions, and there we find that when Kane captured a young Eskimo and kept him on his ship, the only sign of life the prisoner gave was to sing over and over to himself ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... he preferred the strong note and searched always for the most graphic expression, sometimes too graphic, as when he speaks of the "frothing wrath of God" and "the oozy slime of sin". Yet it is this trait of robust reality that invests his hymns with a large part of their enduring merit. "When Kingo sings of God, one feels as though He were right there with him", one of his commentators exclaims. Nor ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... wears that body but as one indues A robe, half careless, for it is the use; Although her soul and it so fair agree, We sure may, unattaint of heresy, Conceit it might the soul's begetter be. The immortal could we cease to contemplate, The mortal part suggests its every trait. God laid His fingers on the ivories Of her pure members as on smoothed keys, And there out-breathed her spirit's harmonies I'll speak a little proudly:- I disdain To count the beauty worth my wish or gaze, Which the dull daily fool can covet or obtain. ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... France. . . . Mais il ne faut pas que vous voyiez la une plainte de ma part. Je serais un ingrat si je me plaignais; car il me disait souvent: 'Quel bon Francais vous faites!' Et il m'aimait a cause de cela, quoiqu'il semblt n'ainier pas la France. C'etait la un trait de son originalite. Il est vrai qu'il s'en tirait en disant que je ne ressemblai pas a mes compatriotes, ce a quoi il ne connaissait rien! - Tout cela etait fort curieux; car, moi-meme, je l'aimais quoiqu'il en ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Joliet, there is nothing that reveals any salient or distinctive trait of character, any especial breadth of view or boldness of design. He appears to have been simply a merchant, intelligent, well educated, courageous, hardy, and enterprising. Though he had renounced the priesthood, he retained his partiality for the Jesuits; and it ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... on the basis of a drill in Latin, into the art and mystery of expression, which Patrick Henry received from masters so competent and so deeply interested in him, which helps us to understand a certain trait of his, which puzzled Jefferson, and which, without this clue, would certainly be inexplicable. From his first appearance as a speaker to the end of his days, he showed himself to be something more than a ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... observations qui parurent dans le milieu a peu pres du siecle qui vient de finir, et cependant De Lamarck deplace hardiment la Lucernaire—l'eloigne des Coralliaires, et la rapproche des etres qui forment le grand groupe des Hydraires. Ce trait me parait remarquable et le rapporte a cette reputation qu'il avait au Museum de jouir ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... moral splendour of His solitude. But from the time when He came in amongst us as Jesus, our Brother, the typical Son of man, He was marking out afresh the original road for our feet. This was the foundation trait in His character. ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... sign of any: the fact that she was so backward was a sore point with all the family. Job Grinnell suddenly dropped the perforated gourd, and started down toward the fence. The acrimony of the old feud was as a trait bred in the bone. Such hatred as was inherent in him was evoked by his religious jealousies, and the pious sense that he was following the traditions of his elders and upholding the family honor blended in gentlest satisfaction with his personal animosity toward Roger Purdee ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... is described, the feelings it excited come back almost as fresh and poignant as at the time. How hard it was to realize that his time, too, had come—that so much life had been quenched. Every trait of the man we almost worshiped, recollections of incidents which showed his superb nature, crowd now, as they crowded ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, was allied both to Louis XI., through his brother, Pierre, Seigneur de Beaujeu, who had married the king's eldest daughter, and to Charles the Bold through his mother, Agnes of Burgundy. Now, the dominating trait, the peculiar and distinctive trait of the character of the Primate of the Gauls, was the spirit of the courtier, and devotion to the powers that be. The reader can form an idea of the numberless embarrassments which this double relationship had caused him, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... for their delight, had been compelled to run the gauntlet between a double line of braves armed with clubs and thorny sticks. When Jogues fell drenched in blood and half-dead, he was recalled to consciousness by fire applied to his body. Couture's experience illustrates a singular trait of the ferocious Iroquois. There was nothing that they admired so much as bulldog courage; and though he had exasperated them by killing one of their warriors, they punished him only by subjecting him to excruciating tortures. His fortitude under these still further ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... have hitherto been withheld by the dread of involving themselves, and spending their money in law suits; at the same time the natives, gradually accustoming themselves to this new order of things, would lay aside that disposition to strife and contention, which forms so peculiar a trait in their character, and that antipathy and odium would also disappear with which they have usually viewed ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... and against the bad deeds of Sir Francis Varney at all events place some of his good ones, that he may not seem wholly without one redeeming trait."—"I am not accustomed," said the doctor, "to paint the devil blacker than he really is; but yet the cruel persecutions that the Bannerworth family have endured call aloud for justice. You still, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... As we approached home, we were accosted by one Mr. Isaac Hanselpecker, a neighbour of ours; he was leaning over the bars, apparently wanting a lounge excessively. He had just finished milking, and had handed the pails to Miss Hanselpecker, as he called his wife. If there be a trait of American character peculiar to itself, displayed more fully than another by contrast with Europeans, it is in the treatment of the gentler sex, differing as it does materially from the picture of the Englishman, standing with his back to the fire, while the ladies freeze around ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... trait among the Italians is the good-nature with which they take personal jokes, and their callousness to ridicule of personal defects. Jests which would provoke a blow from an Anglo-Saxon, or wound and rankle in the memory for life, are here taken in good part. A cripple often joins in the laugh at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... name. My angry imagination teemed forth the biting taunts that should sting him to madness, and the broad shame with which he was to be overwhelmed. Active memory retraced each circumstance, that could blacken the object of my present contempt and abhorrence; and every trait increased the bitterness of my gall, and made my boiling blood more hot. Was this a pastor of the church? a follower of Christ? a Christian bishop? The question astonished and exasperated me almost ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... of manners which has been noticed by every foreign tourist as a marked Japanese trait. Politeness is a poor virtue, if it is actuated only by a fear of offending good taste, whereas it should be the outward manifestation of a sympathetic regard for the feelings of others. It also implies ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... that in the picture of the philosophers of the future, some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps be skeptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would only be designated thereby—and not they themselves. With equal right they might call themselves ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... arresting my hand, "you are shockingly touchy and precipitate; how often have I cautioned you against this trait of your character. Because your workling does not deserve to be mentioned in the same category with works of solid and acknowledged merit, like, for instance, Rollin's Ancient History or Prideaux' Connexion, and can, at best, enjoy ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... workmen and the competence of his contractor, and Lydia's father admired greatly the way in which his future son-in-law did not allow himself to be "done" by those past masters of the art. It argued well for the future, Judge Emery thought, and he called Lydia's attention to the trait with approval. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... I should have too little cheek to attempt to do that, for the president is a rather obstinate man, and I fear he would not see the point. Besides, I am a very modest man, though you may not have observed this shining trait in my character. No; I am too diffident to ask for a place I ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... I want you first to recognise that, apart from its physical qualities, every material body has certain, what may be called, traits of character, which belong to it alone; there is generally one special trait or "partial," namely, the characteristic which it is easiest for the particular body to manifest, but I shall show you that by sympathetic action others can be developed. I have several pieces of ordinary wood, ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... If she had loved another, the wound of loneliness must have bled inwardly until it sapped his life. Oh, how daintily sweet she was! Every day he found some new trait. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... pluck it, resentfully, equally as much awry on the right; and then, to punish the offending and displacing hand, he would commence gnawing off the nails of his fingers, rich with the moisture from above. We have recorded this little personal trait, because it may be valuable to the gentleman's future biographers; and also because it is a convincing proof to the illiterate and the leveller, that head-work is not such easy, sofa-enjoyed labour, as is commonly supposed; and, finally, that ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... them at home and abroad. I have already spoken of their diligence in sewing, and of their enthusiasm in shopping. Their other distinctive features are too familiar to us to require illustration. Yet upon one trait I will adventure. A group of them sat peaceably together, one day, when a file of newspapers arrived, with full details of a horrible Washington scandal, and the murder consequent upon it. Now I must say that no swarm of bees ever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... impress them. He had seen an old-timer refuse a twelve-hundred-dollar marked cheque for his property, and yet surrender greedily at the sight of a thousand one-dollar bills piled on a table before him. This was a trait of human nature found in many persons unaccustomed to the handling of considerable sums of money, and sharp traders considered it good business to take advantage of it. The banker thought he understood why Harris wanted all the money in bills, although the sum was larger than he ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... home from St. Mary's she made known a family trait—she voiced what to her seemed an inspiration but which to the father, at first, seemed madness. Still, he complied and spent many happy hours before his death in what he ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... about Theodosia. I like to think and speak of her. She is my life, my soul, my ambition, my joy. Theodosia has no fault that I can see, no trait which I do not ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... temple built on the rock of self-sacrifice, she knew nothing. Her sweet and spontaneous nature, which gave its love and sympathy so readily, was almost a bar to education: it blinded the eyes that would have otherwise seen any defect that wanted altering, any evil trait that needed repression, any lagging virtue that required ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... trait, but they also have courage when desperation drives them. Now they are holed up in their strongholds, waiting developments. They will only come out to fight if they see an opportunity to crush their opposition, or if ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture made. Nature was most carefully studied, and that which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of imitation. They ever attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... the dreary country about Cape Horn I found myself in no mood to make one life less in the world, except in self-defense, and as I sailed this trait of the hermit character grew till the mention of killing food-animals was revolting to me. However well I may have enjoyed a chicken stew afterward at Samoa, a new self rebelled at the thought suggested there ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... fatigued, jaded. The people appear—well, as to physical condition, like the animals: generally all look alike. Yet the people seem hopeful. And why hopeful? The inherent and indomitable trait of the race which makes it possible for humanity to look over and past present difficulties, however great, and see some good beyond. That is why the world "do move." Often, as it was with us, progress may be slow, but every day ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... Thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for, they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, it is fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time, all mankind,—although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of him he could not imitate the complete annihilation of self practiced by the well-bred English servant. The American girl missed the absence of this trait far less than the other woman, but, by this time, even Mrs. Devar began to accept Medenham's good-humored assumption of equality as part of the ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... had spoken of her young daughter as 'my cold, distinguished child, who never wears her heart on her sleeve.' Lady Crossways was very proud of this trait in Leucha, and Leucha herself was proud of it, and treasured and fostered it until she came across Hollyhock. From the first she was attracted by Hollyhock—a queer sort of attraction, a mingling of love and jealous hate; but now it ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... Bushy Bride'. We find, too, in 'Nancy Fairy', the same story, both in groundwork and incident, as we have in 'the Lassie and her Godmother'; and most surprising of all, in the story of 'Ananzi and Quanqua', we find the very trait about a trick played with the tail of an ox, which is met with in a variation to 'Boots who ate a match with the Troll'. Here is the variation: 'Whilst he was with the Troll, the lad was to go out to watch the swine, so he drove them home to his father's house, but first he cut ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... the cause of the disaster. The Professor was, fortunately, of uncommon type. He was a modest man — so modest that it even ceased to be a virtue, and became an annoying and irritating trait. He never stood up for himself, nor for his ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston |
