"Capacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... those men who have an inherited capacity for enjoying Christmas. He lent it his attention with zest, choosing the turkey himself with critical care as he went through the big market in town, from whence he brought also wreaths and branches of holly that seemed to have larger and redder berries than could be ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting
... which might involve results of such vast importance should be entrusted to the leadership of a person of such obscure position and limited capital. He also doubted if Vizcaino had the resolution and capacity necessary for so great an undertaking, and it appeared to him that if disorders should arise among his men through lack of discipline, or if the natives of the country to which he was going should repel him, the repute and royal authority of the king would be in danger. On the other hand, there ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... already ordered the cook to provide supper, which he hoped he would excuse. When supper was over, and the glass had gone briskly about, Mr. Quin told him, "It was now time to enter upon business." Thomson declared he was ready to serve him as far as his capacity would reach, in anything he should command, (thinking he was come about some affair relating to the drama). "Sir," says Quin, "you mistake me. I am in your debt. I owe you a hundred pounds, and I am come to pay you." Thomson, with a disconsolate ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... been too easy-going, self-indulgent, and ostentatious, to have made the most of the talents that he unquestionably had. Among his foibles was a certain fondness for the pageantry of war, and he was in all his glory as an officer of the local militia. To his son Gustav he transmitted real military capacity, which led to a distinguished career and a patent of nobility in the Austrian service. Harry Heine inherited his father's more amiable but less strenuous qualities. Inquisitive and alert, he was rather ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... last voyage, moreover, had probably not tended to dispel any distrust, which the king previously entertained of the admiral's capacity for government. His men had been in a state of perpetual insubordination; while his letter to the sovereigns, written under distressing circumstances, indeed, from Jamaica, exhibited such a deep coloring of despondency, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... Vivian. "We shall be so very glad." Bernard perceived that she wished to say something soothing and sympathetic to poor Gordon; having it, as he supposed, on her conscience that, after having once encouraged him to regard himself as indispensable (in the capacity of son-in-law) to her happiness, she should now present to him the spectacle of a felicity which had established itself without his aid. "We were so very much interested in your marriage," she went on. "We thought ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... chimney was the construction of a corner hood support by means of two short poles instead of a single piece, thus forming a rectangular smoke hood of enlarged capacity. This latter is the most common form in use at the present time in both provinces, but its arrangement in Tusayan, where it represents the highest achievement of the natives in chimney construction, ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... last few days I have been so strongly urged to bring the matter before you, that in spite of some doubts as to the propriety of going beyond my immediate chief the V.P. [The Vice-President of the Committee of Council, Mr. Acland.] even in my private capacity I venture to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... nature has endowed you with a feeble stomach or one of limited capacity; you acquire a mastery over it and improve it; you learn to carry your liquor; you grow accustomed to being drunk; you pass whole nights without sleep; at last you acquire the constitution of a colonel of cuirassiers; and in this way you create yourself ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... his name, age, place of birth, and so on, together with his photograph and finger-prints. A duplicate carnet is on file at the French police bureau in Tientsin, and no Chinese can find employment in the concession, as cook, groom, clerk, chauffeur, or in any other capacity, unless he is first registered with the police. The idea of having one's finger-prints recorded, like a common criminal, seems somehow humiliating. I imagine there would be some comment if the Japanese enforced such regulations in ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... words, and as it were with his first dictionary and first grammar ready-made to his hands. He did not thus begin the world with names, but with the power of naming: for man is not a mere speaking machine; God did not teach him words, as one of us teaches a parrot, from without; but gave him a capacity, and then evoked the capacity which He gave. Here, as in everything else that concerns the primitive constitution, the great original institutes, of humanity, our best and truest lights are to be gotten from the study of the first three chapters of Genesis; and you will observe that there ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... horrible! How I could have sat by him, hung over him, watched day and night every change of expression, and ministered to every want in my power that I could discover. This was denied to me, but Sam, whose organization is such as to feel the utmost extreme of every feeling, was there. Both his capacity of enjoyment and his capacity of suffering are greater than mine; and knowing how it would have affected me to see so sad a scene, I can somewhat appreciate Sam's sufferings. In this time of great trouble, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... art. These words designate, as it were, three successive stages of work, of which each is relatively independent of the one that follows, but not of that which precedes. As we have seen, a man may be simply learned, yet possess little capacity for understanding works of art; he may indeed be both learned and possess taste, yet be unable to write a page of artistic and literary history. But the true and complete historian, while containing in himself, as necessary pre-requisites, both the learned man and ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... foundation of the world; all who are justified by Christ go into life eternal. Therefore it follows that there is no Purgatory, and all masses are damnable, especially those for the dead. And whosoever upholds free will—namely, man's capacity to turn to God as and when he will—denies predestination and the grace of God. Man is by nature utterly depraved; and all the evil that he doth proceeds from ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... abdication of the Duke of Lucca. Soon after, in 1849, when the Duke of Lucca resigned his other states to his son, Ward became the head counsellor of this prince. Ward was on one occasion despatched to Vienna in a diplomatic capacity. Schwarzenberg was astonished at his capacity; in fact, the ci-devant Yorkshire stable-boy was the only one of the diplomatic body that could make head against the impetuous counsels, or rather dictates, of Schwarzenberg; and this was found highly useful by other members ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... soldiers in the service were of this large mold, I admit, but many of those I had met did possess precisely the qualities I have outlined. Ready, cheerful, undaunted in the face of danger, some of them had the capacity for lonely action which rendered them as admirable in their way as any of the long line of frontiersmen who had made the winning of the West an epic of singular hardihood. To fight cold and snow and loneliness ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... for pillars in the church turned out also to be more than tools of power. They grew up into magistrates, leaders of the people, debaters of right and of law, statesmen, generals, and signers of declarations for liberty. Such a mass of capacity had never been seen before in so small a body of men. And this is the first condition of liberty—the Condensation of Power. For liberty is not the license of an hour; it is not the butchery of a royal house, or the passion that rages behind a barricade, or the caps that are swung or the vivas ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... who, in the capacity of missionary, for a very long time resided among the Bassoutos, tells us that among that nation the operation is performed at the age of from thirteen to fifteen years. The ceremony is gone through once in three or four years. So important an event is it considered by the Bassoutos that they ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... them with themselves?... It created the simultaneous obligation to make the Pagan a convert, and the convert free." ... "If our author had made his attack from the opposite side, and contended that its doctrines 'proved too much' against servitude, and assumed with too little qualification the capacity of each man for self-rule, we should have felt more hesitation in ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... to a certain extent, the character and position of private individuals. They had the power in their corporate capacity of holding and administrating property, of defending or bringing actions at law, of accepting inheritances, &c.; they disbursed from a common treasury, which was supplied by legacies, donations, fines, and ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... considered that in the case of brewery No. 2 in the all-malt beers (sample No. 22017-D) only 58 pounds of malt were used in the preparation of a barrel of beer containing 31 gallons; while in the case of sample No. 29512-B there were used, in preparing a barrel of similar capacity, 68 pounds of malt and 23 pounds of cerealin. That is, in the second product there is, in the same volume of liquid, the extractive material from 68 pounds of malt and 23 pounds of cerealin, while in the first product there is present ...
— A Study Of American Beers and Ales • L.M. Tolman
... up, panting a little with the exertion and smiling a tight smile for the benefit of Slim in his capacity ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... they were wrong. "It is not easy," he said. "Many British officers do not think they have anything to learn. And English people do not like being told things. What could we do? We could hardly send a French officer or so to your headquarters in a tutorial capacity. You have to do things in your own way." When I tried to draw General Castelnau into this dangerous question by suggesting that we might borrow a French general or so, he would say only, "There is only one way to learn war, and that is to make war." When ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... were anxious to witness the new marvels, and we, desirous only of as many eyes and as many minds as might be for the better watching and discussion of the phenomena, welcomed all comers to the extent of the capacity of our room and table. I have no intention of troubling my present readers with any detailed rehearsal of the phenomena which presented themselves. The testimony which my observations during this period enabled me to offer has already ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... thought it best to utilize his time by accompanying General Braddock as a volunteer, in order to learn something of forest warfare; that, after that disastrous affair, he had served with Johnson in a similar capacity, until, on his regiment arriving, he had been selected to drill a company of scouts, and had served with them on the lakes, until the corps was broken up when the regiment ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... adversity and a knave in prosperity Fools yield only when they cannot help it Good news should be employed in providing against bad He had not a long view of what was beyond his reach His wit was far inferior to his courage His ideas were infinitely above his capacity Impossible for her to live without being in love with somebody Inconvenience of popularity Kinds of fear only to be removed by higher degrees of terror Laws without the protection of arms sink into contempt Maxims showed not ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... horrors he could do so little to relieve, had united with the statesmanship of Cornwallis to initiate a series of administrative reforms that worked some evil, but more good, all through Carey's time. First of all, as affecting the very existence and the social development of the people, or their capacity for being educated, Christianised, civilised in the highest sense, there was the relation of the Government to the ryots ("protected ones") and the zameendars ("landholders"). In India, as nearly all over the world except in ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... and it was necessary that the three Councillors should leave London to attend their parliamentary duty at Edinburgh. On this occasion another affront was offered to Queensberry. In the late session he had held the office of Lord High Commissioner, and had in that capacity represented the majesty of the absent King. This dignity, the greatest to which a Scottish noble could aspire, was now transferred ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the year the King of Denmark had made an offer to Philip of mediation. The letter, entrusted to a young Count de Rantzan, had been intercepted by the States—the envoy not having availed himself, in time, of his diplomatic capacity, and having in consequence been treated, for a moment, like a prisoner of war. The States had immediately addressed earnest letters of protest to Queen Elizabeth, declaring that nothing which the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Costigan assented, feelingly. "But they did—no use squawking. We can rivet and weld those seams and pump out the shell, and we'd have to fill our air-tanks to capacity for the trip, anyway. And things could be a lot worse—we are still ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... of the army, having several horses to ride and his services not being otherwise required, John preferred, on the whole, to enrol himself in the corps of mounted volunteers, known as the Pretoria Carbineers. This, in the humble capacity of a sergeant, he obtained leave to do from the officer commanding the troops. He was an active man, and his duties in connection with the corps kept him fully employed during most of the day, and sometimes, when there was outpost duty to be done, during a good part of the night too. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... by a man is the degree of his capacity for intellectual work. As we have said, the "great" men of all walks of life have developed this faculty to a wonderful degree, and many of them seem to get results "intuitively," whereas, in truth, they obtain ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... much of the disinterested idealism that had sent his State into the Confederacy, that he had emerged from them with an impoverished body, but an enriched spirit. Combined with his inherent inability to face the facts of life, there was an almost superhuman capacity for cheerful recovery from the shocks of adversity. Since he had married by accident the one woman who was made for him, he had managed to preserve untarnished his innocent assumption that marriages were arranged in Heaven—for the domestic infelicities of many of his parishioners were ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the extremes of the normal fluctuating variability, or is their stature to be regarded as the expression of some peculiar adaptive but latent quality? It is as yet difficult to decide this question, because statistical studies of this form of variability are still wanting. The capacity of ripening the seed on individuals of dwarf stature however, is not at all a universal accompaniment of a variable height. Hence it cannot be considered as a necessary consequence of it. On the other hand the dwarf varieties of numerous garden-plants, as for instance: ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... called that; and then nothing being forthcoming to toss with—dice or money not being among our permanent property—the eggs were distributed according to the "holding capacity" of the company: one for the missus, two for the Maluka, and half a dozen ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... ethical enquiry start by taking sides with that trend of the Race-Will in us, which moves plainly towards an ever-increasing self-knowledge, self-reverence and self-control on the part of man. For it is this race-will in us whereby we have the capacity and interest to call any line of conduct or any disposition of the mind good or ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... himself by his preparations to defend London against the Pretender. In an autobiographical record still extant of the shrievalty of the first of these gentlemen, the writer says:—"After being regaled with sack and walnuts, I returned to my own house in Fleet Street, in my private capacity, to my great consolation and comfort." This Richard Hoare, with Beau Nash, Lady Hastings, &c., founded, in 1716, the Bath General Hospital, to which charity the firm still continue treasurers; and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... home and our safety from foreign aggression could not otherwise be insured; and that only by this means could we obtain 'the Blessings of Liberty' to the people of Massachusetts and their posterity." "In no other way could we become an example of, and security for, the capacity of man, safely and peacefully and wisely to govern himself under ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... himself admirably, both as a governor, and as an ambassador; but Philopoemen was no less serviceable and useful to the Achaeans in the capacity of a private man, than in that of a commander. He was a private citizen when he restored the Messenians to their liberty, and delivered their city from Nabis; he was also a private citizen when he rescued the Lacedaemonians, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... knew most of his fellow-masters to speak to, but this was the first occasion on which he had met them in their corporate capacity, and had he not been personally interested in the proceedings he would felt a pleasant curiosity in the deliberations ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... Mr. Gladstone, in contesting Greenwich in 1874, only succeeded in obtaining the second place, the first seat being won by a Conservative. A way is usually found by which party leaders return without delay to the House of Commons, but there are members of the highest distinction and capacity who, especially if these qualities are associated with a spirit of independence, find, it increasingly difficult to re-enter political life. Victory at the polls depends not so much upon the services which a statesman, however eminent, may ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... confidence accepted; not from a desire to gratify an idle curiosity, but a belief that it was necessary to probe a wound to cure it; and a correct opinion, that she would be a better adviser for a young and lovely woman, than even Pendennyss; for the Donna Lorenza she could hardly consider in a capacity to offer advice, much less dictation. They then took their leave, and Emily, during their ride, broke ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... position. Indeed, her sympathies were easily accessible to a man of that sort. She was not an exploiting capitalist herself; she was, as it were, above the play of economic conditions. And she had a great capacity of pity for the more obvious forms of common human miseries, precisely because she was such a complete stranger to them that she had to translate her conception into terms of mental suffering before she could grasp the notion of their cruelty. The Assistant Commissioner remembered ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... grotesque. The fresco is divided into two scenes: on the one side the crucifixion, the mystic actors of the drama, on the other the holy men admitted to its contemplation. A sense that holy things ought to be old-fashioned, a respect for Byzantine inanity which invariable haunted the Giottesques in their capacity of idealistic decorators, of men who replaced with frescoes the solemn lifeless splendours of mosaic; this kind of artistico-religious prudery has made Angelico, who was able to foreshorten powerfully the brawny crucified thieves, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... trousers, shaped like baggy riding-breeches, and his complete impenetrability to new ideas was only equalled by the solemnity and touching willingness with which he received them. It was after he had served us in the ignoble capacity of dish-washer and burden-carrier for several days that we were informed one evening by the governor's secretary, in his vague way, that Dimitri ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... remembering what Seneca had said. Now this easiness about things generally makes a man also easy and gentle to his servants, and if to them, then it is clear he will be so to his friends also, and to all that serve under him in any capacity. So we observe that newly-purchased slaves do not inquire about the master who has bought them, whether he is superstitious or envious, but only whether he is a bad-tempered man: and generally speaking we see that neither can men put up with chaste wives, nor wives ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... she felt in no way compelled to advise him of this, her backsliding. I doubt whether such a perversion of her magnificent course of action ever occurred to her. It was magnificent, for it entailed a high disregarding stroke; it implied a sublime confidence of what the end would be, a capacity to wait and endure. She smiled buoyantly, in the intervals of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen Arnold stood beyond ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... turned our faces homeward, and bade the excellent director farewell. The world has seen, in this nineteenth century, few nobler spirits than his. Possessed of uncommon intellect, he combines with it executive talent of no ordinary character, and a capacity for labor which seems almost fabulous. His duties as the head of the Inner Mission, whose scope comprises the organization and management of reformatory institutions of all kinds, throughout Germany, as well as efforts analogous to those of our city ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... best capabilities, do not emphasize especially the value of logic and reasoning. If you use them at all in selling yourself, disguise their character most skillfully. Never suggest that you are debating or arguing your qualifications with prospective buyers of your mental or physical capacity for service. You cannot browbeat your way into opportunities ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... being used as a kind of cement to hold the people together in support of their Emperor. But, again, unlike Napoleon, he found there was no need to sap the strength of Earth to fight those wars. The population and productive capacity of Earth was greater than any possible coalition among extra-Solar planets and vastly greater than any single ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... had been tossed by many emotions, he had not been aware of ailments. Now they beset him and made clamor. As he was at last compelled to pay attention to them, his capacity for self-hate was multiplied. In despair, he declared that he was not like those others. He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero. He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things. He groaned from his ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... four-year-old orphan grandson. Whether or not he cared for anyone else, it would be hard to say; but there was no questioning the fact that he absolutely worshiped Toddles, as the baby was called. The little one was a blue-eyed, chubby, handsome lad, with long yellow curls and an unlimited capacity for mischief. ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to propagate them with its battle-ardors and its scorn of hypocritical foreign neutralities. We have the elements to make the most martial nation in the world, with a peculiar combination of patience and impulse, coldness and daring, the capacity to lie in watchful calm and to move with the vibrations of the earthquake. And if ever the voice of our brother, crying out to us from the ground of any country, shall sigh among the drums which are then gathering dust in our arsenals, the long ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... like nothing in heaven, or on earth, or in the waters under the earth. Adored or not, they were handled to purpose. By a paradoxical combination, the seaman of those days was at once most conservative in temperament and versatile in capacity. Among the officers, however, there was an open vision towards the future. I well remember "Joe" Smith enlarging to me on the merits of Cowper Coles's projected turret ship, much talked about in the British press in 1860; a full year or more before Ericsson, under the exigency of existing ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... turn anticipated being a Jesuit, a missionary or a martyr; but his family at length succeeded in establishing him at Rouen, where he completed his studies with brilliant success, in 1757. He soon after obtained a commission as an engineer, with a salary of one hundred louis. In this capacity he was sent (1760) to Dusseldorf, under the command of Count St. Germain. This was a career in which he might have acquired both honour and fortune; but, most unhappily for St. Pierre, he looked upon the useful and necessary etiquettes of life as so many unworthy prejudices. Instead ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... depicting character is attributed to Shakespeare arises from his actually possessing a peculiarity which, for superficial observers and in the play of good actors, may appear to be the capacity of depicting character. This peculiarity consists in the capacity of representative scenes expressing the play of emotion. However unnatural the positions may be in which he places his characters, however improper to them the language which he makes them speak, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... the stomach became intolerable. The sensation seemed similar to what. I had read of the final gnawings of hunger in persons dying of starvation; a new vitality appeared to be imparted to the organ, revealing to the consciousness a capacity for suffering previously unsuspected. In the earlier stages, this feeling, which did not exhibit itself till somewhat late in the process of leaving off opium, was marked by an insatiable craving for stimulus of some sort, and a craving which would hardly take denial. While suffering ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... you this money," he said, "not in my capacity as a father, but as a faithful disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. Go then to that far Western land; spread there the creedless ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... entering the higher schools are generally required to pass through the lower, and bring therefrom certificates of capacity and conduct. In the statute of the State, with reference to education, all professors, tutors, instructors, &c., are enjoined to impress upon the minds of those committed to their charge "the principles of piety, justice, a ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the streets of Onate. Hopeless of being served for affection's sake, he was meditating whom he could make his own by bribery, when a light from an open window flashed across the street, and illuminated the unprepossessing profile of Jaime the gipsy, who, in his capacity of guide, was riding in front, and a little on one side of Colonel Villabuena. The sight of those sinister features, on which rapacity and cunning had set their stamp, was as a sudden revelation to Don Baltasar, to whom it instantly occurred that the gitano was the very man he sought. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... in Scandinavia; but Luther had not endowed them with institutions, or imparted to them the gift of self-government. In religious ideas, he was inexhaustible; but he was deficient in constructive capacity. The local governments, which were effective, had defended the Reformation and assured its success against the hostility of the central government, which was intermittent and inoperative, and as ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... of the Everest was prepared for and carried out, have very little to do with this story, and they may, therefore, be dismissed in a few words. It was, of course, only natural that Mr McGregor, in his capacity of manager to the company owning the lost liner, should have frequent and long interviews with Dick and Earle, for the purpose of eliciting information upon various points connected with the disaster, as they were ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... I hold a gallon now. And I see people in the audience who must hold a barrel! Go on south. Of course, I do not mean circumference. But every year we go south increases our capacity for joy. Our life is one continual unfolding as we go south. Afterwhile this old world gets too small for us and we go on south ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... who minister to such festal occasions. These again were summoned to give their professional aid and attendance to an extent so much out of proportion to their numbers and their natural power of exertion, that they were harassed beyond all physical capacity of endurance, and found their ingenuity more heavily taxed to find personal substitutes amongst the trades most closely connected with their own, than in any of the contrivances which more properly fell within the business of their own art. Tailors, horse-milliners, shoemakers, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... member of his class in the room, and who, I understand, is a sort of favourite of the Chancellor. The obsequious grin, and the affected ease of this worthy, do not convey any very favourable impression on his behalf. He was solicitor for the Queen, and in this capacity formed an intimacy with her chief counsel, which an ill-natured person would perhaps think makes him now forget in some measure the great disparity betwixt their present condition. The Chancellor gave no discouragement to his familiarity * * *. A variety of lords, squires, ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... this, especially in the relief committee at San Francisco, which felt that the need of that city was so great and urgent that no offer of relief should have been declined. In response the President explained that he only spoke for the government, in his official capacity, and that San Francisco was in no sense debarred from accepting any ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... indulgence to which children are by no means entitled, though they may be allowed a very little of it on their birthdays or at Christmas, are sometimes better parents in effect than those who imagine that children are as capable of happiness as adults. Adults habitually exaggerate their own capacity in that direction grossly; yet most adults can stand an allowance of happiness that would be quite thrown away on children. The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... because it struck me as funny that a man like you—with all your influence and power—your capacity for doing big things—should go to so much trouble merely to show another man your contempt for him. Just a moment"—she deliberated an instant, lifting her head a trifle,—"it was funny, just as it would be funny if the United States went to war to crush a petty, ignorant pauper power; ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... fears were not realized. Charles and Louis were perfectly delighted with the trolley-party, and long before we reached home the former had rung up the fare-register to its full capacity, while the latter, a half-a-dozen times, delightedly occupied himself in mastering the intricacies of the overhead wire. The trolley-party was an undoubted success. The same remains to be said of the ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... task work has been dealt with already. It was insisted on at a time when a very large number of the working poor were so exhausted with starvation that their physical capacity for work of any kind was almost completely gone. This fact is more than sufficiently proved by the evidence given at various coroners' inquests; still the Government persevered in insisting upon it, and Colonel Jones was amongst ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... breath; her face was rapt, intense, full of an unsmiling delight, which shone in her dark eyes, glowing like low stars. Her abandon interested Colville, and then awed him; the spectacle of that young, unjaded capacity for pleasure touched him with a profound sense of loss. Suddenly Imogene caught sight of him, and with the coming of a second look in her eyes the light of an exquisite smile flashed over her face. His heart was in ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... tossing proudly to the balmy breeze the new-born ensign of freedom—around which clustered the hopes of a people who felt that upon them, and them only, now devolved the sacred duty of proving to the world the capacity ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... potential within one's self the capacity to live and yet to have no means of realizing this capacity is doubtless one of the least comfortable and agreeable of human experiences. Such, as summer came on, was Janet's case. The memory of that visit to Silliston lingered in her mind, sometimes to flare ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... not stop to dwell on the defects of the bow. The great and insuperable one was its want of power. The strength of a man was the limit of its capacity, and something more was necessary to pierce the ironclad breast of the knight. But, until the invention of gunpowder, it stood at the head of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... its appointed task, but ever deferring that to the future, and drawing upon the future for its own troubles, which must be met when they come whether we have anticipated them or not, we should have found a simplicity and honesty in our lives, a capacity for work, an enjoyment in it, to which we are now, for the ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... God is manifested also in creation, because to produce from nothing is an act of infinite power. For if God communicates Himself by His infinite goodness, it is not necessary that an infinite effect should proceed from God: but that according to its own mode and capacity it should receive the divine goodness. Likewise, when it is said that joyous possession of good requires partnership, this holds in the case of one not having perfect goodness: hence it needs to share some other's good, in order to have the goodness of complete happiness. Nor is the image ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... as nephew and next of kin, followed the body to its last home in the capacity of chief mourner; to do him justice, he was a real mourner, bewailed her loudly, and had never been the same man since. Moreover, although aforetime not much given to indiscriminate charity, he had now gained no small credit ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... minds will contemplate with never-failing delight the wonders of creative power, the mysteries of redeeming love. There will be no cruel, deceiving foe to tempt to forgetfulness of God. Every faculty will be developed, every capacity increased. The acquirement of knowledge will not weary the mind or exhaust the energies. There the grandest enterprises may be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations reached, the highest ambitions realized; and still ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... 'guilty of having disobeyed the orders of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, whom he was by his commission bound to obey as commander-in-chief, according to the rules of war.' This court also found him 'unfit to serve his Majesty in any military capacity whatever'; and George II directed that the following 'remarks' should be added when the sentence was read out on parade to every regiment in the service: 'It is his Majesty's pleasure that the above sentence ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... in her had found her freedom. Utterly without the capacity for love and without honour, without conscience and with a vague superstition to serve for religion, Madame Berselius had, up to this, been held in her place by the fear of her husband. His will up to this had been her law; she had moved ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... interpreted; but he seemed less inclined to treat Pedro and me with favour. My turn came next. I own that I felt great reluctance to refuse fighting, and having no sufficient excuse to offer, was about to answer that I was ready to serve in any capacity the Inca might desire, when a loud shout was raised, and a fresh body of Indians was seen hurrying down the mountain's side. A chief came at their head, and I looked towards him as the loud shouts of those around me gave him welcome. I could scarcely believe ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... by her side, and they talked lightly of London, the shops and people. They found a cosy little table in the tea-rooms, and everything was delicious. Anna, with her marvellous capacity for enjoyment, ate cakes and laughed, and forgot that she had had tea an hour or so ago at an A.B.C., or that she had a care in ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... reversal of the teaching of to-day. The children of that generation lost something that had been the portion of their fathers. The Elizabethan age had been one of immense animal life and vigor, and of intense capacity for enjoyment, and, deny it as one might, the effect lingered and had gone far toward forming character. The early Nonconformist still shared in many worldly pleasures, and had found no occasion to condense thought upon points in Calvinism, or to think of himself as ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... was undoubtedly great in a certain capacity. He resembled a Dutch galliot, especially built to contain the largest quantity of merchandise in the smallest tonnage. Of course Watty was not built to receive merchandise, but he was built to receive ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... individualities, but by developing the genius of each to the utmost. It would enrich them all, by serving as the common interpreter between them, until each would attain something of the powers of all, or at least the full capacity for availing itself of the aid of all others, and chiefly of the central tongue, in all those respects in which in consequence of its own special character it should remain individually defective. The new Scientific ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the child await Some exclamation of amazement here: She coldly said, her long-lashed eyes abased, 'Is this the mighty ocean? is this all!' That wondrous soul Charoba once possessed, Capacious then as earth or heaven could hold, Soul discontented with capacity, Is gone, I fear, for ever. Need I say She was enchanted by the wicked spells Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed The western winds have landed on our coast? I since have watched her in each lone retreat, Have heard her sigh and soften out the ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... residing, adding that it was the intention of the Emperor to send a person to see him, and ascertain his feelings with respect to a marriage between him and the Princess Adelaide. Lord Malmesbury confined himself to replying that he did not know. Lord Malmesbury might perhaps in his private capacity endeavour to discourage these advances, but as long as he has the honour of being one of your Majesty's Ministers, it appears to him that your Majesty will be personally the least committed by his interfering as little as possible ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... principally bulb flowers, ixias, iris, narcissus and the like; the event was interesting to growers, both professional and amateur. Joost Van Heigen came over from Holland to attend; he was sent by his father in a purely business capacity, but of course he was expected, and himself expected, to enjoy it, too; there would be many novelties exhibited and many beautiful flowers in which he would feel the sober appreciative pleasure ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... collectively but as individuals, often choosing opposite ideals and in most cases applying the talents thus let free to objects apart from the general political or religious movements of the time. Great as has been the influence of Jews in their collective capacity on the development of European thought and culture up to the present day, it is possible that their influence as individuals, during the past fifty years, has been even more extensive though less discernible, owing to the absence of any ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... ignorance, set them at liberty, but commanded them to select a virtuous man from the same family to occupy the throne. All the captives declared in favour of Seay-pa-nae-na, whereupon an envoy was sent with a seal to invest him with the royal dignity, as a vassal of the empire," and in that capacity he was restored to Ceylon, the former king being at the same time sent back to the island.[4] It would be difficult to identify the names in this story with the kings of the period, were it not stated in another chronicle, the Woo-he[)o]-peen, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... delivering up of King Charles did not enter any mind; and when it did, this would not have led any one to think of Judas and the thirty pence, unless he had been a good royalist and a good Christian—and then only by a curious accident. It was not these ideas, then, in their natural capacity that suggested one another; but some medium in which they worked, once in the world, opened those particular avenues between them. Nevertheless, no one cared to observe that each fact had had many others, never recalled, associated with it as closely as ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... that these people, whether dwelling in their pit or lake villages, showed so much capacity, industry, and social organisation, that even in the Neolithic Age they were far removed from a savage state, and a low condition of culture and civilisation. They showed great ingenuity in the making of their tools, their vessels of pottery, ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... to Edward Gilbert's credit that he had not joined the Army with the King's commission in his pocket, but in a more humble capacity, that of a private soldier. Gallant service in the field had won him advancement; and in 1817 he was selected for an ensigncy in the 25th Foot, thus exchanging his musket and knapsack for the sword and sash of an officer. From the 25th Foot he was, five years ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... drank!—first milk and then cider, and then mixed the two together in a way that would have disagreed with anybody except a Brownie. As it was, he was obliged to slacken his belt several times, and at last took it off altogether. But he must have had a most extraordinary capacity for eating and drinking—since, after he had nearly cleared the table, he was just as lively as ever, and began jumping about on the table as if he had had no supper ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... dimensions allowed of her rising to the greatest height a balloon could attain; her impermeability enabled her to remain for an indefinite time in the atmosphere; her solidity would defy any dilation of gas or violence of wind or rain; her capacity gave her sufficient ascensional force to lift with all their accessories an electric engine that would communicate to her propellers a power superior to anything yet obtained. The "Go-Ahead" was of elongated form, so as to facilitate her horizontal displacement. ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... and restraining influence that acted silently upon the household was the presence of a young monk, who had been brought not long since from a neighbouring monastery, to act in the capacity of chaplain to the household and tutor to the boys, now fast growing towards man's estate. There was a beautiful little chapel connected with Chad. It had fallen something into neglect and ruin during the days of the civil ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Fitzhugh (near kinsmen of the House of Nevile) lent their names to the cause and Sir John Coniers, an experienced soldier, whose claims had been disregarded by Edward, gave to the insurgents the aid of a formidable capacity for war. In every mouth was the story of the Duchess of Bedford's witchcraft; and the waxen figure of the earl did more to rouse the people than perhaps the earl himself could have done in person. [See "Parliamentary ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... not far off, only about eight miles distant, at the end of Lake Tinn, and Pastor Andersen was a very obliging man, and a good walker; so the worthy minister was invited to attend the betrothal in the twofold capacity of minister and family friend. The acquaintance was one of long standing. He had seen Joel and Hulda grow up, and loved them as well as he loved that young sea-dog, Ole Kamp, so the news of the intended marriage was very pleasing ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... sweep of the same law. "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... at hand when I must give up my roomy old house in its seven-acre garden and live in the five-roomed cottage now occupied by my gardener. My hat must be as it may, since I shan't buy a new one. If a maid comes to work in my house she can only come in one capacity, which will equally involve my working in hers. She in the kitchen, I in the coalhole or potato patch, 'twill be all one. If she works it will be in our common interest; and for ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... was of no ordinary character. The British soldiers had measured their swords against some of the best troops of the empire, and with signal success. The 'Sepoy General' had indisputably shown that his capacity wras not limited to oriental campaigns. He had effected the disembarkation of his troops—always a most hazardous feat—without loss, had gained two well-contested battles, and in less than a single month had actually cleared ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sort," he cried. "I can't imagine what we can possibly learn by standing on that rock, but if either of us goes, we go together, or I, in my capacity of bachelor ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... a couple of days, and is coming shortly to you. His works captivate me in a special degree, and personally I am very fond of him, which indeed I also was formerly, but this time still more. Capacity and character are there ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... its vast area, greater than all North America, or one seventh of the land area of the entire globe. Think of its population, almost twice our own, and more than one tenth of the entire world. Think of these people, who have the greatest capacity for suffering of any nation on earth, suddenly released, like their own prisoners, with steps unsteady and eyes unaccustomed to the blinding light of freedom. Think of what such a movement of hope and cheer and re-creation may mean to troops hard pressed ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... judicious and so sound"? Very "special" indeed would have to be the "gifts" of the two always-hospitable and ever-accessible Clergymen, who would undertake the mission; and, among their most essential special qualifications, would have to be, first, the capacity for taking any amount of everything without being in the least the worse for it, and, secondly, the capacity of perpetual wakefulness and clear-headedness, without the extraneous and artificial application of wet towels round the head. Men with such special gifts are, indeed, rare; nay, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... a poet through his indications and intentions as well as through his arrivals, and we must condemn no one to fame beyond his capacity or deserts. We have never the need of extravagant laud. It is not enough to praise a poet for his personal charm, his beauty of body and of mind and soul, for these are but beautiful things at home in a beautiful house. In the case of Brooke, we have ringing up among hosts of others, James's ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... Elizabethan age, the sublime period in our history. Then were Englishmen on fire to do immortal deeds. High aims and noble ambitions became their birthright. There was nothing they could not or would not do for England. Sailors put a girdle round the world. Every captain had a general's capacity; every fighting-man could have been a captain. All the women, from the queen downward, were heroines. Lofty statesmanship guided the conduct of affairs, a sublime philosophy was in the air. The period of great deeds was also the period of our richest literature. London was swarming ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... went on, Periander had passed his prime and perceived within himself that he was no longer able to overlook and manage the government of the State, he sent to Corcyra and summoned Lycophron to come back and take the supreme power; for in the elder of his sons he did not see the required capacity, but perceived clearly that he was of wits too dull. Lycophron however did not deign even to give an answer to the bearer of his message. Then Periander, clinging still in affection to the youth, sent to him next his own daughter, the sister of Lycophron, supposing that he would yield to her ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... branches of learning necessary to complete the education of a young man of his social position and mental capacity, were doubtless embraced in his course of study. His use of the Latin tongue was fluent, though his style has been criticised as cumbersome and wanting in elegance; certainly his writings abound in diffuse generalities, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... anything I wanted; but he wouldn't be calm at all. I tried to quote from Paul's epistle about taking a little wine for the stomach-ache; but he just raved around and called me names, until I had to tell him that if he kept on I would, in my official capacity as corporal, place him under arrest. That seemed to calm him a little, for he laughed, and finally he said I smelled of stale corned-beef, and he kicked me out of his tent, and I retired to my quarters to study over the mutability of ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... therefore Mr. Mollett's marriage with Miss Wainwright was no marriage, and therefore, also, the marriage between Sir Thomas Fitzgerald and that lady was a true marriage; all which things will now be plain to any novel-reading capacity, mean as such capacity may be in respect to ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... centre, denoting a moderate amount of combativeness. The nostrils indicate a keen sense of humour. (Here JACK giggles bashfully.) There is a twist in the upper lip, which indicates—well, I won't say that he would actually tell an untruth—but if he had the opportunity for doing so, he has the capacity for taking advantage of it. I think that is all I have to say about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... as in grafting trees, the capacity of one species or variety to take on another is incidental on generally unknown differences in their vegetative systems; so in crossing, the greater or less facility of one species to unite with another is incidental on unknown differences ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley |
