"Knack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for those beliefs which other people cherish; he rejoiced in an open rebellion against convention, and manifested this hostility in an exaggerated carelessness of dress and manner. It was perhaps his habit of thought as much as anything else that had made him a dramatic critic; but it was a knack for keen analysis and a natural, caustic wit that had raised him to eminence in his field. Outwardly he was a sloven and a misanthrope; inwardly he was simple and rather boyish, but years of experience in ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... not so! Nothing is further from the truth. He writes well not chiefly because he is interested in writing, or because he possesses any especial knack, but because he is more profoundly, vividly interested in the activities of life and he tells about them—over his shoulder. For writing, like farming, is ever a tool, ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... of the piazza. Those marble countenances were placid with an eternal youth, beneath the same stars that had embellished irrevocable nights, that recalled some excursions into an enchanted world, some romantic gestures the knack for which ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... old habit, formed in his undergraduate days, of a light, whimsical use of historical and literary allusions. She entered zestfully into the spirit of this kind of fooling; and, to his surprise, she had developed an astonishing knack of imitation and parody. Sometimes Kirkwood without preluding, would utter a line for Phil to cap; they even composed sonnets in this antiphonal fashion and pronounced them superior to the average magazine product. Phil ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... not a matter of strength, but of knack. The power of the onrushing bull actually supplied all the strength which was necessary. Dan Collins twisted. The animal's wrinkled neck turned. It could not help turning, for the pain at its nostrils was unbearable. ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... bodies of the scallop—a commercial waste—were difficult to hang upon the short, blunt hooks; but Lawford seemed to have just the knack of it. He showed Louise how to lower the line to the proper ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... an autumn trip to an unhackneyed land is much better worth reading than many more pretentious volumes.... The authoress has an eye for what is worth seeing, a happy knack of graphic description, and a literary style which is ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... was grain-fed and ready to go. When Dobe trotted—an easy, swinging trot that ate into the miles—Bartley tried to post, English style. But Dobe did not understand that style of riding a trot. Each time Bartley raised in the stirrups, Dobe took it for a signal to lope. Finally Bartley caught the knack of leaning forward and riding a trot with a straight leg, and to his surprise he found it was a mighty satisfactory method and ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... visited him at Newgate, wrote his life, and had the highwayman, standing under the gallows, send for a copy and deliver it as his "last speech and dying confession." There is a certain breadth and originality in this stroke, hardly to be paralleled in modern journalism. Defoe had the knack of singling out from the mass of passing events whatever would be likely to interest the public. He brought out an account in some newspaper, and if successful, made the occurrence the subject of a longer article in pamphlet or book form. He was always on the lookout for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... thy mistress show thy pack. Master, for you I have a pretty knack, From far I brought, please you see to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... Aristotle, and of him eager youth said, in the words of Omar Khayyam, "He knows! he knows!" What was it that Mr. Green knew? Where was the secret? To a mind already sceptical about masters, it seemed that the secret (apart from the tutor's noble simplicity and rare elevation of character) was a knack of translating St. John and Aristotle alike into a terminology which we then believed to be Hegelian. Hegel we knew, not in the original German, but in lectures and in translations. Reasoning from these inadequate premises, it seemed to me that Hegel had invented evolution ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... unaccountable break in their beauty. In criticism, Poe initiated a fearless and agile movement; he had an acute instinct in questions of literary form, amounting to a passion, as all his instincts and perceptions did; he had also the knack of finding clever reasons, good or bad, for all his opinions. These things are essential to a critic's equipment, and it was good service in Poe to exemplify them. Yet here, too, the undermining processes of his thoroughly unsound mind ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... man lounged into the room. He was deemed handsome, with his clearly-cut features, his dark eyes, his raven hair, and his white teeth; but to a keen observer those features had not an attractive expression, and the dark eyes had a great knack of looking away while he spoke to you. It was ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... told the grazer about his work as a Ranger. He told him how he had seen the good that was going to be done, and that having put his hand to the plow, he couldn't let it go again. He didn't know much about it, and he'd never tried to talk about it before, but the natural knack of talking which his race always has came to help him out. Then he began to talk of the sheep and cattle war, and the shame that it was to have them killing each other's flocks and shooting each other because they could not agree about the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... opinion there wasn't a better horseman in Marut, and that it was more pleasure to ride with you than any one else. Now, are you keeping your promise?" She tapped him playfully on the arm. Stafford bowed, looking what he felt, hot and uncomfortable. There are some people who have the knack of making others ashamed of them and of themselves. Mrs. Cary ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... that I had a knack for drawing. I got prizes for it at school. My poor mother was very proud of my gift, and she gave me a box of water-colours as a present. She showed my sketches to the pastor and the doctor and the judge. And they sent me to Amsterdam to try for a scholarship, and I won it. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... the Urquharts, aren't they?" he said; and Peter, who liked him, would have had to admit that the remark was perilously near to a bound. "Seem to have a sort of knack ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... is keenly developed, languages—or, in fact, anything else—can be learnt with amazing facility. The "knack" of learning languages is only due to observation; the greatest scientific discoveries have been due to mere observation; the greatest commercial enterprises are based on the practical results of observation. But it is astounding how few people do really observe, not ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... now, with a clear ripple of joyousness, at some passing quip between our host and sharp-tongued Lady Berenicia, both of whom employed pretty liberally their Irish knack of saying witty, biting things. The sound came strangely to my ears, as if it were some other ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... before a score of curious eyes, so for the next half-hour we stood side by side, selling tickets, explaining the rules of the Hunt, marshalling the seekers in readiness for the signal to start. He is capable enough, I will say that for him, and has a patent knack of silencing garrulous questioners. It was the funniest thing in the world to stand at the end of the lawn, and watch these rustic backs—young, old, and fat middle-aged—all poised on one leg, swaying to and fro, straining to be off! Excruciatingly funny to watch the stampede, after ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... caprices. Their complaints were more potent than the suggestions of ministers, or the remonstrances of judges. In idle frivolities his time was passed, neglectful of the great interests which were intrusted to him to guard; and the only attainment of which he was proud was a knack of making tarts and bon-bons, with which he frequently ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... occurences in life, yet the very same occurrences shall please them in a well-told story, where the disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy. Story-telling is therefore not an art, but what we call a "knack"; it doth not so much subsist upon wit as upon humor; and I will add, that it is not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body, which naturally attend such merry emotions of the mind. I know very well that a certain gravity of countenance sets ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... her old," he said, divining my thoughts (with his strange knack); "I knew her young and lovely. I danced with her at the Bury ball. Did I not, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... her after a hair-waver father put on the market the week she was born—" and then to explain, as he remained struck and silent: "It's from UNdoolay, you know, the French for crimping; father always thought the name made it take. He was quite a scholar, and had the greatest knack for finding names. I remember the time he invented his Goliath Glue he sat up all night over the Bible to get the name... No, father didn't start IN as a druggist," she went on, expanding with the signs of Marvell's interest; "he was ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... class which it was necessary to reach. He knew the men who at the University had been the digs, and jays, and grinds, and who were now the prosperous farmers, the bankers, the school-trustees, the leading men in their communities; and his geniality, vivacity, and knack for informal public speaking made him eminently fitted to represent the University in the somewhat thankless task of coaxing and coercing backward communities to expend the necessary money and effort to bring their schools up to ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... however, of the Moral-Plays had vigour enough, it appears, to propagate themselves into the drama of comedy and tragedy after the main body of them had been withdrawn. An apt instance of this is furnished in A Knack to know a Knave, entered at the Stationers' in 1593, but written several years before. It was printed in 1594, the title-page stating that it had been "acted sundry times by Edward Alleyn and his company," and that it contained "Kempe's ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... character is made, as coral reefs are built up, by a multitude of tiny creatures whose united labours are strong enough to breast the ocean; looking to the mysterious way in which the greatest events in our lives have the knack of growing out of the smallest; looking to the power of habit to make any action of the mind almost instinctive: it is of far more importance that we should become accustomed to apply this precept of seeking guidance from God to the million trifles than to the two or three decisions ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in Amante's society was, that whereas I was afraid of everybody (I do not think I was half as much afraid of things as of persons), Amante feared no one. She would quietly beard Lefebvre, and he respected her all the more for it; she had a knack of putting questions to M. de la Tourelle, which respectfully informed him that she had detected the weak point, but forebore to press him too closely upon it out of deference to his position as her master. And with all her shrewdness to others, she had ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... and his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that exclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the cultivation of wild oats. At last he had declared that he would become a Painter; partly because he had always had an idle knack that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief who had not provided for him. So it had come to pass successively, first, that several distinguished ladies had been frightfully shocked; then, that portfolios of his performances had been handed about o' nights, and declared ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... shooting, on account of the savage propensities of the animal; but I have found that, with very rare exceptions, the Anatolian wild boar always runs. It is true that they (she or he, the females are the most savage) have a nasty knack of giving a sort of jerk with their heads, when fighting or even passing an enemy, and that jerk means to a man the ripping up of his leg from his heel to his thigh, to a dog the ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... reflection, mutual sympathy, and a happy knack of always hoping for the best, completed their resignation, and prosperity and peace once more attended their efforts and desires. The farm was found quite ample in what was left, to employ them ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... this county, sir," the old gentleman said, smiling at the man's knack of mimicry. "My home, Arden, is but a few ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... times, and must not be trusted to make rules for General McLellan's boys. Of course no one would omit to take lucifers on a tramp; but steel, flint, and tinder are three warm friends that in an emergency will always come up to the strike. To find firewood is a knack, and it ought to be well cultivated. Don't despise bits of dry moss, fine grass, and slips of bark, if you come across them. Twenty fires are failures in the open air for one that succeeds, unless the operator knows his business. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... not originate this scheme himself, but discovered it in another concern's motor-truck organization; in fact, this is the advantage the salesman-adviser enjoys—acquaintance with a wide range of methods and the knack of carrying a good wrinkle from one business to another. He brings the outside point of view; and, because modern business runs toward narrow specialization, the outside point of view is pretty nearly always welcome, provided it ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... For lands enrich'd by crimson streams, For inquisitions taught by Spain, Of which the Christian world complain." Dick, we agree—all's true thou'st said, As that my Muse is yet a maid. But, if I may with freedom talk, All this is foreign to thy walk: Thy genius has perhaps a knack At trudging in a beaten track, But is for state affairs as fit As mine for politics and wit. Then let us both in time grow wise, Nor higher than our talents rise; To some snug cellar let's repair, From duns and debts, and drown our care; Now quaff of ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... to the Emperor. As a lad at Cassel he was fond of playing charades, and is reported to have had a knack of quickly sketching the scenario and dramatis personae of a play which he and his young companions would then and there proceed to act. One of these plays had Charlemagne for its subject, with a Saxon feudatory, whose lovely daughter, Brunhilde, scorns her father for his submission. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... them as wide a berth as formerly, for the wakes they turn are no longer savage—but wakes, even when sent out by stern-wheelers at full speed, now give us little trouble; it did not take long to learn the knack of "taking" them. Whether you meet them at right angles, or in the trough, there is the same delicious sensation of rising and falling on the long swells—there is no danger, so long as you are outside the line of foaming breakers; within those, you may ship water, which is ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... attractive with his long, light curls. Certainly, one can see that Madame Violette has a never-to-be-forgotten grief, but what a kind and grateful glance she gives her husband! Could anything be more touching than Louise Gerard, that excellent old maid, the life of the house, who has the knack of making pleasing order and elegant comfort reign in the house, while she surrounds her mother, the paralytic Grandmother Gerard, with every care? Truly, Amedee has arranged his life well. He loves and is loved: he has procured for mind and body valuable and ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... give such perfect little dinner-parties as Aunt Marjorie. She had a knack of finding out each of her guests' particular weaknesses with regard to the dinner-table. She was no diplomatist, and her conversation was considered prosy; but with Mr. Merton to act the perfect host and to lead the conversation into the newest intellectual channels, with ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... he went on, slowly, "the Williamses were old neighbours of ours. And Greta and my Olive were dear friends, but they left the neighbourhood long before we did. I never liked Mr. Williams; he had a knack of quarrelling with all his friends, and we soon came to loggerheads. He made himself obnoxious in many ways, and I declared I would never enter his house again. I am sorry to hear we ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Sharp, in a letter to Garrick, of the 29th of March in this year, says—"I met Mr. Gray at dinner last Sunday: he spoke handsomely of your happy knack of epilogues; but he calls the Stratford Jubilee, Vanity Fair." See Garrick Correspondence, vol. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... parencaro. Kinsman parenco. Kiss kisi. Kitchen kuirejo. Kitchen-garden legoma gxardeno. Kitchen-gardener legomgxardenisto. Kitchen-jack turnrostilo. Kitchen utensils kuirilaro. Kite (bird) milvo. Kite (toy) flugludilo. Knack lerteco. Knacker defelisto. Knapsack tornistro. Knave fripono. Knave (cards) lakeo. Knavery friponeco. Knead knedi. Kneading-trough knedujo. Knee genuo. Kneecap genuosto. Kneel genufleksi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Jack, and had left Tom far behind. The same talent which had induced him to mend his ragged clothes, made him do, with rapidity and neatness, everything else he undertook, while he showed a peculiar knack of being quick at understanding and ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... a man named Tregeagle truly lived and died something more than two centuries ago; but the Tregeagle or Tergagle of legend belongs to folk-lore rather than to modern social life. Very old ideas and superstitions have in some manner become attached to a recent name; tradition has a knack of bringing forward its dates; stories of immemorial antiquity are related as though they were the experience of the narrator's father or grandfather, and are modernised to suit that supposition. Legend never sticks at absurdity or anachronism. From some versions of the story it would appear that ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... is good to the old man," said Gottfried, himself almost regretting the lad's avocation. "My eyes are failing me, and he is aiding me with the graving of this border. He has the knack that no teaching will impart to any ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a crowd, was "moved on" by a policeman. A gentleman who recognised him proposed an adjournment to the beach, and there a sermon was preached, and has been repeated by Mr. Hall on several occasions, with a congregation of thousands. He has a peculiar knack of speaking in a tongue "understanded of the people," and his address to the Fairlop crowd on that Friday night "told" considerably. At its conclusion he quietly put on his hat, dropped into the crowd, and went his way; ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Chesterton is one of the best conversationalists of the day. Conversation is a queer thing; so many people talk without having anything to say; others have a great deal to say and never say it. Chesterton can undoubtedly talk well; he has a knack of finding subjects suitable to the company; though he does not talk very much of things of the day; he is naturally mostly interested in books. Given a kindred soul the two will talk and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... man. I do hear he's heating up th' old Squire Moyle's soul to knack an angel out of en. He'll find that a job and a half. You mark my words, there'll be Dover over in your parish one ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... has got a knack of hiding my matches all the same," said Lancelot somewhat shamefacedly. "Besides, I hate her for being called Mary Ann. It's the last terror of cheap apartments. If she only had another name like a human being, I'd gladly ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... who had red hair and a kind heart, but was continually falling out with her last young man and getting another. She told Hester all about it. Hester had a special knack of being told about the servants' young men, for she knew also all about those of Eliza ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... am not a fair judge. I dislike that sort of writing which is neither manlike nor womanlike, and in which young Rameau excels. He has the knack of finding very exaggerated phrases by which to express commonplace thoughts. He writes verses about love in words so stormy that you might fancy that Jove was descending upon Semele; but when you examine his words, as a sober ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cooked, cold rations. Many a meal was lost altogether, and once or twice a poor cook who could not swim was drowned by the boat filling and capsizing. The frail craft of this kind were of curious shape, and only a person who had the knack could row them. No more comical sport could be witnessed than the lurky race which was held every season. Many of the cooks never acquired the art of rowing straight, and whenever they put a spurt on the lurky would run amuck in consequence of being flat-bottomed and having no keel. Then the carnival ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... his action for years after. She married against his will. He never forgave her. My father did not seem to have the knack of getting along in the world, and he moved to America in the hope of bettering his condition. He did not better it. My father died ten years ago, a prematurely broken down man, and my mother and I struggled along as best we could until she died two years ago. My ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... and pinned a rosebud on the collar of her soft grey dress. It was a simple, straight-flowing dress, of the make which suits every woman best, tall or short, handsome or plain, depending for its beauty on shape and material alone, without any superfluous trimmings; for Lettice had a man's knack of getting her dressmaker to obey orders, and would have scorned to wear and pay for, as a matter of course, whatever trappings might be sent home to her in lieu of what ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... order, precedent, routine; red-tape, red-tapism^; pipe clay; rut, groove. cacoethes [Lat.]; bad habit, confirmed habit, inveterate habit, intrinsic habit &c; addiction, trick. training &c (education) 537; seasoning, second nature, acclimatization; knack &c V. be wont &c adj.. fall into a rut, fall into a custom &c (conform to) 82; tread the beaten track, follow the beaten track, tread the beaten path, follow the beaten; stare super antiquas vias [Lat.]; move in a rut, run on in a groove, go round like a horse ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Gyp—Sybille Gabrielle Marie Antoinette de Riquetti de Mirabeau, Comtesse de Martel de Janville—little credit for seriousness or morality, associating her with the average brilliant, flippant novelists, who write because they possess the knack of writing in a brilliant style. Her object is to show that man, in a civilized state in society, is vain, coarse, and ridiculous. She paints Parisian society to demonstrate that the apparently fortunate ones of the world are not to be envied, that they are miserable ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... and twenty-six years old, to take lessons like a school-boy! In the second place, Varvara Pavlovna took upon herself the labour of ordering and purchasing the trousseau, even of choosing the bridegroom's gifts. She had a great deal of practical sense, much taste, much love for comfort, and a great knack for securing for herself that comfort. This knack particularly astonished Lavretzky when, immediately after the wedding, he and his wife set out in a commodious carriage, which she had bought, for Lavriki. How everything which ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... general moralizing vein— (We know we have a happy knack that way. We have observed, moreover, that young men Are fond of good advice, and so are girls; Especially of that meandering kind, Which winding on so sweetly, treats of all They ought to be and do and think and ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... God, Luis, if you would only contrive to let me in a few nights to give you lessons, in less than a fortnight I would make you such a dabster at the guitar, that you need not be ashamed to play at any street corner; for I would have you to know that I have an extraordinary knack in teaching; moreover, I have heard tell that you have a very promising capacity, and from what I can judge from the tone of your voice, you must sing ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... are my young master, whom your mother durst not trust upon salt-water, but left you to be your own tutor at fourteen, to be very brisk and entreprenant, to endeavour to be debauched ere you have learned the knack of it, to value yourself upon a clap before you can get it, and to make it the height of your ambition to get a ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... knack, have you? You'll have to practise quite a spell longer before you can quilt your own house ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... in Paris have a mysterious knack of enlarging a hole in a man's purse. They cannot give the price of anything upon inquiry; and as the paroxysm of longing cannot abide delay, orders are given by the feeble light of an approximate estimate of cost. The same people never send in the bills at once, but ply the purchaser ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... of his brother at the spiritual-mindedness of Don Luis having thus come to naught, and recognizing also that he would not play a very dignified role in the village, where every one would say he had a poor knack at turning out saints—declined to be present, giving his occupations as an excuse; although he sent his blessing, and a magnificent pair of ear-rings ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... of his books and go over them again. He wished he had read them more carefully at the time, for they doubtless contained much information and many hints which would have come in handy just now. He seemed, for example, to recall characters in them who had the knack of going through forests without letting a single twig crack beneath their feet. Probably the author had told how this was done. In his unenlightened state it was beyond Mr Pickering. The wood seemed carpeted with twigs. Whenever he stepped he trod on one, and whenever he ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... advertising campaign can do with a product's actual specifications. Compare {GIGO}; see also {SNAFU principle}. 2. James Parry , a Usenetter infamous for various surrealist net.pranks and an uncanny, machine-assisted knack for joining any thread in which his nom de ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of an intense partisanship, of a personal loyalty, of a passionate wish to spend his life, too, in fighting for Roman freedom. And so, when this wonderful man asked him, who was merely a boy with a taste for moral philosophy, and a knack at translating Alcaeus and Sappho, to become one of his tribunes, and to go with him to meet the forces of Caesar's arrogant young nephew in one final conflict, it was no wonder he turned his back upon the schools and the Muses, and with fierce pride ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... that sensation of sickness which I have so often seen shown by strong men. The skipper said: "We'll heave her to again. You'd better get below. Your pluck's all right, but an unlucky one might catch you, and you ain't got the knack of watching for an extra drop o' water same ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... peculiar knack of jerking the date-stone, which makes it strike with great force: I never saw this "Inwa" practised, but it reminds me of the water splashing with one hand ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... "'Tis a knack of mine," he apologised. "We'll suppose him safely out of it, an' what happens next? Why, he'll step across to the linen-cupboard here, wi' the hot pipes behind it, an' there's a clean shirt dried an' warmed ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... while qualities had been detected in the quiet, diligent workingman which brought him advancement. His military training and the self-sufficing determination which he had acquired in dealing with raw recruits had given him a knack of controlling his fellow-workers. Thus it came about that Schmitz was promoted to the position of overseer in the machine hall, the same in which he had so far toiled with the rest. His fellow-workers, of course, looked with envy upon this parvenu, ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... still casual, continued his desultory harangue. "Always reminds one of a jack-in-the-box—that fellow. Has a knack of popping up when you least expect him. You never know what he will do next. You can only judge him by the things he doesn't do. For instance, there's been a rumour floating about lately that he has just gone into a Tibetan monastery. Heaven knows who started it and why. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the drawing-room." She watched the servant carry the discarded containers around the house, then turned to Rand. "You know, not the least of your capabilities is your knack of finding servant-replacements on ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... vista of dripping branches and sodden muddied grass. The colonel busied himself with a captured German director and angle-of-sight instrument, juggling with the working parts to fit them for use with our guns—he had the knack of handling intricate mechanical appliances. The adjutant curled himself up among leave-rosters and ammunition and horse returns; I began writing the Brigade Diary for October, and kept looking over the sandbag that replaced ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... industrial fabric of Great Britain was geared up to his desk. It shook with unrest and was studded with strife. Much of this clash subsided when Lloyd George came into office because he had the peculiar knack of bringing groups of contending interests together. Men learned then, as they found out later, that when they went into conference with Lloyd George they might as well leave their convictions outside the door with their hats ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... cars and limousines, operated by liveried drivers. A solitary roadster at the head of the line tempted and was rejected; even though it had no guardian chauffeur, something of which he could not be sure, he would be overhauled before he could start the motor and get the knack of its gear-shift mechanism. Even now Au Printemps was in frantic eruption, its doors ejecting violently a man ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... danger. He was calm, quiet and very deliberate in all situations, and his reports were of the utmost value. He never appeared to want anything in the way of personal comfort, was quite indifferent in any weather as to whether he slept on a bed or on the ground, and had a happy knack of seeming delighted to start on any mission however difficult and dangerous, or for any place however distant, with nothing but the ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... was that of Alexander Weyer, who, either by superior strength or by a peculiar knack, could hold a nail between the middle fingers of his right hand with the head against the palm, and drive it through a one-inch board. But since this act did not get him very far either on the road to fame, or toward the big money—he turned to magic and finally became one of the leading Continental ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... reefs was an exact counterpart of the first, except that Colin found it much more difficult to work through the L glass. To look down at a picture which was reflected sidewise made the drawing of it quite tricky until he caught the knack. Also, shadows under the water did not behave the same way as above. But, as before, the entire day was given to it, and though the boy had a headache when evening came, he had turned out a very respectable piece of work. The fun came ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... tell you, or, what's better, show you. Come now, you devils. Look at the heels (Rasper's and Scrub's) of them ponies! Did ever you see anything like them!—look at the cutting there—Tony Dowlan never had the knack o' that tasty work in his dirty finger and thumb—and who done that? Why Mikey Brian—didn't I see him myself; and isn't he the boy that can 'bang Bannaker' at anything! Oh! he'll cut us elegant!—he'll do the squad for a fi'penny—and then, lads, there's them five others will be just one a-piece ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... other, and each in his own way was formidably effective—Palmer in virile and eloquent abuse, Forbes in courtly and elegant but scalding satire. I could always tell which of them was talking without looking for his name. Naylor had a polished style and a happy knack at felicitous metaphor; Norris's style was wholly without ornament, but enviably compact, lucid, and strong. But after all, Calder was the gem. He never spoke when sober, he spoke continuously when he wasn't. And certainly they were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... our spirits would keep up to the point to which, with much effort, we screw them, all would be well: unfortunately they often have a tiresome knack of descending with a run. When tea was finished and cleared away Mr. Saxon found the presence of his family a hindrance to reading, and at a hint from their mother the younger members of the party took themselves off into the little drawing-room. Here, round a black fire, which, despite Hereward's ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... with whom life, for twenty-five years, had dealt kindly. He had perfect health, an income more than sufficient for his needs, a profession which interested without monopolizing him, a thoroughly contented disposition, and the happy knack ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... happy, there is no doubt of that; he is the happiest person in the family, by all odds; but then I think he has a natural knack at being happy; it is impossible for anything to ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of six years reach the top of a sixty-foot tree in a minute or so, and I have seen a man or woman stop on the way, fifty feet from the earth, and light a cigarette. Slim, fat, chiefs or commoners, all learn this knack in infancy. Men who puff along the road because of their bulk will attain the branches of a palm ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Chicago at this time sat a man named Walden H. Lucas. Aged thirty-eight, he was politically ambitious. He had the elements of popularity—the knack or luck of fixing public attention. A fine, upstanding, healthy young buck he was, subtle, vigorous, a cool, direct, practical thinker and speaker, an eager enigmatic dreamer of great political honors to come, anxious to play his cards just right, to make ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... it all now,' he said to those nearest him in the crowd. 'He is a French or Dutch sign-painter, one of ourselves, and he only wanted to have a joke against me. It is but fair to own that he has the real knack, and paints ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... joyously refutes a few anti-Christian arguments by means of his extraordinary knack of seeing the large and obvious, and therefore generally overlooked things. He believes in Christianity because he is a rationalist, and the evidence in its favour has convinced him. The arguments ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... service to the recipients. He lent money, but expected to be repaid even by his brother-in-law. And this prudence helped to retain the confidence, while his sympathetic temperament secured the liking, of most. Again, he had the valuable knack of constantly replenishing the number of his friends among men junior to himself. His character attracted the liking of Sulla, who was twenty-seven years his senior, and he remained the close friend of his ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Sometimes, after many discouraging attempts, the whole thing will flash into one's mind at once, and after that there will be little or no trouble. If you are able to witness the demonstrations of some good mind-reader, professional or amateurs it will help you to "catch the knack" at once. ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... we know nothing of the circumstances that may have led to this presence of Greeks in the synagogue. Some modern setters of the Bible writers right would be all the better for remembering occasionally that improbable things have a strange knack of happening. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... you've got a knack of turning up unexpectedly everywhere!" he exclaimed, when his friend ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... of which time you know what it is to have an arm-ache—it may be many days, even many weeks, before you are able to do it—you succeed in lassoing your object two or three times in succession. Ha! ha! You have conquered. You have discovered the knack at last. And you hastily mount your horse to see if you can manage ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... way," I said, "while I think of it, if I leave any books or papers here behind me, send them on at once. I have a knack of doing that sort of thing. I suppose," I added, "your lodgers often do leave some of ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... this happen? The Major—so used was he to the phenomenon— accepted it as a matter of course. Hansombody (good soul!) had a wonderful knack of turning up when wanted. But what attracted him? Was it perchance that magnetic force of will which our Major, and all truly great men, unconsciously exert? No; the explanation was a simpler one, though the Major would have been inexpressibly ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sorry for her; but she had not time to think much of any single person just at present. The horse, the darling horse, the Arab, the treasure of her life, must be trained to the task which lay before him. Hollyhock had the knack of making all animals love her, and the pure-bred Arab is noted for being a most affectionate creature. He was sulky, and disinclined to obey big grooms or any one except Hollyhock. But for her he would have ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... the following morning. They had rooms in a quiet street in Fairtown. The landlady was accustomed to have strolling companies as lodgers, and evidently had the knack of making them comfortable. Quarles had a word or two with her before seeing her visitors, and learnt that they were the nicest and quietest people she had ever had. The poor gentleman who was dead was ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... said the old man, to whom Kavanagh had gone for his first watch when quite a little boy, and upon whom he had called whenever he was in town since; to get the second handsome gold hunter now in question; to have it cleaned; to buy some little knick-knack, or merely for a chat. "Dear me; I do hope all will come right; I am sure all will ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... to take his turn without much demur or complaint, and he had a knack of getting through with it quickly as a rule, especially in summer. None of us had much trouble during the warm season. It was in November, December and January, when cold cream did not properly "ripen" and the cows were long past their freshening, that those ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... fault—an occasional over-consciousness of effort, and calling on the reader to admire, as if the tour de force could not speak for itself. But Ingoldsby's rhymes will not give us a just idea of the Fable until we superadd Hook's puns; for the fabulist has a pleasant knack of making puns—outrageous and unhesitating ones—exactly of the kind to set off the general style of his verse. The sternest critic could hardly help relaxing over such a bundle of them as are contained in Apollo's lament over ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... "leave room for the imagination." Yes, and for nothing else; but this does not imply that it should be unfinished, but that, when the painter has set down what the imagination grasped in one view, he shall stop, no matter where, and not attempt to eke out the deficiency by formula or by knack of fingers. Wherever the inspiration leaves him, there is an end of the picture. Beyond that we get only his personalities; no skill, no earnestness of intention, etc., can avail him; he is only mystifying himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... them, and, in course of time, he comes to be known and accepted everywhere as a useful man. As might be supposed, he is never obtrusively manly. The rough pursuits of the merely athletic repel him, yet he has the knack of assuming an interest where he feels it not, and is able to prattle quite pleasantly about sports in which he takes little or no active part. At the same time it must be admitted that he holds a gun fairly straight, and does not disgrace himself when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... their petty ambitions and vanities he accepted as part of the heritage of a race of beings apart form his own, and he hid his timidity under a brusque manner which gave him credit for a keener penetration than he actually possessed. And, strangely enough, Fate, with sardonic humor, had given him a knack, which so few painters possess, of catching on canvas the elusive charm of his feminine sitters, of investing with grace those characteristics he professed so much to despise. He had told Hermia Challoner that he did not paint "pretty" portraits, but as Olga knew, it was upon his ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... protestations that Harry ought not to trouble the gentleman, the two lads were soon deep in their Caesar. Frank found, to his surprise, that the cripple boy had a wonderful knack of grasping the sense of passages, but that never having been regularly taught to construe, he was unable to apply the rules of grammar which he had learned. Frank taught him how to do this, how to take ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... installed herself at a table, getting up at five o'clock in the morning on the first few days to roll her sprigs of violets. But when she had delivered a few gross, she stretched her arms and yawned over her work, with her hands cramped, for she had lost her knack of stem-rolling, and suffocated, shut up like this at home after allowing herself so much open air freedom during the last six months. Then the glue dried, the petals and the green paper got stained with grease, and the flower-dealer came three times in person to make a row ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... painting or at journalism or letters, all knew it. Clerics, lawyers, painters, authors, men on 'Change, all married and settled and respected, admirable citizens by the dozen and the score, and where are Lorna, and Clara, and Kate, and Caroline, and Fanny? Heaven knows—possibly. The knack of prosperity, surely, is ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... quite overflowing with happiness, and his old worn-out body manifested its gratitude, for he began to put on flesh again; and his cheeks had soon grown quite full. He had a peculiar knack for looking after the children; Pelle and Ellen could feel quite easy as they went about their multitudinous affairs. There were a hundred things that had to be seen to before they could move into the new home. They thought of raising a loan of a few hundred kroner. "Father will ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the trick the first time he tried. Walter, however, made several attempts, instructed by Tad, before he finally caught the knack of it. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... a profile suggestive of the portraits seen on English postage stamps of the early Victorian period; but in the arranging of her hair any French shopgirl could give her lessons, and any smart American woman could teach her a lot about the knack of wearing clothes ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... something of what you are doing." He recited to me verses, tirades, of which I understood nothing, but I put on an air of interest, and here and there made some little remark, which by the way, inevitably had the knack of annoying him. In a year, working night and day, he could only make of all his rhymes, one single volume which never sold, I said to him: "Ah! you see," just in a reasoning spirit, to bring him to something more comprehensible, more remunerative, He got into a ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... inducing certain people to say that her books were good. She did work hard at what she wrote,—hard enough at any rate to cover her pages quickly; and was, by nature, a clever woman. She could write after a glib, commonplace, sprightly fashion, and had already acquired the knack of spreading all she knew very thin, so that it might cover a vast surface. She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. Had Mr Broune, in his closet, told her that her book was absolutely trash, but had ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... one point in connection with carving a loin of mutton which includes every other; that is, that the joint should be thoroughly well jointed by the butcher before it is cooked. This knack of jointing requires practice and the proper tools; and no one but the butcher is supposed to have these. If the bones be not well jointed, the carving of a loin of mutton is not a gracious business; whereas, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... genius—an original view of the world, which presupposes an absolutely exceptional individuality, which is the essence of genius. A man's intellectual character is the theme on which all his works are variations. In an essay which I wrote in Weimar I called it the knack by which every genius produces his works, however various. This intellectual character determines the physiognomy of men of genius—what I might call the theoretical physiognomy—and gives it that distinguished ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... insufflation should be taught to every interne in every hospital. The emergency or accident ward of every hospital should have the necessary equipment and an interne familiar with its use. The method is simple, once the knack is acquired. The patient being limp and recumbent on a table, the larynx is exposed with the laryngoscope, and the bronchoscope is inserted as hereinafter described. The oxygen is turned on at the tank and the flow regulated before the rubber tube from the wash-bottle of tank is attached to ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... sometimes do for a "lark," their antics are vastly amusing; they put on grave, philosophic faces, and mimic the savans to the life; if the noble president, thinking he is doing the polite thing, points out to them a poet, for example, or a professor, they have a knack of elevating the shoulders, looking at the man with a pitying air, and whispering the words "poor beast," with a tone and manner quite inimitable. Indeed this is one of the few clever things they do, and on or off the stage we have never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... of wealth. Let me see, Hetty, I must have some employment aside from helping you to milk the cows and feed the pigs. Ah, I have it!" she cried, springing up and turning a pirouette—"listen—I will be a milliner! you know, aunt thinks I have a great knack at cap-making—O excellent idea—I will turn milliner for all the farmer's wives and daughters far and near." And catching up her embroidered mouchoir she began folding it into a turban, and then placing it gracefully ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... want to know what is doing in the art world, who is painting what, and why, then get yourself invited to tea—China tea only. The gathering is picturesque, for the model has, of course, the knack of the effective pose, not only professionally but socially. It is a beautiful club, and it is one more answer to the eternal question Why Girls Don't Marry. With a Models' Club, the Four Arts Club, the Mary Curzon Hotel, and the Lyceum Club, why on earth ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... took me into the country, and Tuck so far forgave my rudeness to him as to come with us to carry the basket.—Oh, yes, indeed, I am becoming thoroughly domesticated on Earth. And, my dear, these humans are docility itself when you once acquire the knack of making them do exactly as you wish, which is as easy as falling off a log.—A log is the external evidence of a pre-existent tree, cylindrical in form, and though often sticky, not ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... I've never been a good one at managing folk; one severe look turns me sick, and then I say just the wrong thing, I'm so fluttered. Now I should like nothing better than to take Nancy home with me, but Tom knows nothing but that his sister is dead, and I've not the knack of speaking rightly to Will. I dare not do it, and that's the truth. But you mun not think badly of Will. He's so good hissel, that he can't understand how any one can do wrong; and, above all, I'm ...
— Lizzie Leigh • Elizabeth Gaskell
... once, and, as she wished to carry off the child with her, she gave a hundred francs extra, as a present, while her husband drew up a paper. And the young woman, radiant, carried off the howling brat, as one carries away a wished-for knick-knack from a shop. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of Uyoweh, it seems, had for the last few years been in a state of chronic discontent with the policies of the neighbouring chiefs. Formerly a pagazi for an Arab, he had now assumed regal power, with the usual knack of unconscionable rascals who care not by what means they step into power. When the chief of Uyoweh died, Mirambo, who was head of a gang of robbers infesting the forests of Wilyankuru, suddenly entered Uyoweh, and constituted himself lord paramount ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... himself by painting Madelon more than once; and she made a famous little model, sitting still and patiently for hours to him and to her father, who had a knack of producing any number of little, affected, meretricious pictures, in the worst possible style and taste. Years afterwards, Madelon revisited the studio, where the black- bearded friendly American, grown a little bent and a little grey, was still stepping backwards and forwards ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... carriage, after the fashion of the country; but these new whizzing locomotives, with their time-tables, and their precision, and their inscrutable mysteries of shunts and junctions, were quite too much for his simple, childish, old- world habits. He had a knack of getting out too soon or too late, which often led him into great confusion. Once, when he wanted to go to Chichester, he found himself landed at Portsmouth, and only discovered his mistake when, on asking the way to the cathedral, he was told there was no cathedral in ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... a brother, for blood is blood, and I would have you make monies. Don't you put yourself against Trent. Be on his side, for his is the winning side. I don't know what you got in your head about that poor scarecrow Monty, but I tell you, Hiram, Trent is the man to back right through. He has the knack of success, and he is a genius. My! he's a great man, and he's a king out here. You be on his side, Hiram, and you're ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... appeared to give no little satisfaction to the crew, who raised a chorus whenever a rope had to be pulled or a brace taughtened, the fine weather and brighter surroundings making the sailors apparently forget, with that sort of happy knack for which seafaring folk are generally distinguished, all the rough time we had coming down Saint George's Channel, when off the Tuskar, and the terrible events of the ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Walter represents himself to have excelled in what may be termed the art, or, as Swift calls it, the "knack," of narrating a story, which, by the way, is as companionable an acquirement at school as elsewhere. His account is as follows:—"I must refer to a very early period of my life, were I to point out my first achievements as a tale-teller—but I believe some of my old school-fellows can still bear ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... for me, and delighted when he heard he might get the assignment. He was nervous lest he should not please me, and feared I might ask for another man. But when I ran over with him the songs I meant to sing I found he played the piano very well indeed, and had a knack for accompanying, too. There are good pianists, soloists, who are not good accompanists; it takes more than just the ability to play the piano to work with a singer, and especially with a singer like me. It is no straight ahead singing I ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder |
