"Prodigy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the field and the Sheriff Office, I am afraid we must apply to Hogg the apology which is made for Waller by his biographer: 'Let us not condemn him with untempered severity because he was not such a prodigy as the world has seldom seen—because his character included not the poet, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... proprietor being a Methodist, the shop was visited by ministers of that persuasion, and Joanna, with her "serious turn of mind," was not only permitted to join in their discussions, but was regarded by these harmless folk somewhat in the light of a prodigy. To a mind predisposed to religious mania (for it would be unjust to stigmatize Joanna altogether as a wilful impostor) the result was peculiarly unfortunate; she was visited with dreams, which she quickly accepted as spiritual manifestations, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... tobacco-stopper, It should be Saturn. Yes, 'tis clear 455 'Tis Saturn; but what makes him there? He's got between the Dragon's Tail And farther Leg behind o' th' Whale. Pray heav'n divert the fatal omen, For 'tis a prodigy not common; 460 And can no less than the world's ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... are a genuine prodigy of creation, one of the wonders of world flora. This family produces both the biggest and smallest vegetables in the world. Because, just as 40,000 near-invisible buds have been counted in one five-square-millimeter space, so also have fucus plants been gathered ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... The Prodigy, a Poem, written at Tunbridge-Wells 1706, on the Admiration that many expressed on a Gentleman's being in love, and their Endeavours to dissuade him from it, with some Advice to the young Ladies how to maintain their natural ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... of that debt which has since become the greatest prodigy that ever perplexed the sagacity and confounded the pride of statesmen and philosophers. At every stage in the growth of that debt the nation has set up the same cry of anguish and despair. At every stage in the growth of that debt it has been ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the princes, and exciting the people to declare against them. The suitors endeavour to justify their stay, at least till he shall send the queen to the court of Icarius her father; which he refuses. There appears a prodigy of two eagles in the sky, which an augur expounds to the ruin of the suitors. Telemachus the demands a vessel to carry him to Pylos and Sparta, there to inquire of his father's fortunes. Pallas, in the shape of Mentor (an ancient friend of Ulysses), helps him to a ship, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the sufferers in the carriage became intensely interested. They no longer took their eyes off this little girl on whom a miracle had been performed, but scanned her from head to foot as though seeking for some sign of the prodigy. Those who were able to stand rose up in order that they might the better see her, and the others, the infirm ones, stretched on their mattresses, strove to raise themselves and turn their heads. Amidst the suffering which had again come upon them on leaving Poitiers, the terror which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... not only a musical genius, but was also one of the pre-eminent geniuses of the Western world. He defined in his music a system of musical thought and an entire state of mind that were unlike any previously experienced. A true child prodigy, he began composing at age 5 and rapidly developed his unmistakable style; by 18 he was composing works capable of altering the mind-states of entire civilizations. Indeed, he and his predecessor Bach accomplished ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... any hurry for them to run, or to walk, or to cut their first teeth. Tom is a fine little chap, and I am very fond of him, in his way—principally, perhaps, because he is your Tom—but I cannot see that he is a prodigy." ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... our spiritual life on earth and to make us strong for our daily conflicts, our heavenly Shepherd has left us a food which is none other than His own body and blood. What a prodigy of love! What could He do for us that He has not done? But, besides giving us strength, He had another purpose in becoming our food. Since He has chosen us for Himself, and has provided, in another ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... I not there to behold this prodigy? But for your friend De Pontbriand and that eagle-eyed seaman who comes to visit your uncle, I have not seen a man ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... have misunderstood each other. I said that your answering in Latin at so early an age was a prodigy, that is, a thing that is wonderful; that does ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 1658, heavy sorrow fell upon Evelyn by the death of his younger son, an infant prodigy, and a sad and wonderful example of a young brain being terribly overtaxed. 'After six fits of a quartan ague with which it pleased God to visite him, died my dear Son Richard, to our inexpressible grief and affliction, 5 yeares and 3 days ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... cool hand! And verily, but that Cilly takes it so easily, I should imagine it was her singing prodigy—eh? ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a few Months in this Country, but my search after the Prodigy of humane Knowledge the People abounds with, led me into Acquaintance with some of their principal Artists, Engineers, and Men of Letters; and I was astonish'd at every Day's Discovery of new and of unheard-of Worlds of Learning; but I Improv'd in the Superficial Knowledge ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... beyond the Tiber matters were carried much further. The profound Etruscan read off to the believer his future fortunes in detail from the lightning and from the entrails of animals offered in sacrifice; and the more singular the language of the gods, the more startling the portent or prodigy, the more confidently did he declare what they foretold and the means by which it was possible to avert the mischief. Thus arose the lore of lightning, the art of inspecting entrails, the interpretation of prodigies—all of them, and the science of lightning especially, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... he should not be otherwise accompanied. The Dominie loved his young charge, and was enraptured with his own success, in having already brought him so far in his learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea of this early prodigy of erudition being carried off by the gipsies, like a second Adam Smith, [* The father of Economical Philosophy was, when a child, carried off by gipsies, and remained some hours in their possession.] was not to be tolerated; ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... so many revolutions, so many legislative reforms, so many great men, so many events, tragic and glorious, this vast history that for so many centuries holds the interest of all cultured nations, and that, considered as a whole, seems almost a prodigy, you can, on the track of the old idea of "corruption," explain in its profoundest origins by one small fact, universal, common, of the very simplest—something that every one may observe in the ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... of dinner! Hark ye, landlord; how far is it to young Melnotte's cottage? I should like to see such a prodigy. ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... respect to climate, fall to the ground. It is not the vigour of natural propensities, as he has supposed, that destroys the moral ones; it is not the effect of climate that makes it to be considered among these people "as a prodigy of virtue for a man to meet a fine woman in a retired chamber without offering violence to her,"—it is the effect of studiously pampering the appetite, nurturing vicious notions, considering women as entirely subservient to the pleasures of man; and, in short, by fancying those pleasures in ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... rarity stupidity verify epitaph retinue nutriment vestige medicine impediment prodigy serenity ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... fallen! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne a sceptered hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own originality. A ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Greece was one of his correspondents. He shook hands with more ministers of all denominations, and of all nationalities than any man of this age. He was as cordially treated by Archbishop Canterbury as he was by Bismarck at Berlin or the old Russian Archpriest Brashenski. Dr. Schaff was a prodigy of industry. During half a century he was the foremost church historian of this country; he led the work of the Sabbath Committee, and was the master spirit of the Evangelical Alliance. He edited a volume of hymnology, and wrote catechisms for children; he filled professors' chairs in two ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... due conception of what is to be held for this sort of personage in fiction would make him almost as much of a prodigy there, as in real history is a new law-giver, a revolutionizing philosopher, or the ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... literature. The four successive sovereigns, Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, may, on one account or other, be admitted into the class of authors. Queen Catharine Parr translated a book: Lady Jane Gray, considering her age, and her sex, and her station, may be regarded as a prodigy of literature. Sir Thomas Smith was raised from being professor in Cambridge, first to be ambassador to France, then secretary of state. The despatches of those times, and among others those of Burleigh ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... horror down, } And general grief overwhelms th' unhappy town: } The old deplore their late remains of light; And mothers lead their infants from the sight. The ghosts of Cadmus' race, an impious crew, This prodigy of kindred guilt to view, Sent from the mansion of eternal hills, (A dark assembly) crowd Baeotia's hills; O'er day's fair face a gloomy twilight cast, And smile with joy to ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... all beer and skittles with us, and therefore apt to pall, my cousins and I had to work pretty hard. In the first place, my dear mother did all she could to make me an infant prodigy of learning. She tried to teach me Italian, which she spoke as fluently as English or French (for she had lived much in Italy), and I had to translate the "Gierusalemme Liberata" into both those latter languages—a task which has remained unfinished—and to render the "Allegro" and the ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... corrupted, that you will hardly find a young person of quality with the least tincture of knowledge, at the same time that many of the clergy were never more learned, or so scurvily treated. Here among us, at least, a man of letters out of the three professions, is almost a prodigy. And those few who have preserved any rudiments of learning are (except perhaps one or two smatterers) the clergy's friends to a man: and I dare appeal to any clergyman in this kingdom, whether the greatest dunce in the parish ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... would fain believe that Toussaint Washington Johnson, who ran away to sea so many years ago, has found some fortunate zone where his hair and skin keep the same sunny and rosy tints they wore to his mother's eyes in infancy. But I have no means of knowing this, or of telling whether he was the prodigy of intellect that he was declared to be. Naomi could no more be taken in proof of the one assertion than of the other. When she came to us, it was agreed that she should go to school; but she overruled her mother in this as in everything else, and never went. Except Sunday-school lessons, she ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... alas! that a fire at our tent door, as we had had hitherto, was rather too hot to be pleasant. We were here visited by the local prodigy, a rustic carpenter, who insisted upon making something for us with his rather primitive-looking turning lathe. His shop I found completely AL FRESCO, between a couple of cows in the centre of a farm-yard, and here he set to ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... tradition with them was that they were the youngest of all nations, being descended from Targitaus, one of the numerous sons of Jove. The three children of Targitaus for a time ruled the land, but their joint rule was changed by a prodigy. There fell from the skies four implements of gold,—a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a drinking-cup. The oldest brother hastened eagerly to seize this treasure, but it burst into flame at his approach. The second then made the attempt, but was in his turn driven back by the scorching flames. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... reason to think the hour is ripe. The hour may not last long, and while it continues you may safely let all the child's other occupations take a second place. In this way you economize time and deepen skill; for many an infant prodigy, artistic or mathematical, has a flowering epoch ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... came to the help of the convert, and received all the outpourings of that soul, as it stripped itself of the evil which had been corroding it. Then, curious to know what argument had touched the heart of this man, he asked him what part of the sermon had specially borne upon the prodigy. "Ah!" answered the convert, "I never heard a single word of what you were saying; I entered the church without knowing why; at that moment you pointed your finger at me emphatically. Yes, it is true, I cried, I am a sinner, and I felt ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... individual believes that he has been restored to health by means of the Milagro, it is customary for him to deposit, in the chapel of the image he venerates, a small model or representation of that member or part of the body restored to health by the prodigy. These objects in great abundance adorn the walls of such edifices, where may be seen innumerable arms, legs, eyes, mouths, and so on, of silver or of wax, according to the circumstances of the persons so favoured. People, who have been cured of their lameness, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... intelligence of humanity and the world's Press! The machiavelism of Bismarck was bad enough, with its constant demands on our vigilance, but this new omniscient German Emperor is worse; he reminds one of some infant prodigy, the pride of the family. Yet his ways are anything but kingly; they resemble rather those of a shopkeeper. He literally fills the earth with his circulars on the art of government, spreads before us the wealth of his ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... Miss Ferrars saying, 'By-the-by, Albinia, how was it that you never told us of the development of the Infant prodigy? ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... groan, craven, and wipe my hand across my forehead to brush away the frenzy. The fingers came free, damp with cold sticky sweat—a prodigy of a parchment skin ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... had walked till he was very warm, took off his wig to cool and refresh himself: A sudden exclamation of one of the Indians who saw it, drew the attention of the rest, and in a moment every eye was fixed upon the prodigy, and every operation was suspended: the whole assembly stood some time motionless, in silent astonishment, which could not have been more strongly expressed if they had discovered that our friend's limbs had been screwed on to the trunk; in a short time, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... costume. In vain Jarwin begged and protested and sang. The Big Chief's blood was up, and his commands must be obeyed, therefore Jarwin did as he was bid; went out to battle in this remarkable costume—if we may so style it— and proved himself such a prodigy of valour that his prowess went far to turn the tide of victory wherever he appeared during the fight. But we pass over all this. Suffice it to say, that the pugnacious tribe was severely chastised and reduced to a state of ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... the tempests of Tiberias, or the demoniac of Gadara, to have hurled the incumbent stone into fragments? Might not He who has "the keys of the grave and of death" have Himself unlocked the portals preparatory to the vaster prodigy ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... celestial strokes of her own brush; I mean by her other writings, in which she has so well expressed the sincerity of her doctrines, the vivacity of her faith, and the uprightness of her morals, that the most learned men who reigned in her time were not ashamed to call her a prodigy and miracle of nature. And albeit that Heaven, jealous of our welfare, has snatched her from this mortal habitation, yet her virtues rendered her so admirable and so engraved her in the memory of every one, that the injury and lapse of time ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... joy in the hearts of the Natchez. A child is born to them of the race of their Suns. A boy is born with a beard on his chin. The prodigy still works on from generation to generation.' So sang the warriors of my tribe when I sprang from my mother's womb, and the shrill cry of the eagle, in the heavens, was heard in joyful response. Hardly fifteen summers had passed over my head when my beard had grown long and glossy. I ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... ignorance of the real situation of her father and son. The violet silk dressing-gown of Monsieur Bernard, the flowers, his remarks to Cartier, had already roused some suspicion of this in Godefroid's mind. The young man stood still where he was, bewildered by this prodigy of paternal love. The contrast, such as he imagined it, between the invalid's room and the rest of that squalid place,—yes, it ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... days previously, about all that I knew of Ceylon's isle being contained in one of the verses of that hymn, which I used to sing at missionary meetings, when a minister who had seen the heathen was stared at as a prodigy. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... of the great learned musical school of the Bachs, which may almost be called the algebra or geometry of musical composition, at any rate its higher mathematics, had certainly challenged a spirit of the most daring contrast in the young Hungarian prodigy, who electrified Paris, and carried its severe body of classical critics by storm, with the triumphant audacity of his brilliant and powerful style. Liszt became, at the very opening of his career, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... die. For if the signs of the times mean anything, they portend, I humbly submit, a somewhat mysterious and mythical denouement to this very age, and to those struggles of it which I have herein attempted, clumsily enough, to sketch. We are entering fast, I both hope and fear, into the region of prodigy, true and false; and our great-grandchildren will look back on the latter half of this century, and ask, if it were possible that such things could happen in an organised planet? The Benthamites will receive this announcement, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... does not strike all as a system of truth. If it did, it would be a prodigy. Neither does the Christian faith produce the same impressions upon all. Freedom to believe or to dissent is a great privilege in these days. So when a number of conscientious followers apply themselves to a matter like Christian Science, they are enjoying ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... brought the purple prodigy, partly to please her father, partly with a view of subjecting it to violent radical changes. But after trying it on before the tiny mirror in the galley once or twice, her thoughts wandered away, and she fell into one of her habitual reveries seated on a little ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... reply, furiously attacks the fools who, calling reason to their aid, dare call for an account from God why he condemns or predestines to damnation innocent beings before they have even seen the light. Truly, Luther, in the eyes of all God's creatures, must appear a prodigy of daring when he ventures to maintain that no one can reach heaven unless he adopts the slavery of the human will. And it is not merely by the spirit of disputation, but by settled conviction, that he defends this most odious of all ideas. He lived ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... military school at Brienne in April 1779, and from there sent letters which might well have warned his parents that they had hatched a prodigy. All the bitterness of a proud humiliated spirit inspired them, whether the boy, despised by richer students, begged his father to remove him, or urged, with utter disregard of filial piety, the repayment by some means of a sum of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... doctor, himself one of the academicians, introduced me to his family. His parents, who were in easy circumstances, received me very kindly. One of his sisters was very amiable, but the other, a professed nun, appeared to me a prodigy of beauty. I might have enjoyed myself in a very agreeable way in the midst of that charming family during my stay in Chiozza, but I suppose that it was my destiny to meet in that place with nothing but sorrows. The young doctor forewarned me that the monk ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... avons une idee trop vaste, they trap petite ). 'There is, for instance, Lord Chesterfield, passes here for a fair-enough kind of man (BON HOMME), and is a favorite with the King [not with Walpole or the Queen, if Nosti knew it]; but nobody thinks him such a prodigy as you all do in Germany,'—which latter bit of Germanism is an undoubted fact; curious enough to the English, and to the Germans that now ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... in letters of black a foot high: LONG HORN SALOON. While beneath the legend was depicted a fat, vermilion clad cowboy mounted upon a tarantula-bodied, ass-eared horse of pink, in the act of hurling a cable-like rope which by some prodigy of dexterity was made to describe three double-bows and a latigo knot before its loop managed to poise in mid-air above the head of a rabbit-sized baby-blue steer whose horns exceeded in length the pair of Texas monstrosities that graced ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... saying, 'Lend an ear,' To something marvellous or witty. To disappoint your friends who hear, Is possible, and were a pity. But now a clear exception see, Which I maintain a prodigy— A thing which with the air of fable, Is true as is the interest-table. A pine was by a woodman fell'd, Which ancient, huge, and hollow tree An owl had for his palace held— A bird the Fates[14] had kept in fee, Interpreter to such ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... Shall a Creature be permitted to live, conceived in guilt so monstrous? Abandoned Woman, speak for him no more! Better that the Wretch should perish than live: Begotten in perjury, incontinence, and pollution, It cannot fail to prove a Prodigy of vice. Hear me, thou Guilty! Expect no mercy from me either for yourself, or Brat. Rather pray that Death may seize you before you produce it; Or if it must see the light, that its eyes may immediately be closed again ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... faith in its destiny. When again, in 1906, earthquake and fire devastated the city its phoenix spirit came to life. The Argonauts lived once more, magnificent in their resolution. The renaissance was a prodigy that made onlookers exclamatory. Jules Jusserand, Ambassador of France to the United States, phrased the wonder ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... a mental prodigy, for he taught himself to read when four years old, and at five he had devoured hundreds of books and was already writing poems and plays. At ten, when he had his first tutor, his knowledge was wide and he had become a passionate ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... Liverpool) made a sensational debut in the House on the Tory side, Sheridan remarked that the Whigs would soon provide an antidote in the person of young Canning. Great, then, was their annoyance when the prodigy showed signs of breaking away from the society of the Crewes and Sheridan, in order to ally himself with Pitt. So little is known respecting the youth of Canning that the motives which prompted his breach with Sheridan are involved in uncertainty. It is clear, however, from his own ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... over sandy wastes, through pine woods, was intolerable. I was glad enough to reach Tennessee and old Kentucky. The people of Frankfort treated me very handsomely, as did those of Lexington. I paid my respects to the local idol, the young Virginia orator and rising lawyer, Henry Clay. That man is a prodigy—he will make his mark. I wish he were hand in hand with us, like Jackson, and ready to embark his ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... beginning of course with the boldest warriors. But, horror of horrors, each man's porridge swelled before his eyes, grew hot, smoked, boiled over. They turned and fled, man, woman, and child, from before that supernatural prodigy; and the settlers coming back to look for the dropped sack, saw a sight which told the whole tale. For the poor creatures, in their terror, had thrown away their pans and calabashes, each filled with that which it was likely to contain, seeing that the sack itself had contained, not flour, ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... the Boy Conductor? A musical prodigy, seven years old, who will order the fifth oboe out of the Albert Hall as soon as look at him. Well, he ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... Jonah's face changed instantly. It wore the adoring gaze of the fond parent, who thinks his child is a marvel and a prodigy. ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... consequently found it an extremely laborious task to restore the sense of corrupt passages, and have sometimes abandoned the attempt in despair. Not a few of the pieces in the last edition of Dodsley come within this category; and we may signalise the unique tragedy of Appius and Virginia, 1575, as a prodigy of negligent and ignorant execution on the part of the original compositor. But to the same cause is due our still remaining uncertainty as to the true reading of numerous places in ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... some years since I have shut up my books and closed my accounts; but you have kindled a desire in me of opening them once more before I die: which I now do: so go home and dine with me.' This nobleman, I say, is a prodigy, for he has all the wit and promptness of a man of thirty; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others, beyond whatever I knew: added to which a man ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... everything of discovery the most penetrating, everything of observation on human life the most distinguishing and refined? All these must be instantly recognized, for they are all inseparably associated with the name of Lord Verulam. Yet, when this prodigy was brought before your Lordships by the Commons of Great Britain for having permitted his menial servant to receive presents, what was his demeanor? Did he require his counsel not "to let down the dignity ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mistake an ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowment. The mechanism of breathing and that of swallowing are very wonderful, and if one had seen and studied them in his own person only, he might well think himself a prodigy. Everybody knows these and other bodily faculties are common gifts; but nobody except editors and school-teachers and here and there a literary than knows how common is the capacity of rhyming and prattling in readable prose, especially among young women of a certain degree of education. In my ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and admire this promise of royal offspring, and she was surprised into genuine admiration when she saw the prodigy. Her nose had to lower its scornful turn, her lips to relax their skeptical twist. It was an egg indeed! Ben was nobly justified in his purchase. His step was light that day. Kate heard him singing, over and over ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... fair of this world, and, although your noble body has rested for four years, six feet underground, thanks to me you still live. I always have had a most sincere admiration for you. I considered you a phenomenon, a prodigy. You were courageous, devoted, generosity itself; you esteemed honour above all the gold deposits in California; you detested all coarse thoughts and doubtful actions; your mother had nourished you in all sublime follies. You were a true chevalier, a true ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... the window, in pleasant excitement, to see what new and wonderful performance had been attempted by my little prodigy—my first born—my year old bud of beauty, the folded leaves in whose bosom were just beginning to loosen themselves, and send out upon the air sweet intimations of an abounding fragrance. He had escaped from his nurse, and was running off ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... only shew me for a man: Afric is stored with monsters; man's a prodigy Thy subjects ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... was invited to Wittemberg, as professor of ancient languages, at the age of twenty-one. He arrived there in 1518, and immediately fell under the influence of Luther, who, however, acknowledged his classical attainments. He was considered a prodigy; was remarkably young looking, and so boyish, that the grave professors conceived but little hope of him at first. But, when he delivered his inaugural oration in Latin, all were astonished; and their prejudices were removed. Luther himself was enthusiastic in his praises, and a friendship ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... is man! what a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of all things, feeble worm of the earth, depositary of the truth, cloaca of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... realized that this attitude of ours would turn poetic success into a question of the survival of that paradox, the commercially shrewd poet, or of the poet who by some happy accident of birth or marriage has been given an income, or of that prodigy of versatility who, in our present stage of civilization, besides being mentally and spiritually fit for the poet's calling, is also physically fit to bear the strain of doing two men's work; or, perhaps ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... isn't a sensible woman or an original idea, so far, on the block. I wouldn't budge an inch farther, but for Quigg's promise to introduce me to a young widow who lives next door—a regular prodigy of science and art, according to his story. I think you said she was ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... remarked the Queen, 'that birds of taste are rare in the Metropolis, and that, on the Embankment especially, a rook would be regarded as a kind of prodigy. Nowhere has the manufacture of permanent scarecrows been conducted with more ingenious success. But tell me, my accomplished fowl, have Britons any other arts? Long ago the men used to paint themselves blue, but, as far as I have remarked, ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... his arm with a more vehement will; he struck, and at the same instant every horror disappeared. The sky was cloudless; the forest was neither terrible nor beautiful, but heavy and sombre as of old—a natural gloomy wood, but no prodigy. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... the days to come Edison will not only be recognized as an intellectual prodigy, but as a prodigy of industry—of hard work. In his field as inventor and man of science he stands as clear-cut and secure as the lighthouse on a rock, and as indifferent to the tumult around. But as the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... "He will give me a second life; I have one into the bargain. This will be a prodigy indeed!" and he filled the jug again and put it to ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... plainly regarded her as a prodigy of knowledge. His whole attitude suggested at once the mind of an alert, interested boy asking his teacher for information on a subject near to his heart. It was ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... but His judges, was attributed to witchcraft, Such was his influence:—I have no great faith 250 In any magic save that of the mine— I therefore deemed him wealthy.—But my soul Was roused with various feelings to seek out This prodigy, if ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... civilization are generally subjected, being compelled to sit by the hour upon a bench and breathe the unwholesome air of an over-heated school-room, very likely after having passed, during a brief season, for a youthful prodigy in the eyes of an admiring, but inconsiderate circle of friends, he would have closed his earthly career and been lamented as a genius for this world too brilliant and too good. But in this comparative ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... of the recent prodigy, the bottom of the Mediterranean just at this point had formed a sudden ridge across the Straits of Libya. The sides of the ridge had shelved to so great an extent that, while the depth of water on the summit had been little more than ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... child of romance, a wonderful prodigy of a strange and weird fate, and he could not but picture to himself what a ravishingly lovely creature she would be under different auspices; and he wondered not that the Cuban villain, Garcia, was anxious to ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... attention. He was very fond of monopolizing the conversation and suffering himself to be admired. For he called many a young, highly promising musician his pupil, and had, besides, the certain consciousness of having moulded his daughter Clara, at that time a girl of fourteen, into a prodigy, whose first appearance delighted the whole world, and whose subsequent artist-activity became the pride of her native city, Leipsic. By his side sat a quiet, thoughtful young man of twenty-three, with melancholy eyes. But lately a student in Heidelberg, he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... accomplishments, and three happy years had passed under protection, when her only son, who was an officer in the Saxon service, obtained permission to come home. I had never seen him before—he was a handsome young man—in my eyes a prodigy; for he talked of love, and promised me marriage. He was the first man who ever spoken to me on such a subject.—His flattery made me vain, and his repeated vows—Don't look at me, dear Frederick!—I ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... the boy of eleven years was soon recognized as a prodigy. There he met two Italian composers of established reputation, Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti, both of whom he was to encounter in after-life, though under very different circumstances, in London. Bononcini, who was of a sour and jealous disposition, soon conceived a dislike for the gifted ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... distance all competitors in the strife of political ambition. It was this power of work that astonished Cicero as the most prodigious of Caesar's gifts, as it astonished later observers in Napoleon before it wore him out. How if Caesar were nothing but a Nelson and a Gladstone combined! A prodigy of vitality without any special quality of mind! Nay, with ideas that were worn out before he was born, as Nelson's and Gladstone's were! I have considered that possibility too, and rejected it. I cannot cite ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... transform'd to stone. We wondering stood, to see that strange portent Intrude itself into our holy rites, When Calchas, instant, thus the sign explain'd. 390 Why stand ye, Greeks, astonish'd? Ye behold A prodigy by Jove himself produced, An omen, whose accomplishment indeed Is distant, but whose fame shall never die.[12] E'en as this serpent in your sight devour'd 395 Eight youngling sparrows, with their dam, the ninth, So we nine years must ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Barsetshire, but of all England. On this occasion it was found that one pearl was very big, very rare, and worthy of great attention; but it was a black pearl, and was regarded by many as an abominable prodigy. "The period of our history is one in which it becomes essential for us to renew those inquiries which have prevailed since man first woke to his destiny, as to the amount of connection which exists and which must exist between spiritual and simply human forms of government,—between our daily ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the Glen,'" was the reply. "She is a prodigy for her age. Her history is a little singular. She was found not far from here in a wild glen, or ravine, when about three years old, and has never been able to tell who or where her parents are. But I will relate the circumstances to you at another time. At present the trustees ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... in attempting a second voyage against the advice of all my friends and relations. In this terrible agitation of mind, I could not forbear thinking of Lilliput, whose inhabitants looked upon me as the greatest prodigy that ever appeared in the world; where I was able to draw an imperial fleet in my hand, and perform those other actions which will be recorded forever in the chronicles of that empire, while posterity shall hardly believe them, although attested by millions. ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... men's reach the thoughts and experiences of the inspired fisher-folk of Galilee. In the Dark Ages, when to read was a sign of distinction, and to write a schoolboy history like "Eginhard's Charlemagne" was a prodigy; when to lead clean lives, and to labor as hosts are doing now for their fellows made a man a saint; the literary and spiritual power of the apostles was nothing ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... and sister joined hands to make the pale, handsome boy a prodigy of learning: one that would surprise the world and leave his impress ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... what is the meaning of this strange prodigy? Once the difficulty was to find the guilty, to search them out in their lair, to drag the confession of their crime from reluctant lips. Now, there is no hunting with a great pack of sleuth-hounds, no pursuing a timid prey; lo! from all sides come the victims to ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... "Time and Tide," the great writer gives us the following exquisite passage about a little dancer who especially pleased him—"She did it beautifully and simply, as a child ought to dance. She was not an infant prodigy; there was no evidence in the finish and strength of her motion that she had been put to continual torture during half of her eight or nine years. She did nothing more than any child—well taught, but painlessly—might ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... in their husband's company, even on the most ordinary subjects. So that once when a woman had the confidence to plead her own cause in a court of judicature, the senate, it is said, sent to inquire of the oracle what the prodigy did portend; and, indeed, their general good behavior and submissiveness is justly proved by the record of those that were otherwise; for as the Greek historians record in their annals the names of those who first unsheathed the sword of civil war, or murdered their brothers, or were parricides, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... story, passing prodigy; * By Love I swear, my ways wax strait on me! An ye desire to hear me, listen, and * Let all in this assembly silent be. Heed ye my words which are of meaning deep, * Nor lies my speech; 'tis truest verity. I'm slain[FN196] by longing and by ardent love; * My slayer's the pearl of fair virginity. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... profitless, to speculate on the subtle hereditary influences that underlay their attraction for each other. One can imagine that their state presented an example of the way in which people of abnormal instincts tend to drift together: Arthur, the a-moral prodigy, and Gabrielle, the last offshoot of the decayed house of Hewish, daughter of the definitely degenerate Sir Jocelyn. But I do not think that there was anything abnormal or decadent in Gabrielle's composition. Her nature was gay and uncomplicated, in singular ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... her in her belief that I was the dog Montiel whom she had been long looking for, as she afterwards told me. I remained bewildered with surprise, longing for the night to see what might be the meaning of this mystery or prodigy, and as I had heard her called a witch, I expected wonderful things from the interview. At last the time came, and I entered the room, which was small, and low, and dimly lighted by an earthenware lamp. The ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... His satisfaction found vent in a mark of favor which not a little disconcerted the recipient. Removing the sculpel which the artist had permission to wear in the royal presence, he kissed him on the crown of the head, pronounced him a prodigy, and desired him to execute in the same digital style, a picture of St. Francis of Assisi for the Queen." Charles, on another occasion, complimented the artist, by saying, "If, as a King I am greater than ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... with the lofty wind Of Fortune, and Ambition, unconfin'd In act or thought, doth but increase his height, That he may loose it with more force and weight; Scorning a base, low ruin, as if he Would of misfortune make a prodigy. Tell, mighty Pompey, Crassus, and O thou That mad'st Rome kneel to thy victorious brow, What but the weight of honours, and large fame After your worthy acts, and height of name, Destroy'd you in the end? The ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... impulse of Faith among Nations. Till now, behold, once more this French Nation believes! Herein, we say, in that astonishing Faith of theirs, lies the miracle. It is a Faith undoubtedly of the more prodigious sort, even among Faiths; and will embody itself in prodigies. It is the soul of that world-prodigy named French Revolution; whereat the world still gazes ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... is a combination of colours. In Nature colours are separate; they act and react one on the other, and so create in the eye the illusion of a mixture of various colours-in other words, of a tone. But if the human eye can perform this prodigy when looking on colour as evolved through the spectacle of the world, why should not the eye be able to perform the same prodigy when looking on colour as displayed over the surface of a canvas? Nature does not mix her colours to produce a tone; and ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... physically and mentally, and became the juicy and unsuspecting victim of a horde of parasites and flatterers who swarmed eagerly upon her, as soon as the rough and contemptuous protection of her husband was removed by the hand of a medical prodigy who advertised himself as the discoverer of a new and infallible cure for cancer, and whom Mrs. Marrineal, with an instinctive leaning toward quackery, had forced upon her spouse. Appraising his prospective widow with an accurate eye, the dying man left a testament bestowing ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ingenuous, but there came at last a high dim August dawn when she couldn't sleep and when, creeping restlessly about and breathing at her window the coolness of wooded acres, she found the faint flush of the east march with the perception of that other almost equal prodigy. It rosily coloured her vision that—even such as he was, yes—her husband could on occasion sin by excess of candour. He wouldn't otherwise have given as his reason for going up to Portland Place in the ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... in a comfortable chair; and then there was a burst of music around me, which gave me leisure to look about and take stock. It was all very nice. There was a great group of fine ladies in front, and they were all staring at me as if I were a dime-museum prodigy. I was "Gorgonized from head to foot with a stony, British stare"; a cool, unblushing, calculating stare, that made me feel as if I were turning into stone. I did not know what to do. I tried to cross my legs ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... do I." "I am most emphatically of the same opinion." "I stand here, a true temperance man, to express my indignation at that Kansas prodigy," were some of the expressions which came from temperance men who were not willing to be classed with the ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... weather, the garden, the vicar's last sermon. When they talked about anything else, they spoke of books, of which the squire lent Mrs. Goddard a great number. But this was a subject which did not interest Nellie very much; she was not by any means a prodigy in the way of learning, and though she was now nearly eleven years old was only just beginning to read the Waverley novels. On one occasion she remarked to her mother that she did not believe a word of them and did not think they were a bit like real life, but the momentary ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... should it be forgotten that the general who has always fought his battles at the right time, in the right place, with the proper arms, and pursued his victories to their utmost attainable results, has yet to appear. He would, indeed, be an intellectual prodigy. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... movement, impulse, thought, of his mind was kept from me, and if I have not formed a right judgment of him, I must suppose it to be from my own want of scope. Indeed, without exaggeration, he was so nearly a prodigy, that I am afraid of not being credited when I speak of him, even though I should keep much within the mark of my own actual knowledge. And for this time, Monsieur, I shall content myself with praying you, for the honour and respect we owe ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... imposing air in the world and the finest eyes, was forgotten by everybody but the Duchess of Lackland and her daughters, who had just returned to Devereux Court to observe how amazingly the Count had grown! Oh! what a prodigy wisdom would be, if it were but blest with a memory as keen and constant as ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... if your prodigy plays cards; that is, such as we ladies play?" asked Mary. "You say he has lived much in France, where the game was invented, but I have no doubt he would scorn to waste his time at so frivolous a pursuit, when he might be slaughtering ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... in a foreign tongue. With his genius in his eyes, his manners on his lips, his long career behind him and his honours and rewards all round, the great artist, in the course of a single sustained look and a few words of delight at receiving him, affected our friend as a dazzling prodigy of type. Strether had seen in museums—in the Luxembourg as well as, more reverently, later on, in the New York of the billionaires—the work of his hand; knowing too that after an earlier time in his native Rome he had migrated, in mid-career, to Paris, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... coming softness in their roots. They nursed the life they carried—insects, larvae, chrysalis—and when the skies above them melted, he spoke of them standing "motionless in an ecstasy of rain," or in the noon of sunshine "self-poised upon their prodigy of shade." ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... character and purposes became known that the rulers of Western Europe were forced to the conclusion that a change of policy was inevitable. But for the occurrence of the French Revolution, that Anglo-French Alliance which has been regarded as one of the prodigies of our prodigy-creating age would have been anticipated by more than sixty years. By destroying Poland and humiliating Turkey, Catharine forever settled the character of the Russian Empire; and her successors were enabled to solidify her work in consequence of the course which events took ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... this to her husband when he came to take his seat at her bedside; but to her utter astonishment she found that he had been indulging a similar train of thought, and had already destined the infant prodigy for the army. She, however, could not give up her predilection for literature, and the Colonel, who could not bear to be contradicted in his own house, as he used to say, was getting every minute louder and more flushed, when, happily, the ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... of light, Ere Rome shook earth with her tremendous tread, Ere yon blue-feasting sun-god burst blood-red, Beneath thee slept thy prodigy, O Night! Aeons have ta'en like dreams their strange, slow flight, And vastest, tiniest, creatures paved her bed, E'en cities sapped by the usurping spread Of her imperious waves have sunk from sight Since she first chanted her colossal psalms That swell and sink beneath ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... doing: for God dwells therein. I should have to come back to this at every turn, if I wanted to fathom everything I have to tell you about. Each tip of hair which you grow, is an incomprehensible prodigy which would puzzle us for ever, if we did not call to our aid those eternal laws which have made us what we are, and to which it is very just our spirits should submit, since we could not exist for one second were they to cease from making themselves ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... opinion. He was again engaged for nearly a year in Switzerland, and soon after, poor fellow, though with a jovial robustness of look and breadth of chest that promised unusual length of days, was killed by heart-disease. "The brave C continues to be a prodigy. He puts out my clothes at every inn as if I were going to stay there twelve months; calls me to the instant every morning; lights the fire before I get up; gets hold of roast fowls and produces them in coaches at a distance from ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Eugene Aram.[146] The name of the "Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a splendid example of waste talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen. This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, who declared himself descended from that prodigy of learning and accomplishment, and said he had family-plate in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C.—Admirable Crichton! H—— laughed or rather roared as heartily at this as I should think he has done ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... wind from astern. por prep. for, on account of, by, to, through, over, across, for the sake of, on, at; conj. —— qu why. porfa f. obstinacy, persistence. porque conj. because, in order that. portento m. prodigy, miracle, portent. porvenir m. future. pos adv. prep.: en —— behind, after. positivamente adv. positively, certainly. postrado, -a prostrate, kneeling. postrero, -a last. precipitado, -a precipitate, headlong, rash, abrupt. precipitar(se) precipitate, hasten, rush headlong, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup |
