"Expertness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only temporal punishments and rewards? And once more, why not another time all those steps, to perform which the views of Eternal Rewards so powerfully assist us? Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge, fresh expertness? Do I bring away so much from once that there is nothing to repay the trouble ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... the garden without watering them all; and though an excellent shot, he never brought down game without a pang—it used to be said at Peterboro that for this reason he only "pretended to hunt," despite his expertness ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... spears, with their points hardened by fire, each individual being provided with three or four. We afterwards, however, found that these were not the only means of defence, as they are possessed of slings, in the use of which they acquire no inconsiderable expertness. The canoes appeared to be from 15 to 30 feet in length, and each capable of carrying from three to twelve persons; these were provided with sails made of a kind of split rattan matting, of an oblong square form, the longer side placed perpendicularly, and some ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... was not made to play with puppets like you, mademoiselle," said the comtesse, addressing herself to the unconscious little being as she took it in her arms, but belying her words by the grace and instinctive maternal expertness with which she handled and soothed the infant. "Yes, you can go, Sarah—au revoir, Mademoiselle Madeleine. Fie the little wretch, what faces she pulls! And you, Margery, you need not wait either; I shall keep this creature for a ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... sufficiently light and bizarre; but the manner in which I had contrived to decorate my countenance soon riveted all attention to that specimen of the "human face divine," marred by the hand of man. Thanks to the expertness of Mr Pigtop, my eyes were singularly well blackened, and the swelling of my face, particularly about the upper lip, had not yet subsided. Owing to my remaining so much, since my arrest, in the obscurity of the between-decks, and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... all know what a battle he fought, how nobly and well, first striving by patient plodding effort to remove his own ignorance, cheerfully bending himself to every kind of work that came in his way, and seeking to gain not only manual expertness, but a mastery of principles. We know how he went on toiling, observing, experimenting, saying little—for he was never given to the 'talk of the lips'—but doing much, letting slip no chance of getting ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... in the year 1704. His parents were of German extraction, and had settled in this country only a few years previous to his birth. The boy being of an ingenious turn, was bred to a mechanical calling; and becoming celebrated for his expertness in repairing clocks, he eventually set up in business as a clock maker and mender in the town of Doncaster. He also undertook various other kinds of metal work, such as the making and repairing of locks, smoke-jacks, roasting-jacks, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... distracting to us that we fear either that the young person will become a superficial dabbler or will fail to settle down to something serious. But much is to be said in favor of letting every girl and boy do as near to everything he or she wants to do as possible. Expertness can come later when a choice of a specialty has been made. Now is the time for touching life at as many points as possible, for acquiring breadth of outlook and range of sympathy and interest. Now especially is the time for trying out the individual's capacities— which may lie quite ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... to get it down; but succeeded no better than he. 'Monsieur,' said he, 'allow me to remark, on my side, that you, upon my honor, understand as little of it as I!'—'That is true; and I beg your pardon; I was too rash in accusing you of want of expertness.'—'Were you ever in Germany?' he now asked me. 'No; but I should like to make that journey: I am very curious to see the Prussian States, and their King, of whom one hears so much.' And now I began ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... previous to its formation, to ask leave of absence. At the hour when the committee was formed, Mr. Lee was in Wilmington, on his way to Virginia. Mr. Jefferson, the youngest member of the committee, was chosen by his colleagues to write the Declaration, because of his known expertness with the pen; and in an upper chamber of the house of Mrs. Clymer, on the southwest corner of Seventh and High-streets, in Philadelphia, that ardent patriot drew up the great indictment against George the Third, for adjudication by a tribunal of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... I should hold to him, in substance, the following discourse: "The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of ...
— The Federalist Papers
... this manual will not be executed in cadence as the attempt to do so results in incomplete execution and lack of vigor. Each movement will be executed correctly as quickly as possible by every man. As soon as the movements are executed accurately, the commands are given rapidly, as expertness with the bayonet depends ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... review that was to be made by the President, some of McClellan's staff, knowing that the General was a man of great endurance and expertness in the saddle, laughed at the idea of Lincoln's attempting to keep up with him in the severe ordeal of "riding down the lines." "They rather hinted," says a narrator, "that the General would move somewhat rapidly, to test Mr. Lincoln's capacity as a rider. There were those on the field, however, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... wretched cook, and made no effort to acquire expertness. She and Perry lived in a small but well-built bungalow some miles out from town, and they could not afford a maid. When I dined with them I made up afterward for the deficiencies of their menu by a square meal at the club. There was no chance for Perry to make ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... conception of Government in Germany, unlike that which prevails in England, France, or America, is determined by the idea of expertness. The Government is the political expert par excellence. Its business is to study the interests of the State as a whole. In all matters of economic theory, of finance, of administration, of social reform, it invokes the advice of specialists. But it is itself ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... theirs. Their strength, or speed, or vigilance, were given In aid of our defects. In some are found Such teachable and apprehensive parts, That man's attainments in his own concerns, Matched with the expertness of the brutes in theirs, Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind. Some show that nice sagacity of smell, And read with such discernment, in the port And figure of the man, his secret aim, That oft we ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... now called himself Lorenzo di Puccio was not so seriously wounded as at first appeared. His armor and remarkable expertness as a swordsman had rendered such protection that of his more than thirty wounds only two were rated as serious; and even these, with a month's careful nursing, in my opinion, ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... will be apt to deny that he has prospered. As a writer, his resources have been accumulated from nearly all the provinces of human intellect and activity; and he has trained himself to use these complicated instruments with a light expertness which we might have admired in the professor of a solitary department. Freedom, and grace, and smiling earnestness are the characteristics of his works: the matter of them flows along in chaste abundance, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... hundred years the clergy have developed some expertness in making apologies. They have lived in a world of anxious questions and heated charges, and a special department called Apologetics has been added to theology. They are, it is true, sorely perplexed, divided in counsel, uneasy as to their procedure. Some ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... not so high-spirited as to fling Faustus a declaration of war from beneath their closely-folded robes of office; on the contrary, they communicated the invitation to the mayor's festival in as unconcerned a tone as if nothing had happened,—a new proof of their expertness in negotiation. Had they, for example, replied to the insult, they would thereby have acknowledged that they felt the force of it; but when they let it fall flat upon the ground, as if it were nothing to any of them, it lost all its power, and assumed the colour of an unfair reproach. Genius alone ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... instant grabbed at Cassey's legs. The expertness that had made him the star of his football team stood him in good stead. His arms closed round Cassey in a flying tackle, and they came heavily to the ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... shape of guns, and then giving the calculations of the force, size of the bore and balls, and the distances they would fire; and he would accompany them to the open commons near by potter's field, to prove his calculations by shooting at a mark. On account of his expertness in his calculations, and of their ineffectual efforts to discover the use he was making of quicksilver, the shop-hands ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... answered very well; but I had fallen so much out of practice that my first stone knocked off Peterkin's hat, and narrowly missed making a second Goliath of him. However, after having spent the whole day in diligent practice, we began to find some of our former expertness returning, at least Jack and I did. As for Peterkin, being naturally a neat-handed boy, he soon handled his spear well, and could run full tilt at a cocoa-nut, and hit it with great precision once out of ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... addressing it in terms of humorous rapture, and the nurse and her assistant were keeping respectful but wary eyes upon the handling of their four charges. Miss Sharsper was taking in the children's characteristics with a quick expertness. Mrs. Sawbridge stood a little in the background and caught Mr. Brumley's eye and proffered a ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... inexhaustible store of interpretations and subterfuges with which to palliate, excuse, or even metamorphose into their contraries the most odious of her words and actions. It is not likely that any one ever equalled, much less surpassed, her expertness in hiding ugly facts or making innocent things look suspicious. To judge by her writings and conversations she never acted spontaneously, but reasoned on all matters and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... be but in her noviciate in the art, we strongly advise her not to place too much reliance on her own expertness, or to attempt too much at first; but, rather, to proceed steadily, and be satisfied with a gradual improvement; as it is utterly impossible to acquire perfection in the nicer operations of riding, before the minor difficulties ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... which was exceedingly light, was now 'flaxed out,' in order to make it show as much as possible, while, at the same time, it was so arranged as not to come in contact with the wings of the bee and hinder its flight. All this did Cudjo with an expertness which surprised us, and would have surprised any one who was a stranger to the craft of the bee-hunter. He performed every operation with great nicety, taking care not to cripple the insect; and, indeed, we did not injure ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... procuring of managers. In the opinion of Basil Hall and various others the overseers were commonly better than the reputation of their class,[25] but this is not to say that they were conspicuous either for expertness or assiduity. On the whole they had about as much human nature, with its merits and failings, as the planters or the slaves ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... the fisherman with a gnarled hand grasping the latter's gunwale to hold the two together. With some difficulty Kirkwood transhipped himself, landing asprawl in the cockpit, amid a tangle of cordage slippery with scales. The skipper followed, with clumsy expertness bringing the dory's painter with him and hitching it to a ring-bolt abaft the rudder-head. Then, pausing an instant to stare into the East with somber eyes, he shipped the tiller and bent to the halyards. As the sail rattled up, flapping wildly, Kirkwood marked ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... four years in Edinburgh, where he cut a distinguished figure, having shaved and shorn lots of the nobility and gentry; among whom was a French Duchess, and many other foreigners of distinction. In short, nothing went down at the principal hotels but the expertness of Mr Benjamin Wauch; and, had he been so disposed, he could have commenced on his own footing with every chance of success; but knowing himself fully young, and being anxious to see more of the world before settling, he took out a passage in one of the Leith smacks, and set sail ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... be Scipio, who had been chosen for his expertness, to perform the task in question. Placing his cap on the deck, in a reverence even deeper than that which the seaman usually manifests toward his superior, he lifted the glass in one hand, while with the other he covered the eye that had at the moment no occasion ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... recorded ages. It is a tremendous canvas upon which I am to labor, and I know full well how inadequate the production must be, and beg that this index may not be remembered against me. It is meant in all modesty, and I promise only that there will be put into the task the expertness of experience and the endeavor ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... success on Broadway. Its theme is the battle for power that goes on in an old New York family and culminates on the verge of murder. "This one deserves especial thanks and hearty praises. It returns us to expertness and fascination and fine mood in the theater." Gilbert Gabriel, in New York American. "At last a play has come to town that can be heartily recommended. Sturdy theater, compelling. Once you are within the radius of Double Door you will remain ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... political science but upstarts from the counting-house, who had spent their lives furnishing their pockets instead of their minds. Both, however, were practised in dealing with money and with men, as far as acquiring the one and exploiting the other went; and although this is as undesirable an expertness as that of the medieval robber baron, it qualifies men to keep an estate or a business going in its old routine without necessarily understanding it, just as Bond Street tradesmen and domestic servants keep fashionable society going without ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... protection of iron at the end, and they did not see any pointed with it. They are very plentiful amongst the natives, who do not appear to attach any particular value to them. The Landers during their stay had no opportunity of witnessing their expertness with them, but they are said to use them for killing ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Philadelphian, born there on October 6, 1823,—the son of Charles S. Boker, a wealthy banker, whose financial expertness weathered the Girard National Bank through the panic years of 1838-40, and whose honour, impugned after his death, in 1857, was defended many years later by his son in "The Book of the Dead," reflective of Tennyson's "In Memoriam," ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... exercise, and what none of your majesty's subjects who intend to bear arms in your armies ought, according to the ancient custom of the kingdom, to neglect." The emperor, charmed with so prudent an answer, said, "Since it is so, I should be glad to see your expertness in the chase; choose your ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... accident which had led to the disclosure swelled little by little till it knew no bounds. But what was done could not be undone, and though Cytherea had shown a most winning responsiveness, quarrel Miss Aldclyffe must. She recurred to the subject of Cytherea's want of expertness, like a bitter reviewer, who finding the sentiments of a poet unimpeachable, quarrels with ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... smoothly and justly with one's fellows and the acquisition of skill in calling out the best qualities of those about us. Indeed, the home and the market do but furnish practice-ground for developing expertness in carrying one's faculties. Sir Arthur Helps first coined the expression, "the art of right living," and society can never be sufficiently grateful to this distinguished scholar for reminding us that when every other art has been ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... cannot be represented in the regular mode of practice. If they appear, as they do sometimes by accident, it is well to leave them; but in no art is any trick so easily detected as in photography, and it cannot add to any operator's credit in expertness to practise them. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... much difficulty in raising the crust. She should bear in mind that it must not be allowed to get cold, or it will fall immediately: to prevent this, the operation should be performed as near the fire as possible. As considerable dexterity and expertness are necessary to raise the crust with the hand only, a glass bottle or small jar may be placed in the middle of the paste, and the crust moulded on this; but be particular that it is kept warm the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... spoon; and for this purpose they employ the right hand only, the left being reserved for baser purposes. In drinking water, many of them will not allow the lotah to touch the lips; but, throwing the head back, and holding the vessel at arm's length on high, with an odd expertness they let the water run into their mouths. The sect of Ramanujas obstinately refuse to sit down to a meal while any one is standing by or looking on; nor will they chew betel in company with a man of low caste. Ward has written, "If a European of the highest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... cry; I loved to feel the waves wrap me and strive to overpower me; while I, lord of myself, moved this way or that, in spite of their angry buffetings. Adrian also could swim—but the weakness of his frame prevented him from feeling pleasure in the exercise, or acquiring any great expertness. But what power could the strongest swimmer oppose to the overpowering violence of ocean in its fury? My efforts to prepare my companions were rendered nearly futile —for the roaring breakers prevented our hearing one another speak, and the waves, that broke ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... sixty pieces of large cannon, besides many of a small size. One of these cannons was of such extraordinary magnitude that it shook the whole island every time it was discharged, and it was managed with much expertness by a renegade Frenchman in the service of Zofar. At this time Don Ferdinand de Castro, son to the governor arrived with a reinforcement. Mascarenhas having expressed a desire of acquiring some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... for following the bent of his inclinations. He made a friend of the village blacksmith, whose smithy he was accustomed to frequent, and there he learned to work at the forge, to handle the hammer and file, and in a short time to shoe horses with considerable expertness. A cousin of his named Farer, a clock and watchmaker by trade, having returned to the village from London, brought with him some books on mechanics, which he lent to Joseph to read; and they kindled in him an ardent desire to be a mechanic ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... and Ginlawan, came at the same time and danced together, while they informed the people of their beauty and their expertness in dancing. Suddenly they stopped, and said that Andayau, the mother of Lakgangan, was near by; then they instructed the host that he should wrap a gourd in a cloth and tell Andayau that it was her son's head, and that he had been killed, because he had stolen carabao. ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... until it was as sleek as Mr Pecksniff. Then she discovered, all in a moment, that Tom's shirt-collar was frayed at the edge; and flying upstairs for a needle and thread, came flying down again with her thimble on, and set it right with wonderful expertness; never once sticking the needle into his face, although she was humming his pet tune from first to last, and beating time with the fingers of her left hand upon his neckcloth. She had no sooner done ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... shot out from behind the pier where she had been hidden. In spite of Lang's expertness it was an unequal race. Nor would it have made much difference if it had been otherwise, for a shot rang out from the Mohican which commanded instant respect. The powerful revenue cutter rapidly overhauled ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the expertness of an old-timer who had faced emergencies of this kind before, bound up the wound temporarily. The stable-rustler hitched a team, covered the bottom of the buckboard with hay, and helped Wilkins lift ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... commodious vessel, consisting of two canoes, lashed close together with cross spars, lined with bear-skins, and furnished with fur-cloaks, was also provided for us. We now went on very rapidly, the Toion's people being both stout and fresh, and remarkable for their expertness in this business. At ten we got to the ostrog, the seat of his command, where we were received at the water-side by the Kamtschadale men and women, and some Russian servants belonging to Fedositsch, who were employed in making canoes. They were all dressed out in their best clothes. Those of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... is performed by taking the leaf in one hand, and the end of the stem in the other, in such a way as to cleave it with the grain; and there is an expertness to be acquired by practice, which renders it as easy as to separate the bark of a willow, although those unaccustomed to it find it difficult to stem a single plant. When the web is thus separated from the ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Magdalenes. | | | |She was an interloper who had no gospel sanction in | |the world, no visible parents other than a | |foster-father and a foster-mother. Perfectly | |respectable little girls began to inform her so with| |self-righteous airs and with the expertness of | |surgeons to dissect her from the social scheme that | |governs puss-wants-a-corner with the same iron rule | |that in later life determines who shall be asked to | |play bridge and who shall be outlawed. | | | |"Your parents aren't your own," was the taunt that | |Ruth heard from ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... Well, that's set down. 'You shall demand of him whether one Captain Dumain be i' the camp, a Frenchman; what his reputation is with the duke, what his valour, honesty, expertness in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to a revolt.' What say you to this? what do you ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... reached this stage of expertness Jon said to me: "Paulus, now you can drive in a level country, but soon you will come where there are many steep hills, and mountains. So you must learn how to drive down steep hills. This is often very exciting. The weather is beautiful, and this afternoon I want you to take your first lesson going ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... superintended by a steady and intelligent, but not incessant inspection, raises the character of the governed as well as that of her who governs: they are never brought into collision with each other; and the inferior, whose manual expertness may far exceed that to which the superior has even the capability of attaining, will nevertheless look up with admiring respect to those powers of arrangement, and that steady and uncapriciously-exerted ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... notoriously mischievous; but it would introduce difficulties greater than those it obviated. For while the industrial officials would, in exact proportion to their efficiency, embody the special expertness peculiar to a gifted few, the political officials, in proportion as they represented their electorate, would embody the preponderating opinions and the general intelligence of the many. The political officials, therefore, could, from the very nature of the case, never ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... no Kami. This man gathered a band of kindred spirits, among whom his favoured lieutenant was Mo[u]ri Muneoki, although he much leaned to the astonishing acumen of Kosaka Jinnai, a mere boy in years, but hiding in his short and sturdy form a toughness and agility, with expertness in all feats of arms, which discomfited would be antagonists. In the discussions as to future movements there was wide difference of opinion. Muneoki, the true partisan, proposed to rejoin Hideyori in Satsuma. "The prince is now harboured by Higo no ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... prepare for the comedy-situation or may follow and intensify it, but it is always an accessory and not the chief aim. It is absurd to talk of the leader as an intrusion to be avoided. It should be avoided only when it really is an intrusion. The cleverness of an author displays itself in the expertness with which he handles leaders rather than in his skill ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... and buildings showed the marvelous progress achieved in electric lighting, and the expertness in obtaining brilliant spectacular effects. The electric launches on the lagoons manifested the ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... out unto me in characters so clear, that, while I have had time to acquiesce in it, I have had no hope to correct and change it. For Jupiter in Cancer, removed from the Ascendant, and not impedited of any other star, betokened me indeed some expertness in science, but a life of seclusion, and one that should bring not forth the fruits that its labour deserved. But there is so much in thy fate that ought to be bright and glorious, that it will be no common destiny marred, should the evil influences and the ominous seasons prevail against ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... about Walter that, though he may now repudiate it, "The Easiest Way" stands distinct in its class; perhaps the dramatist has ripened more in technique—one immediately feels the surety and vital grip of dramatic expertness in Walter, much more so than in George Broadhurst, Bayard Veiller, or other American dramatists of his class. But he has not surpassed "The Easiest Way" in the burning intention with ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... more away. A man in Chicago may write and sign a check payable in Indianapolis. Personal directions may be given authoritatively and privately. As in the case of the telephone, no intervening operator is necessary. No expertness is required. Even the use of the alphabet is not necessary. A drawing of any description, anything that can be traced with a pen or pencil, is copied precisely by the pen at the receiving desk. The possibilities of this instrument, the uses it may develop, ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... ascent. One stroke of attention comes to do what once took many. To attain such effective speed is not dependent on reaction time. This shooting together of units distinguishes the master from the man, the genius from the hack. In many, if not all, skills where expertness is sought, there is a long discouraging level, and then for the best a sudden ascent, as if here, too, as we have reason to think in the growth of both the body as a whole and in that of its parts, nature does make leaps and attains her ends ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... again the colonel, whose gloved hand still retained its hold on his collar, set him on his trembling legs with admirable expertness. ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... mislead them. But there is nothing in these fearful signs of the times to shake our faith or excite our fears, because the faithful Bible student finds the condition of our world just such as the Scriptures have foretold. All the surroundings that characterize the conduct of infidels; their expertness in ridicule; their extreme folly and resoluteness; their licentiousness and anxiety for change in laws as well as society; the snares laid out by them to catch the unsteadfast, and their vain professions to free the world from slavery, ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... childhood upon the farm and in outdoor employment, she had acquired unusual vigor of constitution; her frame was robust and of masculine strength; and, having thus gained a degree of hardihood, she was enabled to acquire great expertness and precision in the manual exercise, and to undergo what a female, delicately nurtured, would have found it impossible to endure. Soon after they had joined the company, the recruits were supplied with uniforms by a kind of lottery. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... silver on her head. These ladies had a jaunty walk, and never gave in on the longest march; many pounds' weight of fine copper leglets above the ankles seemed only to help the sway of their walk: as soon as they arrive at the sleeping-place they begin to cook, and in this art they show a good deal of expertness, making savoury dishes for their masters out of wild fruits and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... have gained for them, as the accounts of the different actions sent to London from Petrograd testify, the outspoken admiration of the whole Russian Army. Particularly singled out for praise has been their audacious expertness in close-quarter combats. They supply both infantry and artillery, and are recruited all over Siberia, forming ordinarily two separate commands, the East Siberian and the West Siberian troops, which garrison the fortresses and districts between Vladisvostock ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, 1914 • Various
... after month passed in what seemed to be a monotony of mechanical imitation; but in this arduous and literal reproduction of the skill of others was laid the sure foundations of individual skill. This devout attention to methods secured for a considerable number of men a technical expertness for which we look, as a rule, only in the work of the greatest artists. The result of this training was not mechanical skill, but truth and freshness of observation. The signature of the artist in question reveals not an imitative but an original nature, not a faculty ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... maroon, after carefully lashing the officer with a seaman's expertness, rushed out to busy himself in carrying out these commands, Morgan opened the desk which he had handed to him and took from it several rouleaux of gold and a little bag filled with the rarest of precious ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... interpreter, Mr. Bissonette, arrived, accompanied by the Indian and his wife. She laughed at our awkwardness, and offered her assistance, of which we were frequently afterwards obliged to avail our selves, before the men acquired sufficient expertness to pitch it without difficulty. From this place we had a fine view of the gorge where the Platte issues from the Black hills, changing its character abruptly from a mountain stream into a river of the plains. Immediately around us the valley of the stream was tolerably ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... sociological questions with a brilliancy and insight that fairly astonished them. With literary men and musicians, she chatted intelligently of the latest novels and pictures and operas with the facility and expertness of a connoisseur. Other men, drawn by her exceptional beauty, fascinated by the spell of her soulful eyes, her tall graceful figure, and delicate classic face, framed in Grecian head dress, made violent love to her, their heated imaginations and jaded senses ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... intimate but still interesting to both correspondents which displays the "narrative" excellence conceded by this acute critic. It must of course be remembered that these "Journal-letters" are by no means Swift's only proofs of his epistolary expertness. The Vanessa ones perhaps display a little of the hopelessly enigmatic character which spreads like a mist over the whole of that ill-starred relationship: but they make all the more useful contrast to the "wholeheartedness"—one may even use that word in reference to the little bit of what we ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... which separates monkeys very markedly from ordinary mammals is their manipulative expertness, the co-ordination of hand and eye. This great gift follows from the fact that among monkeys the fore-leg has been emancipated. It has ceased to be indispensable as an organ of support; it has become a climbing, grasping, lifting, handling organ. The fore-limb has become ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... with the greatest care. English opinion went so far as to concede this much: "As a display of courage the character of our service was nobly upheld, but we would be deceiving ourselves were we to admit that the comparative expertness of the crews in gunnery was equally satisfactory. Now taking the difference of effect as given by Captain Carden, we must draw this conclusion—that the comparative loss in killed and wounded, together with the dreadful account he gives of the condition of his own ship, while he admits that the ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... what risks to take and of what risks to leave alone constitutes expertness in this line of business. Seldom can the transaction be absolutely closed at both ends and any substantial profit be made. Most of the time the correctness of the bond expert's judgment as to how he can sell somewhere else what he has bought, is ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... but the surroundings of frontier life at a post were so unfavorable that I believe few in fact did so. The officers of the engineer corps and the ordnance were specifically devoted to scientific careers, and could go steadily forward to expertness in their specialties. Those who were permanently attached to the staff corps or to bureaus at Washington had also opportunity to enlarge their professional knowledge by study if they were so inclined. But all these were exceptionally situated, and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... hole in a bone needle for his cousin Catharine's use. After several attempts, he succeeded in making some of tolerable fineness, hardening them by exposure to a slow, steady degree of heat till she was able to work with them, and even mend her clothes with tolerable expertness. By degrees, Catharine contrived to cover the whole outer surface of her homespun woollen frock with squirrel and mink, musk-rat and woodchuck skins. A curious piece of fur patchwork of many hues ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... guns were silent—hushed the loud ringing cheers, And the pale dead were buried, in silence and tears; And the wounded brought in on stretchers so gory, Broken and mangled but covered with glory, Whilst the surgeons were clipping with expertness and vim, From the agonised trunk each bullet-torn limb, And the patient, if living, was carefully sent To the cool open wards of ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... his conviction with frankness and courage, and when a thing had to be done, no one could do it like him. As Disraeli said: 'In the course of time the method which was natural to Sir Robert Peel matured into a habit of such expertness that no one in the despatch of affairs ever adapted the means more fitly to the end.'[10] In the words of Sir Cornewall Lewis: 'For concocting, producing, explaining, and defending measures, he had no equal, ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... often avail themselves of the expertness of the native trackers; and notwithstanding the demonstration of Combe that the brain of the timid Singhalese is deficient in the organ of destructiveness[1], he shows an instinct for hunting, and exhibits in the pursuit of ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... convinced that a chief reason why preaching is temporarily obscured in power, is because most of our expertness in it is in terms of local problems, of partial significances, rather than in the wider tendencies that produce and carry them, or in the ultimate laws of conduct which should govern them. We ought to be troubled, I think, in our present ecclesiastical situation, with ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... beat that, who can? Four hundred dollars made since breakfast;" he cries out at the top of his voice. They cast a measured look at the ghastly object, as if it were a precious ornament, much valued for the price it would bring, according to law. The demon expresses his joy, descants on his expertness and skill, holds up his prize again, turns it round, smiles upon it as his offering, then throws it into the fire place, carelessly, like a piece of fuel. The dogs spring upon it, as if the trophy was for their feast; ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... holding council, going to war; circumventing their enemies by defiles; ambuscades; attacking; scalping, etc. It is said by those who are judges that no representation could possibly come nearer the original. The Captain's expertness and agility, in particular, in these experiments, astonished every beholder. This morning they will set out on their march ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... by its size, the manner in which it led, and the place where it was belayed, in the darkest night, as well as the oldest seaman on board. It is true, my model-ship had prepared the way for much of this expertness; but, free from all seasickness, of which I never had a moment in my life, I set about learning these things in good earnest, and was fully rewarded for my pains. I passed the weather-earing of the mizen-top-sail ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... that this Monsieur Germain is not only remarkable for the above precious addition to human knowledge, but also on account of his expertness at the game of Ombre, celebrated and so elegantly described by Pope in ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the station from which the reader is to view them. Without this, or with this inadequately done, a work on such a plan would be intolerable. Schiller has accomplished it in great perfection; the whole scene of affairs was evidently clear before his own eye, and he did not want expertness to discriminate and seize its distinctive features. The bond of cause and consequence he never loses sight of; and over each successive portion of his narrative he pours that flood of intellectual and imaginative brilliancy, which all his prior writings had displayed. His reflections, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... precocious wisdom and disarming ignorance. When she talked to him about "life"—the word was often on her lips—she seemed to him like a child playing with a tiger's cub; and he said to himself that some day the child would grow up—and so would the tiger. Meanwhile, such expertness qualified by such candour made it impossible to guess the extent of her personal experience, or to estimate its effect on her character. She might be any one of a dozen definable types, or she might—more disconcertingly to her companion and more perilously to herself—be ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... that it bids fair to be the great social evil of nineteenth-century civilization. The growing difficulty of procuring sons-in-law has called forth a corresponding increase in the skill required for capturing them, just as the wits of the detective are sharpened to keep pace with the expertness which the general spread of useful knowledge has conferred upon the thief. Eligible bachelors complain that scarcity of marrying men has much the same effect upon the match-making mother as scarcity of food upon the wolf. It makes her at once more ferocious and more cunning. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... there a long time to recover his strength, and having some learning, he began to write down the words he heard spoken, and in a short time made himself so much master of the language, as to be reputed a native; and in this manner he attained expertness in many languages. The Tartars got notice of this man by means of their spies, and drew him by force among them; and, having been admonished by an oracle or vision to extend their dominion over the whole earth, they allured him by many offers of reward, to serve them as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... lack of opportunities for practise, is debarred from all chance of acquiring that expertness which accompanies great technical skill, he may at least find encouragement in the fact that he can never exhaust the interest afforded by his art in its infinite suggestion to the imagination and fancy; and also that by the exercise of diligence, and ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... Bob had approached the cow. He spoke some kind words close to her broad ear, and gently stroked her back and flanks. Then he set to work in the proper way, forcing the milk in streams into the cup, the boys watching with admiration Bob's ease and expertness, Dick wondering why he couldn't do what seemed so easy. In a few seconds the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... school-proficiency all in all; and that the founders and supporters of schools will, occasionally, be tempted by vanity to take most interest in those things which give most opportunity for display. Yet the slightest inferiority of moral tone in a school would be ill compensated for by an expertness, almost marvellous, in dealing with figures; or a knowledge of names, things, and places, which may well confound the grown-up bystander. That school would in reality be the one to be proud of, where order was thoroughly maintained ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... greeting. (For no excess of consideration is too great to be lavished upon these, who unite within themselves the courage of a high warrior, the expertness of a three-handed magician, and the courtesy of a genial mandarin.) "I seek two, apparelled thus and thus. Did you, by any chance, mark the direction ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... to note on how slender a weed-stalk so large a bird was able to perch. There being few trees and fences in this region, he has doubtless gained expertness through practice in the art of securing a foot-hold on the tops of the weed-stems. Some of the weeds on which he stood with perfect ease and grace were extremely lithe and flexible and ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... ready to hear them. There need," he added, turning to the trapper and the others, "there need be no fear but this man will tell a true story; I have met him on the Great Megantic, where he goes by the name I have called him, on account of his well-known expertness in moose-killing." ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... well, but I had fallen so much out of practice that my first stone knocked off Peterkin's hat, and narrowly missed making a second Goliath of him. However, after having spent the whole day in diligent practice, we began to find some of our former expertness returning—at least Jack and I did. As for Peterkin, being naturally a neat-handed boy, he soon handled his spear well, and could run full tilt at a cocoa nut, and hit it with great precision once out of ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... one of these noble birds, partly because the taste he had had of their flesh had given him a liking for it; and partly because their shyness had greatly tantalized him. One is always more eager to kill shy game, both on account of the rarity of the thing, and the credit one gets for his expertness. But the voyageurs had now got within less than twenty miles of Lake Winnipeg, and Francois had not as yet shot a single swan. It was not at all likely the eagles would help him to another. So there would be no more roast ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... twice a day, so that the crew of this man-of-war, as they saw Golden Gate ahead of them, were perhaps more expert at boat-drill than any that sailed. They could lower and raise a boat with a wonderful expertness in a bad sea, and they rowed with clock- ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... well as of her life, proves it. Not only must she receive unheard-of personal favors and spiritual graces from her Saviour, but she must immediately write about them and exploiter them professionally, and use her expertness to give instruction to those less privileged. Her voluble egotism; her sense, not of radical bad being, as the really contrite have it, but of her "faults" and "imperfections" in the plural; her stereotyped humility and return upon ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... of Britain, to come nearer home, could have no great expertness in Cookery, as they had no oil, and we hear nothing of their butter, they used only sheep and oxen, eating neither hares, though so greatly esteemed at Rome, nor hens, nor geese, from a notion of superstition. Nor did they eat ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... five-cent weeklies for short stories of a few easily recognized patterns has resulted too often in a substitution of stencil-plate generalized types instead of delicately and powerfully imagined individual characters. Short stories have been assembled, like Ford cars, with amazing mechanical expertness, but with little artistic advance in design. The same temporary arrest of progress has been noted in France and England, however, where different causes have been at work. No one can tell, in truth, what makes some plants in the literary garden wither ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... Green at once told the audience he would gratify them and perform the tricks openly. Here came his triumph, which was complete. He took the very cards which his opponent had bought, and with them showed conclusively, that all he had charged in relation to the expertness and skill of gamblers, and of course, their immense advantages over their opponents, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green |
