"Genius" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the banishing of black darkness by the clear light of genius? It was that light which had lured us away from all the charms of nature to a region of ugliness, even of squalor. The Brontes had lived there. They had pined for Haworth when away. Emily had written about ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the history of such works, in which genius seems to have pushed its achievements to a new limit. Their bursting out from nothing, and gradual evolution into substance and shape, cast on the mind a solemn influence. They come too near the fount ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... had been right. A wave of terror washed over Ellen. What chance had she of playing any part on a stage where there moved this woman of genius, who was so creative that she had made Richard, and so wise that she could see through the brick wall of this girl's brutishness? She stammered, "Well, good-night, I'll away to my bed," and ran upstairs to her room and undressed furiously, letting her clothes fall here and ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... a whole canton and of a little town against a general, who, in spite of his rash courage, had escaped the dangers of actual war, is going on in other districts against other men who seek only to do what is right by those districts. It is a coalition which to-day threatens every man, the man of genius, the statesman, the modern agriculturalist,—in ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... votaries the vice of irritability, it may seem strange that so quiet and orderly a behaviour should exist as that just described. But it is to be observed that in attending at the palace, these men of genius made sure at least of outward unanimity among their ranks, by coming equally prepared with one accomplishment, and equally animated by one hope: they waited to employ a common agent—flattery; to attain a ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... injudiciously let him rest with the idea, that it is as well to have gates opened for us, as to exert our own strength. The result was, that her son, like the young hopeful sent to Mr. Wiseman, soon concluded that he had no 'genius' for mathematics, and threw ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... tenderer than anything she had allowed Arthur to see of late. Of course she delighted in Arthur's success; she was proud, indeed, through and through. Hadn't she always known that he had this gift, this quick, vivacious power of narrative, this genius—for it was something like it—for literary portraiture? And now at last the stimulus had come—and the opportunity with it. Could she ever forget the anxiety of the first lecture—the difficulty she had had in making him ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... cent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business earnestness, and "goes in"—to use an expression of Alfred's—for Woman's mission, Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and everything that is woman's with a capital ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... ornament. Peaceful Moments, like Mervo, had been set rolling and had continued to roll on almost automatically. The staff of regular contributors sent in their various pages. There was nothing for the man in charge to do. Mr. Renshaw had been one of those men who have a genius for being as busy over nothing as if it were some colossal work, but Smith had not that gift. He liked something that he could grip and that gripped him. He was becoming desperately bored. He felt like a marooned sailor on a barren rock ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... coverlet over the tiny form, while Mary and Humpy huddled in the doorway. Mary wept; Humpy was awed into silence by his old friend's perversity. For years he had admired The Hopper's cleverness, his genius for extricating himself from difficulties; he was deeply shaken to think that one who had stood so high in one of the most exacting of professions should have fallen so low. As The Hopper imperturbably ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... to be self-conscious. I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was self-conscious—remarkably self-conscious indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs. Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science: though, as she said, she liked flowers, "especially wild ones;" ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... man has lived whose name alone so deeply moved the hearts of so many millions of men. Whereas Napoleon impressed his tremendous personality upon peoples far and near, by the strange fascination which the genius of war has always exercised over the imagination of men in all lands and in all ages, the name of Gladstone had come to be in the minds of all civilized nations, the living incarnation of right against might—the champion, the dauntless, tireless champion, of the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... on ice and rock, was not a genius among guides. Faced by an apparently unscalable rock wall, or lost in a wilderness of seracs, he would never guess the one way that led to success. But he was skilled in the technic of his profession, and did not make the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... great crimes in high places were impossible or new things under the sun? He did not fail to draw a touching picture of the victim, the beautiful, young stranger-girl, whom they all remembered and loved—who had come, an angel of mercy, on a mission of mercy, to their shores. Was not her beauty, her genius, her goodness—by which all there had at some time been blessed—sufficient to save her from the knife of the assassin? No! as he should shortly prove. Yet all these years her innocent blood had cried to Heaven in vain; her fate was unavenged, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... enjoyed the lonely flaring of the gas-jets as a gust of wind drew through the station; they shared the gloom and isolation of a man who took a seat in the darkest corner of the room, and sat there with folded arms, the genius of absence. In the patronizing spirit of travellers in a foreign country they noted and approved the vases of cut- flowers in the booth of the lady who checked packages, and the pots of ivy in her windows. "These poor Bostonians," ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... anyone could accomplish it, you would. I think you must be my good genius, Darry. To think of our meeting again here in the middle of the bay and just when I was on my way to your home to see if I could induce you to keep your half-given promise. It's great! Tell me about destiny ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... are wonderful! You are a real genius, that's what you are! I am only a common girl; I can't ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... half of the eighteenth century. He wrote vocal and instrumental pieces both for the church and for the theatre. He was also a learned historian of music. He has the merit of having discerned and encouraged the genius of Mozart when, a boy of fourteen, he ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... memory of those who had fallen in defence of the city in the previous year; it is 52 ft. high, the column being in the form of a bundle of Roman fasces, upon the bands of which are inscribed the names of those whom it commemorates; and the whole is surmounted by a female figure, the emblematical genius of the city. To this monument and the one in honour of Washington, Baltimore owes the name "The Monumental City," frequently applied to it. A small monument erected to the memory of Edgar Allan Poe stands in the Westminster ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... special interest attaching to criticism formulated by a great creative artist. One phase of his work is emphasized and explained by the other, and we cannot afford to ignore his criticism if we attempt fairly to comprehend his genius as a poet and novelist. The fact that he is the subject of one of the noblest biographies in our language only increases our obligation to become acquainted with his own presentation ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... prison, in the centre of the town; and my window, instead of looking out into the street, was on the side of the courtyard. The window was strongly barred, no civilians were allowed to enter the prison, and I think that even you, who have a sort of genius for escapes, would have found it, as I did, simply impossible ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... dangerous in that they are hidden. Steel is exempt from these defects, and, moreover, whatever be the size of the ingot, its homogeneousness is perfect. This is what has given the idea of manufacturing from it enormous marine engines and those gigantic guns that the genius of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... tell those of you young ladies who feel symptoms of architectural genius only waiting for development, that year by year this institute is opening its door wider and wider to admit women. This last year the ten who are new members of it were for the first time invited to a class supper, ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... "there is a great future ahead of Woodyard, and"—with a pleasant glance at Conny—"I have no doubt he will avoid false steps." The Senator thought that Congress would be a mistake. So did Conny. "It takes luck or genius to survive the lower house," the Senator said. They had talked of something in diplomacy, and now that the stocks and bonds of the paper-mill were to be so profitable, they could afford to consider diplomacy. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... interest, and the wrath of critics, such I hold that of Pope to be,—I found in the house of a neighbour. Next came the Iliad; not, however, in a complete copy, but represented by four of the six volumes of Bernard Lintot. With what power, and at how early an age, true genius impresses! I saw, even at this immature period, that no other writer could cast a javelin with half the force of Homer. The missiles went whizzing athwart his pages; and I could see the momentary gleam of the steel, ere it buried itself deep in brass and bull-hide. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... composed solely of reeds; a species of fuel which, like straw, soon blazes up, and soon expires again, almost without communicating any degree of warmth. But, above all, our provisions were expended, and from what quarter to obtain an immediate supply it defied the most inventive genius to discover. Our sole dependence was upon the boats. Of these a flotilla lay ready to receive us, in which were embarked the black corps, with the 44th; but they had brought with them only food for their own use. It was therefore ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... are still made with a small ball, or bullet, on an inclined plane, which turns every minute. The King's clocks probably dropped bullets. Gainsborough the painter had a brother who was a dissenting minister at Henley-on-Thames, and possessed a strong genius for mechanics. He invented a clock of a very peculiar construction, which, after his death, was deposited in the British Museum. It told the hour by a little bell, and was kept in motion by a leaden bullet, which dropped from a spiral reservoir at the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... be the same with that surprising sect, who are honourably mentioned by the late Dr Swift, as having, by the mere force of genius alone, without the least assistance of any kind of learning, or even reading, discovered that profound and invaluable secret that there is no God; or whether they are not rather the same with those who some years since ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... L. Morse met it competently. In every emergency with which he had to cope the man "stood the acid." Arizona approved him a man, without according him any popularity. He was too dogmatic to win liking, but he had a genius for success. Everything he ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... amongst their more prominent characteristics; and it is a remarkable fact, which, unless there is some mysterious property in the air, can only be explained by the intermixture of races, that Ireland "within the Pale" has been peculiarly prolific of military genius. As England has bred admirals, so the sister isle has bred soldiers. The tenacious courage of the Anglo-Saxon, blended with the spirit of that people which above all others delights in war, has proved on ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... disclose our case. With prescient genius Shakspeare has described the part that Cromwell took in an event which occurred under his Protectorate, the so-called Insurrection of March 1655; and in our examination into the secret history of that occurrence lies the test that we have applied to ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... Mental Anomalies which are Not Very Apparent and Border on Genius. Their Influence on Religious Eroticism.—These persons are not always afflicted with paranoia or other grave psychoses, but often hereditary and constitutional psychopaths who are only half-crazy or simply hysterical, and who may, in spite ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... his constant likeness to his father. He asked questions about everything, as inquiring youth will do. The profundity of his remarks and interrogatories astonished his old grandfather, who perfectly bored the club at the tavern with stories about the little lad's learning and genius. He suffered his grandmother with a good-humoured indifference. The small circle round about him believed that the equal of the boy did not exist upon the earth. Georgy inherited his father's pride, and perhaps ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and Prophecy, and also on Jesus Christ and the general character of the Christian religion. In these Thoughts, it must be admitted, there is but little to reward our study in comparison with those of a more introductory and philosophical nature. Pascal’s genius was in no degree historical, and but slightly critical—not to mention that the very idea of historical criticism had not emerged in his time, nor long afterwards. While realising so profoundly the perplexities of human experience, he has no conception of the difficulties that beset historical tradition; ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... subject directly to the Living Buddha. This Hubilgan was a serious and ascetic man of thirty-two, well educated and deeply learned in Mongol lore. He knew Russian and read much in that language, being interested chiefly in the life and stories of other peoples. He had a high respect for the creative genius of the American people and said ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... And many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men, but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... replied, rather slowly and wearily, she thought, "although sometimes I am not certain that I understand these troubled times myself. Across the seas the Emperor Napoleon, a long-nosed, short-bodied man of infinite genius for setting the world by the ears, has been warring with England for the last ten years and more. He and the British, with their blockades and embargoes and Orders in Council have long been striving to ruin each other, yet have achieved their greatest ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... time we want to. Besides, I think I can see a way to arrange for her and a method of getting her out of the house within the next hour. It was no bad thing for men who get their living as we do when some genius invented motor cars. Now do go along or we ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... are the lovely gardens of Sutro Heights, developed by Mr. Sutro's money and genius from the barren sand-hills of the San Miguel rancho. In addition to these is the choice library of about two hundred thousand volumes, which is of great use to the people of San Francisco. Perhaps neither San Francisco nor California ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... simple as oculists think," said Ishmael, with that intuition which is generally called feminine and which had been all his life his only spark of genius. Judy looked and smiled her old smile, which charmed as much as ever even on her ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... not wish their ships risked, for fear we might not be able to hold the Mississippi." A similar reluctance might be anticipated to expose such valuable vessels as attacked Port Hudson, when their loss was so hard to repair; for only men of the temper of Farragut or Grant—men with a natural genius for war or enlightened by their knowledge of the past—can fully commit themselves to the hazard of a great adventure—can fully realize that a course of timid precaution may entail the greatest ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... occasion of their appearance. There is another testimony to the ancient importance of Issoudun in the conversion into a canal of the Tournemine, a little stream raised several feet above the level of the Theols which surrounds the town. This is undoubtedly the work of Roman genius. Moreover, the suburb which extends from the castle in a northerly direction is intersected by a street which for more than two thousand years has borne the name of the rue de Rome; and the inhabitants of this suburb, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... this first part of his book, this history of the past, by a broad sketch of Catholicism until the present time. First appeared St. Peter, ignorant and anxious, coming to Rome by an inspiration of genius, there to fulfil the ancient oracles which had predicted the eternity of the Capitol. Then came the first popes, mere heads of burial associations, the slow rise of the all-powerful papacy ever struggling to conquer the world, unremittingly ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... princess consulted her own horse as to which offer she should accept, and he advised her to side with the genius who was master of Sunlight, his own younger brother, and still more active ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... often as he could, and they had luncheon and tea in byway restaurants. They were both fascinated by the game, and they had an infinite number of things to talk about, for their minds were really congenial. They disputed with fire and fury. It was a part of Gisela's dormant genius to grasp instinctively the psychology of foreign nations, and before she had been in the United States a year she understood it far better than Nettelbeck ever would. Even if he had despised it less he would ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... such remarks were really of the truth, a dreadful stretch, For, in point of fact, that baby was a hideous little wretch; And in course of time he grew up—though a loving mother's joy— Into quite a champion specimen of the genius "ugly boy." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... tones of great decision, "since a woman, and a woman of our own class ruined him, Constance Mortlake, I believe it to be the duty of our sex and rank to redeem him. Do you," with high and increasing impatience, "realise that the man is a genius, the poet ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... polite letters, founded by Henry VI.; where, besides a master, eight fellows and chanters, sixty boys are maintained gratis. They are taught grammar, and remain in the school till, upon trial made of their genius and progress in study, they are sent to the ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... has attempted to act in the world, is a sort of non-describable, camelion-colored thing, called prudence. It is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence furnished him in this instance with an expedient that served, as is the natural and general character of all expedients, to diminish the embarrassments of the moment and multiply them afterwards; for he authorized ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... call a stroke of genius on your part, Grace," remarked Miriam, as they entered her room. "Mrs. Elwood can deal with the Anarchist more ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... if not most, of the young men and young women from the security of their homes in the country into the big, booming confusion and excitement of city life. In a small community it is the normal man, the man without eccentricity or genius, who seems most likely to succeed. The small community often tolerates eccentricity. The city, on the contrary, rewards it. Neither the criminal, the defective, nor the genius has the same opportunity to develop his innate ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... ways. They divide their chapters into sections, and number the sections in plain figures. This is quite pontifical, and lends your story the majesty of an Act of Parliament. The first man who did it was a genius. And the other seven hundred and eighteen showed judgment. I propose to use it myself when ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... gentle swans are poets too, That well the poet's name have merited, As well because it is Heaven's will, that few Great rulers should the paths of glory tread, As through foul fault of sordid lordlings, who Let sacred Genius beg his daily bread; Who putting down the Virtues, raise the tribe Of Vices, and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... of it that the mind of man is constituted to grasp, is here in the general, under these PREROGATIVE INSTANCES, in the luminous order of the Inventor of this science, blazing throughout with his genius, and the mind that has abolished its prenotions, and renounced its rude, instinctive, barbaric tendencies, and has taken this scientific Organum instead; has armed itself with the Nature of Things, and is prepared to grapple ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... pretty safe. He can repeat the process until he kills his victim and then get a certificate from you which will cover the murder. It was quite an ingenious scheme—which, by the way, is characteristic of intricate crimes; your subtle criminal often plans his crime like a genius, but he generally executes it like a fool—as this man seems to have done, if we are not ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... seeds sown after the plough,) seems much in practice here. The late noise about improving pasture grasses has been made with little reference to the nature of an Indian climate, or the genius of the Indian people. Pasture grasses only excel in countries where there is no division of climate into hot, rainy, and cold seasons; but not in those in which rain is equally, or nearly so distributed throughout the year. So far as I know, no place ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... promising. Sergeant Madden did not look like the kind of genius who could carry it through. Dozing, with his chin tilted forward on his chest, he looked ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... When this prince had the equestrian statue of himself by Antonio Tassi, Gianbologna's pupil, erected in the square of the Corte, he secretly caused to be made, says my anonymous MS., a silver statuette of his familiar genius or angel—"familiaris ejus angelus seu genius, quod a vulgo dicitur idolino"—which statuette or idol, after having been consecrated by the astrologers—"ab astrologis quibusdam ritibus sacrato"—was placed in the cavity of the chest of the effigy by Tassi, in order, says the MS., ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... unquestionably the greatest fictionist of the time—is it too much to say, the greatest genius of our English nineteenth century?—is the nineteenth century ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... choice of motto for a paper, but was so bold and well-timed that it must have given a wholesome shock to the minds of many of the Spectators readers. Addison was not before Steele in appreciation of Milton and diffusion of a true sense of his genius. Milton was the subject of the first piece of poetical criticism in the Tatler; where, in his sixth number, Steele, having said that all Milton's thoughts are wonderfully just and natural, dwelt on the passage in which Adam tells his thoughts ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... came in, followed, before long, by Clover and Elsie. Such a merry morning as they had! Cousin Helen proved to possess a perfect genius for story-telling, and for suggesting games which could be played about her sofa, and did not make more noise than she could bear. Aunt Izzie, dropping in about eleven o'clock, found them having ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... being unable any longer to put up with his folly, he gave him a good handful of crowns, and sent him to trade in the Levant; for he well knew that seeing various countries and mixing with divers people awaken the genius and sharpen the judgment, and ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... bustled about placing table and chairs, and recklessly dusting them with the clean napkin. The signorina laid her fluffy white parasol on one chair and seated herself on another, her profile turned to the summer-house. Gustavo hovered over them, awaiting their pleasure, the genius itself of respectful devotion. It was Constance who gave the order—she, it might be noticed, gave most of the orders that were given in her vicinity. She framed it in English out of deference to Gustavo's pride in his knowledge ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... table-talk of the clergy whose lives are sketched in Dr. Sprague's volumes would be a rare fund of humor, shrewdness, genius, and originality. We must say, however, that as nothing is so difficult as to collect these sparkling emanations of conversation, the written record which this work presents falls far below that traditional one which floated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Fox, as a statesman? Gambling! What brought the brilliant Sheridan to the grave? Intoxication, brought on by the ill-starred luck of the ruined gamester? "Holland-house!" immortalized as the resort of genius, as well as for its orgies of dissipation, is not less renowned to infamy, as having been the "hell" ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... SAINT-PIERRE.—In prose, his contemporary, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, primarily was a man of genius, since he wrote that immortal idyllic romance, Paul and Virginia; subsequently he became a gracious and amiable pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, being smitten with the sentiment of nature in his Harmonies of Nature; finally ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... Montalvo had returned to Leyden! Out of the blackness of the past, out of the gloom of the galleys, had arisen this evil genius of her life; yes, and, by a strange fatality, of the life of Elsa Brant also, since it was her, she swore, who had dragged down her father. Lysbeth was a brave woman, one who had passed through many dangers, but her whole heart ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... not him; that he is aught else now; that mere art, in fact, is to him a business no longer worthy of a serious soul. The public again, in its ever-confident patronizingness, says unto him: "But for thy great artistic genius, O Leo, son of Nicolas, with thy latest religious antics and somersaultings, we would call thee—a crank. But as to a great genius we shall be merciful unto thee, and bear with many a confession, many a cobbled shoe, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... self-government to certain delegates, by them to be elected according to all the forms of this government, or they have not so delegated their rights of self-government, but have retained them. In either case, according to the genius of our government, what is there to prevent them from exercising these rights any moment they choose, unless it is force? What prevents them unless it is unjust illegal power? The ninth amendment ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... moved to write tragedy, he probably did not know even the names of the Greek dramatists, and could not have known the structure of their dramas by indirect means, having read then only some Metastasian plays of the French school; so that he created that ideal of his by pure, instinctive force of genius. With him, as with the Greeks, art arose spontaneously; he felt the form of Greek art by inspiration. He believed from the very first that the dramatic poet should assume to render the spectators unconscious of theatrical ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... the glasses, and there was Santa Anna standing directly under the folds of the banner with his own glasses to his eyes, studying the Alamo and its defenders. About him stood a half dozen generals. Ned's heart swelled with anger. The charm and genius of Santa Anna made him all the more repellent now. Ned knew that he would break any promise if it suited him, and that cunning and treachery were his most ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tired ploughman and the lowing herd both coming home; and the two together make up a perfect harmony. It is a stroke of poetic genius. We are made to feel the weariness of the tired ploughman in order that we may be able to appreciate the restfulness of the evening, the solitude of the quiet churchyard, and the cows coming slowly home. I blamed myself ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... its cue from her, the crowd murmured, scarcely assent, but rather recognition of the hakim's adroitness. The game was not won; there lacked a touch to tip the scales in his favor, and Yasmini supplied it with ready genius. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... 1258 were restrictive. The Constitution of 1264 deliberately extended the limits of Parliament. "Either Simon's views of a Constitution had rapidly developed, or the influences which had checked them in 1258 were removed. Anyhow, he had genius to interpret the mind of the nation, and to anticipate the line which was taken by later progress."[20] What Simon wanted was the approval of all classes of the community for his plans, and to that end he issued writs for the ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... the three engines are due to the genius of the same inventor, and that the three vehicles are in ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... was at the extraordinary pains of causing them all to be transcribed; in a word, he kept copies and said nothing about it. Now it is that Pope set about as paltry a job as ever engaged the attention of a man of genius. He proceeded to manufacture a sham correspondence; he garbled and falsified to his heart's content. He took a bit of one letter and tagged it on to a bit of another letter, and out of these two foreign parts made up an imaginary letter, never really written ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... was very different from those issued by successful American commanders in former years, when they required the conquered to take a new oath of allegiance, to enrol themselves in a new army under pain of confiscation of property, imprisonment, and even death. The true genius of English government is justice, law, and liberty; the genius of democratic government is the domination of party, and the spoils to the victors. In the conquest of a vast territory by General Brock, there was no plunder or sacrifice of life, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... which meant, "What say you now? Can we be wrong if Mary Crawford feels the same?" And Edmund, silenced, was obliged to acknowledge that the charm of acting might well carry fascination to the mind of genius; and with the ingenuity of love, to dwell more on the obliging, accommodating purport of the message ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... well expressed by the old Greeks who lived an out-door life, in their personification of Mother Earth under the creation of their Demeter, perfect in form and beautiful in expression and noble in action. This is far above the conceptions of nature or of a presiding genius over our lives, taking into account social order and marriage vows, which we find in Chinese literature or mythology. It is not difficult to perceive the reason why the Greeks, who rule the realms of philosophy and art and literature to-day, after the lapse ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... these distractions, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe achieved successes in the field of pure science that would insure permanent recognition for his name had he never written a stanza of poetry. Such is the versatility that marks the highest genius. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... assistants who filed in and out as upon men who had all the mysteries of gravitation and the celestial motions at their fingers' ends. I should not have been surprised to learn that even the Hibernian who fed the fire had imbibed so much of the spirit of the place as to admire the genius of Laplace and Lagrange. My own rank was scarcely up to that of a tyro; but I was a few weeks later employed on trial as computer at a salary of thirty dollars ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... "Kit, you're a genius! Prob'ly Eliza's pantry is just chock-a-block with good things! And as I know they were made for us, we may as well eat ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... began Billy Brue, reading from the obituary in the Skiplap Weekly Ledge, "was in his fifty-second year. Genial, generous to a fault, quick to resent a wrong, but unfailing in his loyalty to a friend, a man of large ideas, with a genius for large operations, he was the type of indefatigable enterprise that has builded this Western empire in a wilderness and given rich sustenance and luxurious homes to millions of prosperous, happy American citizens. Peace to his ashes! And a safe ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... capital vice. It is unsuited to producing the joy that quickens. Humanity has forgotten joy; what has he done beyond pitying or rallying suffering? . . . These reflections haunt him, and this doubt of his beneficent efficacy imparts extreme sadness to his genius. ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... dears, that was a moment for swift thought and still swifter action; and 'tis the Ireton genius to be slow and sure and no wise "gleg at the uptak'," as a Scot would say. Yet for this once my good angel gave me a prompting and the wit to use it. In that clock-tick of benumbing despair when the success of the hazardous venture, and much more that I ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... turned her attack and the worst had passed; but he expected her to make some reference to Thatcher's lawsuit for the control of the "Courier" and he was not disappointed. Marian, who had a genius for collecting disagreeable information and a dramatic instinct for using it effectively, had apprised her of it. This hazarding of Mrs. Owen's favor became now the gravamen of his offense, the culmination of all his offenses. She demanded ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... radiated like a tower code-beam. No one could be in his presence an instant without feeling it. A power that enwrapped you; made you feel like a child. Helpless. Anxious to placate a possible wrath that would be devastating; anxious—absurdly—for a smile. It was a radiation of genius, humbling every mediocre ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... For time is counted precious, and herein Is such complete abandonment of Self That tears turn into rainbows, and enhance The beauty of the land where all is fair. Awed and afraid, I cross the border-land. Oh, who am I, that I dare enter here Where the great artists of the world have trod - The genius-crowned aristocrats of Earth? Only the singer of a little song; Yet loving Art with such a mighty love I hold it greater to have won a place Just on the fair land's edge, to make my grave, Than in the outer world of greed and gain To sit upon ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Fautaua, famed in Tahitian legend, are exquisite in beauty and surrounding, and so near Papeete that I walked to them and back in a day. Yet hardly any one goes there. For those who have visited them they remain a shrine of loveliness, wondrous in form and unsurpassed in color. Before the genius of Tahiti was smothered in the black and white of modernism, the falls and the valley in which they are, were the haunt of lovers who sought ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... hopelessness of his present situation, his spirits were not depressed. Gettysburg, he reflected, was a genius for bumping into queer old prospectors—relics of the days of forty-nine, still eagerly pursuing their ignis fatuous of gold—and from some such desert wanderer he would doubtless soon pick up a claim. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... which is lost in our Bible. I do not know that it could have been preserved; but still it is necessary to state it. The expression here is the one that is generally rendered 'fair,' or 'lovely,' or 'beautiful,' and it belongs to the genius of that wonderful tongue in which the New Testament is written that it has a name for moral purity, considered as being lovely, the highest goodness, and the serenest beauty, which was what the old Greeks taught, howsoever little they may have practised it in their ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... his collar. It was a matter more within his own grasp than those great and important articles to which attention has been already drawn; but one, nevertheless, on which he was able to expend the whole amount of his energy and genius. Some people may think that an all-rounder is an all-rounder, and that if one is careful to get an all-rounder one has done all that is necessary. But so thought not Macassar Jones. Some men wear collars of two plies of linen, some ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... his conversation when talking of his profession. This, also, his ardent imagination endowed with possibilities and aspirations, not greater, indeed, than its deserts, but which only the intuitions of a genius like his could realize and vivify, imparting to slower temperaments something of his own fire. To this association the prince afterwards attributed the awakening of that strong interest in maritime affairs which he retained to the day of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... of the past ten years. I came through Chicago in September, 1892, visited the prospective site of the Exposition, and found there a mere wilderness, scarcely a single building half finished, and it was a wonder of wonders what American enterprise and genius for organisation accomplished within the single intervening winter. One could scarcely recover from one's astonishment at what ten thousand labourers, urged on by the Yankee lash, could make ready in six months. 'There was money in the business,' and for money Jonathan ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... EMERSON, The Genius and Character of. A Series of Lectures delivered at the Concord School of Philosophy, by eminent authors and critics. Edited by ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... Charles the First a violent and ill-considered attempt was made unjustly to establish the platform of the government and the rites of the Church of England in Scotland, contrary to the genius and desires of far the majority of that nation. This usurpation excited a most mutinous spirit in that country. It produced that shocking fanatical Covenant (I mean the Covenant of '36) for forcing their ideas of religion on England, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... itself, would hardly be able to comprehend them sufficiently; and he who understands it, will find better sources of information in philological works. All that concerns us here, is the general character, the genius of the language. For this purpose we will try to give in a few words a general outline of its grammar; exhibiting principally those features, which, as being common to all or most of its different dialects, seem to be the best adapted to ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... sense, they formed a notion of their gods having been buried in every place, where there was a tumulus to their honour. This misled bishop Cumberland, Usher, Pearson, Petavius, Scaliger, with numberless other learned men; and among the foremost the great Newton. This extraordinary genius has greatly impaired the excellent system, upon which he proceeded, by admitting these fancied beings into chronology. We are so imbued in our childhood with notions of Mars, Hercules, and the rest of the celestial outlaws, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... this war against war? Her boundless resources; her amalgamation of men from all parts of the world into one people; her impregnable geographical situation; her embodiment of the three cardinal principles of world-union (federation, interstate free trade, interstate courts); the genius and ideals of our government—all give America a logical leadership. She can boast of the first peace society in the world, of a glorious record of arbitration, of a long list of the wisest international statesmen, of a most advanced position at The Hague upon the ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... with charcoal. Surely in France one hardly needs to preach any doctrine of not patiently suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. A healthier and more inspiring morality would be that of the story of the baron of Grogzwig and his adventure with the "Genius of Despair and Suicide," as narrated in an episode of Nicholas Nickleby; for the stout baron, after thinking over his purpose of making a voluntary departure from this world, and finding he had no security of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... propriety was too great to permit her to hurry over the dinner. The pudding, though it was the Rector's favourite pudding, prepared from a receipt only known at All-Souls, in which the late respected Head of that learned community had concentrated all his genius, was eaten in uneasy silence, broken only by the most transparent attempts on both sides to make a little conversation. Thomas hovered sternly over his master and mistress all the time, exacting with inexorable severity every usage of the table. He would not let them off the very ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... element to be considered, would have justified him in contracting to produce enough to constitute of itself a national literature. As he invariably proved himself entirely destitute of common sense in his ordinary conduct, he was led to fancy that he was not merely a man of ability, but a man of genius; and during the whole of his life he perpetually posed as that most intolerable of literary nuisances, a man of unappreciated genius. In spite of the fact that he had been hospitably entertained and befriended by Cooper, he could ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... it means this. Oh, Rosie, you look lovelier than ever, and I'm as happy as a king. It means this. Your father is the greatest genius in the world. He buys my property for sixty thousand pounds—sixty thousand. That's over two thousand a year for me, and he makes a company out of it with a hundred and fifty thousand capital. He says that, taking ten thousand out of it for expenses, there ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... have to collect two more people, Martha McMurtry—you know how I love her—and yet she carries the information in her brain of the right way to organize a Camp Fire club. Also there is Eleanor Meade; being a genius, you know Eleanor can't be expected to remember anything, should a wave of inspiration happen to flow ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... Cubbin, said he, I enquire for, as by the Peculiarity of your Countenance, and the Firmness of your Look, you seem, young Boy, to be; I would hold some Discourse with you. The Pastorals of your Performance I have seen; and tho' I will not call 'em Perfect, I think they show a Genius not wholly to be overlookt. My Name, continued he, is Sophy, nor is it unknown in the World. In this Book (and here he pluckt it out of his Pocket) I have pen'd some Rules for your ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... his glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy and triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join in the general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. His colleagues were never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... M'Gann protested regretfully. "I want to ask so many questions. I am so glad to see you. I feel that I know you very well. Mr. Dresser, your intimate friend, has spoken to me about you. Such an interesting man, a little erratic, like a genius, you know." ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... cabin, whilst the treasure-chests, handled by the men he had left in the boat, were being hauled to the deck. That being satisfactorily accomplished, Don Esteban and the fellows who had manned the boat came up the ladder, one by one, to be handled with the same quiet efficiency. Peter Blood had a genius for these things, and almost, I suspect, an eye for the dramatic. Dramatic, certainly, was the spectacle now offered to the ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... almost from the beginning Shakespeare outstripped his rivals. Launce, Richard III, Shylock, Juliet, were enough to establish a supremacy. The years that followed with their maturing thought and experience gave an amazing development to what was manifestly the native bent of his genius. Whatever else one may find in the plays, indeed whatever one finds there of wisdom or beauty, truth or art, it cannot be separated from their revelation ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... several of them are men well fitted by their talents and accomplishments to take a leading part in society. The late Lord Coleridge was pre-eminently a case in point. Personally, I had an almost fanatical admiration for his genius, and in many of the qualities which make an agreeable talker he was unsurpassed. Every one who ever heard him at the Bar or on the Bench must recall that silvery voice and that perfect elocution which prompted a competent judge of such matters to say: "I should enjoy listening to Coleridge ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... this is enough for a sample of Beth's daydreams. They were very exaggerated, perhaps, and a little selfish, too; but she was not a fully-developed woman yet, and the years were to bring sweeter fruit. She had, undoubtedly, the soul of genius, but genius takes ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... universal classic, the classic of all mankind, of every age and country of time and eternity; more humble and simple than the primer of a child, more grand and magnificent than the epic and the oration, the ode and the dramas when genius, with his chariot of fire, and his horses of ire, ascends in whirlwind into the heaven of his own invention. It is the best classic the world has ever seen, the noblest that has ever honored and dignified ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... I shall be either hissed or applauded. On domestic management depends the preservation of their fortune Prevent disorder from organising itself Princes thus accustomed to be treated as divinities Princess at 12 years was not mistress of the whole alphabet Rabble, always ready to insult genius, virtue, and misfortune Saw no other advantage in it than that of saving her own life She often carried her economy to a degree of parsimony Shocking to find so little a man in the son of the Marechal ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... can't help my own genius and do not care for its products because I can always make more, and I compose these things for my ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... Alfonso had condescended to accept her hand only after long urging and under threats. A bold, intriguing woman might overcome this feeling of humiliation by summoning up the consciousness of her genius and her charm; while one less strong, but endowed with beauty and sweetness, might be fascinated by the idea of disarming a hostile husband with the magic of her personality. The question, however, whether any honor accrued to ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... than that a work of such force and genius, unique in Danish letters, should have been forgotten for three hundred years, and have survived only in an epitome and in exceedingly few manuscripts. The history of the book is worth recording. Doubtless its very merits, its "marvellous vocabulary, thickly-studded maxims, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... fabricated the aptest words possible for representing its form and pressure most true to life. No two characters being identical in any particular more than two faces are, no two descriptions, as drawn by his genius, could repeat many of the selfsame characterizing words. Each of his vocables thus became like each of the seven thousand constituents of a locomotive, which fits the one niche it was ordained to fill, but everywhere else is out of place, and even dislocated. The more ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... others, which, being the growth of many centuries, exercise a wide sway over mixed populations, unless he divide them into two classes. In such constitutions there are two parts (not indeed separable with microscopic accuracy, for the genius of great affairs abhors nicety of division): first, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population—the DIGNIFIED parts, if I may so call them; and next, the EFFICIENT parts—those by which it, in fact, works and ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... and in 1616 he published a folio volume entitled The Whole Works of Homer. The translation, in spite of its inaccuracies and its "conceits," is, by virtue of its sustained dignity and vigour, one of the noblest monuments of Elizabethan genius. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... funds or a government to support you. You have conducted the great military contest with wisdom and fortitude, invariably regarding the rights of the civil power, through all disasters and changes. You have by the love and confidence of your fellow citizens, enabled them to display their martial genius, and transmit their fame to posterity. You have persevered until these United States, aided by a magnanimous king and nation, have been enabled under a just Providence, to close the war in freedom, safety, and independence; on which happy ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... transfer to my style that striking genius, that marvelous knack of the pencil, to depict the upright, tall, lean man dressed in black, with black hair, who stood there without speaking a word. This gentleman had a face like a knife-blade, cold and harsh, with a color like Seine water when it was muddy and strewn ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... heart, and makes it beat with emotion at the sound of the word. Amid the cares and pleasures of man, there can be no higher, no worthier desire than to share his triumphs with a wife. When Ambition tempts him to mount yet higher in this earthly life, and take his stand among the exalted men of genius, who so fitting to be the partner of his fame as the gentle woman of this world, and when disappointed in his aspirations, when the cold frowns of a callous world drive him from the haunts of men, who so soothing as a Wife? ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... "Absolute genius. I see it all. The hero calls in Gridley Quayle, and that patronizing ass, by the aid of a series of wicked coincidences, solves the mystery; and there am I, with another month's ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... beauty in this dialogue, arising from the exact regard to character preserved throughout. Indeed, this forms one of our author's peculiar excellencies; as it is a very difficult attainment, and always manifests a superiority of genius-(Scott). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Gale, simplest note that swells the Gall enough in thy ink Galligaskins, have long withstood Garland and singing robes Gath, tell it not in Gather ye rosebuds Gay, and innocent as Genius, when all of which can perish, dies Gentle yet not dull Geographers, in Afric maps Gentleman and scholar —, where was then the Gentlemen who write with ease Ghost, there needs no —, like an ill-used Giant dies Giant's strength, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... of history presents no sadder picture than Columbus in chains crossing the ocean from those lands discovered by his genius, boldness, and perseverance. ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Column of July. Then, monsieur, the troop would attack. That would be a magnificent spectacle as well as a lesson, to see the army itself overthrow the ramparts of tyranny. Then this Bastille would be set fire to and from the midst of the flames would appear the Column with the genius of Liberty, symbol of a new order and of the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... this day, it being a Friday, was of a different kind, though quite as substantial as we had experienced on the previous day; a well- piled plate of beef and potatoes being allotted to each of us by the presiding genius of the galley, the sight of which viands made our ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... flushed with glorious flame. Has Nature marred his mould? Can Art acclaim No hero now, no man with whom men side As with their hearts' high needs personified? There are will say, One such our lips could name; Columbia gave him birth. Him Genius most Gifted to rule. Against the world's great man Lift their low calumny and sneering cries The Pharisaic multitude, the host Of piddling slanderers whose little eyes Know not what ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... flowers—a startling fuchsia and a bewildering dahlia—sold for a mere pittance by this little lady, whose pictures lately took the prize at a foreign exhibition, shortly after she had been half starved by a California public, and claimed by a California press as its fostered child of genius. ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... their pastoral letters, raise themselves up to the technical considerations of military art, and, the better to praise the Emperor, explain to their parishioners the admirable combinations of his strategic genius. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Pat's glad," added the priest. As he stood once more, he lifted a smiling face to the ceiling; and up past the kitchen of the little Jewish lady he sent a prayer of gratitude to his Maker for the blessing of that instrument of man's genius, ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... the support and encouragement of friends, and having proper opportunities thrown in his way, is able to rise at once from obscurity, by the force of his own unassisted genius.—Pliny's Letters. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... officer, and presently came before the German commander, the man whose great military genius some days later saved his wing of the ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... discovery, art at a number of places on the American continent seems to have been developing surely and steadily, through the force of the innate genius of the race, and the more advanced nations were already approaching the threshold of civilization; at the same time their methods were characterized by great simplicity, and their art products are, as ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... suggestion in sooth," answered the Emperor, smiling, "and yet who is there among us that has skill enough in bell-craft to do the task you propose? I am told that to cast a bell worthy of our imperial city requires the genius of a poet and ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... biological, psychological and spiritual in its aspects. It awakens the vision of mankind moving and changing, of humanity growing and developing, coming to fruition, of a race creative, flowering into beautiful expression through talent and genius. ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz mounted on filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in the style which Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbock conceived but often could not execute, statuettes modelled by genius pursued by creditors (the real explanation of the Arabian myth), superb sketches by our best artists, lids of chests made into panels alternating with fluted draperies of Italian silk, portieres hanging from rods of old oak in tapestried masses on which the figures of ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... old hand is nothing," answered Old Hans with a deprecating smile. "Touching the hand of such a man matters nothing at all, for genius is not contagious like the smallpox," ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo
... undertake the construction of a bridge with twenty stone and wooden arches. He builded well, for one or two of the stone piers still remain perfect after a lapse of sixteen centuries, and eleven of them, more or less ruined, are yet visible at low water. Apollodorus was a man of genius, as his other work, the Trajan Column, proudly standing in Rome, amply testifies. No doubt he was richly rewarded by Trajan for constructing a work which, flanked as it was by noble fortifications, bound the newly-captured Dacian colony to the Roman empire. What mighty men were these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... in her placid voice, to enumerate for the hundredth time her reasons for happiness, her renown, her genius, her beauty, all men at her feet, the handsomest, the most powerful; oh! yes, the most powerful, for that very day—But an ominous screech, a heart-rending wail from the jackal, maddened by the monotony ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... citizen of Connecticut, one of the United States of America. He accompanied Captain Cook in his last voyage to the northwestern parts of America, and rendered himself useful to that officer, on some occasions, by a spirit of enterprise which has distinguished his whole life. He has genius, and education better than the common, and a talent for useful and interesting observation. I believe him to be an honest man, and a man of truth. To all this, he adds just as much singularity of character, and of that particular kind too, as was necessary to make him undertake ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and 12th centuries ignored altogether the part which the emperor Basil had taken in initiating the legal reforms, which were completed by his son; besides the name of the father of the emperor Leo was written [Greek: basileios], from which substantive, according to the genius of [v.03 p.0478] the ancient Greek language, the adjective [Greek: basilikos] could not ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... a few days, Richard was much better of his hurts. There was no change in the other condition—the one that still holds him so helpless. I seemed to have a positive genius for understanding him, and he made me know—you see, I kept asking questions till he made the positive or the negative sign. I hit upon that idea because once, Roderick, you made me read 'The Count of Monte ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... mother, and the daughter together it was not difficult to fashion a theory as to the latter's splendid health and physical superiority. Arriving at this point, however, theory began to fray at the ends. No one could account for the genius and the voice. The mother often stood lost in wonder that out of an ordinary childhood, a barelegged, romping, hoydenish childhood, this ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... Andrew Johnson, in his speech before the Senate, January 31, 1862, spake well and truly when he said that "there has been a deliberate design for years to change the nature and character and genius of this Government." And he added: "Do we not know that these schemers have been deliberately at work, and that there is a Party in the South, with some associates in the North, and even in the West, that have become tired of Free Government, in ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... untrained genius of Bunyan none of these other three celebrated prose authors of this time has anything in common. He stands apart from them in his fervently religious and romantic temperament, in his richness of representation and ingenuity of analogy, and in his forcible quaintness ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... royal race of the Hohenstauffen, a race marked by unusual personal beauty, rich poetical genius, and brilliant warlike achievements, and during whose period of power the mediaeval age and its institutions ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... employ them; succinctly expresses an attitude at least as common, though usually better disguised, among other subcultures of hackers. There may be intended reference here to an SF story originally published in 1952 but much anthologized since, Mark Clifton's "Star, Bright". In it, a super-genius child classifies humans into a very few 'Brights' like herself, a huge majority of 'Stupids', and a minority of 'Tweens', the ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... be creative genius under your rule? Will you not suffocate it by taking away the air that energizes it—ambition? You will have all the present marvels of invention to start with, but will you ever go beyond? Have you read history and ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... he soon bade farewell, and on St. Valentine's day, 1826, entered the University of Virginia, where Number 13, West Range, is still pointed out as the old-time abiding place of Virginia's greatest poet, whose genius has given rise to more acrimonious discussion than has ever gathered about the name of any other American man of letters. The real home of Poe at this time was the range of hills known as the Ragged ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett |
