"Versatile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... song-writer, son of the preceding; was an actor as well as an author, and a most versatile one; performed in all kinds of characters, and wrote all kinds of plays, as well as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... teaching, tapping new reservoirs of power as the swift-changing seasons pass. As a preacher and a teacher he has surely surpassed the versatile Stewart. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... the instrumental score is filled up, the opening scene of 'Norma' in the dim druidical wood bears the true character of ancient sylvan antiquity. There is daybreak again—a fresh tone of reveille—in the prelude to 'I Puritani.' If Bellini's genius was not versatile in its means of expression, if it had not gathered all the appliances by which science fertilizes Nature, it beyond all doubt included appreciation of truth, no less ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... a chairman, why should not the performer be allowed to turn a chairman into account, as that popular and versatile barrister, the late Sir Frank Lockwood, was in the habit of doing? When he lectured at Hackney he "brought down the house" in his description of Sergeant Buzfuz in "Pickwick" by giving a laughable imitation of his chairman—the late Lord ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... in our drama. It is enough then to say here that he inherited his father's vices, purged of their vulgarity and grossness, without a single particle of his uncertain and capricious good nature. In his manners he appeared more of the gentleman; was lively, shallow, and versatile; but having been educated at an English school and an English college, he felt, or affected to feel, all the fashionable prejudices of the day and of his class against his native country. He was an absentee from both pride and inclination, and it is not surprising ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... one of the most versatile football men known to fame. Playing so remarkably in the guard position, he also did the kicking for his team and was a great power ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... hesitate to risk the favor of the queen and his own continuance in office, for the sake of what appeared to him the cause of religion and his country. On the whole, however, moderation and prudence were the governing principles of his mind and actions. The intellect of Burleigh was more versatile and acute, that of Bacon more profound; and their parts in the great drama of public life were cast accordingly: Burleigh had most of the alertness of observation, the fertility of expedient, the rapid calculation ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... fertilised either by insects or the wind. P. media illustrates transitions in point of structure, as the filaments are pink, the anthers motionless, and the pollen grains aggregated, and it is regularly visited by Bombus terrestris. On the other hand, the slender filaments, versatile anthers, powdery pollen, and elongated protogynous style are features of other species indicating anemophily; while the presence of a degraded corolla shows its ancestors to have been entomophilous. P. media, therefore, illustrates, not a primitive ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... enemy win the field, or of flying through Media and Armenia and seizing Cappadocia, but came to no resolution while his friends stayed with him. After turning to many expedients in his mind, which his changeable fortune had made versatile, he at last put his men in array, and encouraged the Greeks and barbarians; as for the phalanx and the Argyraspids, they encouraged him, and bade him be of good heart; for the enemy would never be able to stand them. For indeed they were the oldest of Philip's ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... is strikingly versatile. It must always be remembered that he started life as a painter. There is a story that Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers sent their first offerings to Life at the same time. Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent a bit of writing. Mr. Gibson's offering ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... scientific treatises, poems, and a drama. He spoke five languages, had studied medicine, theology, and had been a lecturer and actor. He was small, had red hair, combed his whiskers by the right oblique, and wore a yellow necktie. Thackeray says he was the most learned and versatile man he ever knew, "and if I should see him in Piccadilly, perched on a white elephant, I would not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... gentleman-like way, like Hirtius and Appius, and the accomplished literary critic and patron of the day—himself of no mean reputation as poet, orator, and historian—Caius Asinius Pollio. Cicero's versatile powers found no difficulty in suiting the contents of his own letters to the various tastes and interests of his friends. Sometimes he sends to his correspondent what was in fact a political journal of the day—rather one-sided, it must be confessed, as all political journals ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... versatile and fleeting is thought! In this long letter I have not put down one thing that I intended. I meant not to repeat what has been so often said before, and especially I meant not to revolve, if I could help it, any ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony medical ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... large, but it was powerful and versatile to cope with any emergency that may have been encountered during the dangerous tests. Gibson watched his instruments carefully for signs of pursuit until he had put a few million miles between himself and the command ship. Then he eased ...
— Irresistible Weapon • Horace Brown Fyfe
... Jonah in shall have a present." He had no sooner made this promise, than a cock was brought in from somewhere in the neighborhood and Trimalchio ordered the cook to prepare it for the pot. That same versatile genius who had but a short time before made birds and fish out of a hog, cut it up; it was then consigned to the kettle, and while Daedalus was taking a long hot drink, Fortunata ground pepper in ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... whose memory certain enormities of Dunshie had rankled ever since that versatile individual had abandoned the veterinary profession, owing to the most excusable intervention of a pack-mule's off hind leg, was not far out in his surmise, as subsequent history may some day reveal. But the telling of that story is still a ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... dark heart. Yet I look up, I trust singly, to Him from whom it came yesterday; and thither may I look till again the day break. Can I say, in full sincerity, "more than they that watch for the morning"? Alas that I am so versatile! Christian and worldling within a day. Oh for a deeper sense that I am not my own,—that I have no right to disturb the sanctuary of my own spirit when God has made it such,—that there is no other way than whole-hearted and honest-hearted ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... |chance. | | | |Smith, to be sure, is in bad shape. He is going to | |start the game, but few expect him to last through. | |Bay City gave him to Michigan, and before he was | |hurt he showed enough to convince his coach that he | |has the makings of another Galt. | | | |He is of the versatile type, and besides being a | |good ground gainer himself, he is of great | |assistance as an interferer and a handy man on | |defense. He backs up the line when the other side | |has the ball. At present almost everything ails him,| |save ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... something of their own. They endeavored to become acquainted with the best that was thought and known in their time, both in literature and in other matters. They thus became excellent critics, as well as versatile and many-sided men. They were among the most cultivated men of the century, and are the most cosmopolitan of American writers. That they should not have possessed greater influence was largely owing to the tendencies of their time. The current of the age was too strong ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... and loose living. They were not brilliant wrongdoers and made no attempt at defending themselves or pretending that they did not know they were going to perdition. The New England mind is not broad or versatile, and, having begun life in a Puritan atmosphere, it is not quick to escape its influence. Society at the Mills recognised no social distinction which was not founded upon the respectability of church-going and ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the Silent resembles Quintus Sertorius; namely, that each, while rebel against his Government, fought in the name of his Government. Mommsen says: "It may be doubted whether any Roman statesman of the earlier period can be compared in point of versatile talent to Sertorius," who, though in rebellion against Rome, did all he did in the name of Rome, fought battles, levied tributes, enfranchised cities, remodeled communities; in short, did in Spain what, in a later period, Julius Caesar did in Gaul. William the Silent ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... which exception may be taken. It was, I think, a fault of omission to exclude the apocryphal play of "Lust's Dominion" from a place in the appendix: it was, I am certain, a fault of commission to admit instead of it the much bepuffed and very puffy rubbish of the late Mr. Home. That clever, versatile, and energetic writer never went so far out of his depth or floundered so pitifully in such perilous waters as when he ventured to put verses of his own into the mouth of Christopher Marlowe. These errors we must all hope to see rectified in a second issue of ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was occupied as usual; but the feelings which she carried about to her employment, were very different from what they had been heretofore. It was her first taste of sorrow; well might her aunt deeply reproach Hazlehurst for his versatile conduct towards her beloved child. Elinor flattered herself that Miss Agnes knew not half of what she felt. In general she succeeded in being quite calm, and attentive to others; she was always sweet-tempered, and unrepining. But she could not read, herself, the expression of her own ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... lengthened career, John Bethune would have attained a high reputation, both as an interesting poet and an elegant prose-writer. His genius was versatile and brilliant; of human nature, in all its important aspects, he possessed an intuitive perception, and he was practically familiar with the character and habits of the sons of industry. His tales are touching ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... traversing back and forth the open space between his table, in front of the president, and the closed door of the apartment. Both in form and feature, he was one of the handsomest men of his day; while a mind at once versatile, clear, and penetrating, with perceptions as quick as light, was stamped on his Grecian brow, or found a livelier expression in his lucid black eyes and other lineaments of his strikingly intellectual countenance. Such as he appeared for the first time on the stage of public action was ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... 9.—There is no place in the United States, so far as I know, where the cow is more versatile or ambidextrous, if I may be allowed the use of a term that is far above my station in life, than here in the mountains of North Carolina, where the obese 'possum and the anonymous ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... two disciples to the flames, decided that his confession should not be read aloud at the stake, according to custom, feeling certain that an this occasion also he would give it the lie, and that publicly, which, as anyone must see who knew the versatile spirit of the public, would be a ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... certain money was in dispute—that a decision might deprive me of it. I didn't explain, of course, that the decision would be my own. If the money goes back to Bagley, I must depend solely upon what I can earn. I made up my mind not to be versatile in my vocations, as Davenport had been; to rely entirely on the one which seemed to promise most. I have to thank you, Larcher, for having caused me to learn what that was, in my former iden—in the ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... fell in alignment behind him; he caught the angry glare of two brown eyes from a bench, and realized that Eileen's versatile professor was not yet pacified. At Professor Hodgson's side, with her back toward Peter, was a young woman attired in Quaker costume. Her head was not intimately close to that of the young professor; ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... is, however, versatile, and before morning we had cause to change our ideas, and several of us already wished ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... of what Mr. Mill has done in the way of criticism. It is at least worth while to examine whether one who has shown himself capable of grappling effectively with the driest and most abstruse problems that vex the human intellect was versatile enough to study poetry with an understanding heart, and to be alive to the distinctive powers of ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... philosophical and political tribune; Foscolo, sufficiently feeble in tragedy but very touching and eloquent in The Tombs, inspired by Young's Night Thoughts and The Letters of Jacob Ortis, an interesting novelist and eloquently impassioned patriot; Monti, versatile and master of all recantations according to his own interests, but a very pure writer and not without brilliance in his highly ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... versatile; and it may have been Springtime, after all, instead of Indian Summer, that struck ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... discernible in the profound "Thoughts of Pascal;" but it was reserved for the present age to elaborate this tendency into a theory, and to give it the form of a regular system. This task was fearlessly undertaken by the eloquent but versatile Lamennais, while as yet he held office in the Church, and was publicly honored as one who was worthy to be called "the latest of the Fathers." His "Essay on Indifference in Matters of Faith," exhibits ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... you must not suppose that he is always singing comic songs. He is one of those versatile people ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... or the casualties on the part of the Diamond X forces would have been much heavier than it was. Even then several were hit, and Billee's hat was carried off his head by a bullet, which, if it had gone a few inches lower, would have ended the career of that versatile cowboy. ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... Baden-Powell is that versatile officer's own sketch of a man with whom he soldiered on one of his campaigns: "He has all the qualifications that go to make an officer above the ruck of them. Endowed with all the dash, pluck, and attractive force that make a born leader of men, he is ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... And she was that woman now! But she did not feel like forty; at thirty she had not felt thirty; she could only accept the almanac and the rules of arithmetic. The interminable years of her marriage rolled back, and she was eighteen again, ingenuous and trustful, convinced that her versatile husband was unique among his sex. The fading of a short-lived and factitious passion, the descent of the unique male to the ordinary level of males, the births of her three girls and their rearing and ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... to get his rent or produce account investigated, wherever there is worry, trouble, delay, or difficulty about anything concerning the relations between himself and the factory, the deepest and keenest expression of discontent and disgust his versatile and acute imagination can suggest, or his fluent tongue give utterance to is, that this is 'Adanlut lea mafich,' that is, 'Like a court of justice.' Could there be a stronger commentary on ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... helped me to make friends with Rietschel, as he was quite free from affectation, and had a warm sympathetic soul that drew me ever closer to him. I also remember hearing from him a very enthusiastic appreciation of my personality as a conductor. In spite, however, of being fellow- members of our versatile art club, we never attained a footing of real comradeship, for, after all, no one thought much of anybody else's talents. For instance, Hiller had arranged some orchestral concerts, and to commemorate them he was entertained at the usual ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... school; but he shares also the reawakened interest in nature, in common man, and in mediaeval culture, and his work is generally romantic both in style and in spirit. The same conflict between the classic and romantic schools, and the triumph of Romanticism, is shown clearly in the most versatile of ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... born both of them just about a century later than Sidonius, in the 530s. For a moment when you look at Fortunatus you think the world of the sixth century is the same world as that in which Sidonius entertained his friends with epigrams and tennis. Fortunatus, that versatile, gentle, genial, boot-licking gourmet, who somehow managed to write two of the most magnificent hymns of the Christian church, came from Italy on a visit to Gaul in 565 and never left it again. He travelled all over the Frankish lands, in what had ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. But although his whole mind had apparently been given up to the turf, it was not actually so. He had been a member of parliament ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... appear that the Reverend Mr. Colburn remained for a long time in this school, for at the close of the session in 1866 we have a record of an exhibition in Bank Hall under the charge of T. J. Ferguson. Ferguson was a versatile character among the Negroes at that time, participating extensively in politics during the reconstruction period, and contending for the enlargement of freedom and opportunity for their race. The next man of consequence after Ferguson was J. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... versatile agent; "but, my dear fellow, do try to get it into your head that these things have to go through many intricate stages. First, the trouble which ought to have been foreseen takes place; then weeks are occupied in transfixed amazement without doing anything; then a ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... the bend of the path she wheeled and stood facing him, a hand tossed up and opening and closing as if she had caught a shaft of sunshine and let it go again. Thus she would wave to him from the veranda as he came up the terrace steps. Indelible to him this picture, radiant of a versatile, impressionable vitality, of capacities yet unsounded, of a downright sincerity of impulses, faiths, and ideals which might buffet her this way and that over a strange course. A woman unafraid of destiny; a woman too objective ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... settlement in the South, narrated in the tale with all the art of a practiced writer. A very charming love romance runs through the story. This new and tasteful edition of "Nick of the Woods" will be certain to make many new admirers for this enchanting story from Dr. Bird's clever and versatile pen. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... doorway, Beatrice looked at his deep-lined, bearded face, now reeking with sweat and grimed with dust and coal. An ugly face—but not to her. For through that mask she read the dominance, the driving force, the courage of this versatile, unconquerable man. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... gushes forth toward every creature, animate and inanimate, with one exception, namely, the hypocrite, ever alike "spiacente a Dio e ai nemici sui;" and therefore intolerable to Robert Burns's honesty, whether he be fighting for or against the cause of right. Again we say, there are evidences of a versatile and manifold faculty in this man, which, with a stronger will and a larger education, might have placed him as an equal by the side of those great names which we mentioned together with his at ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... in which the literature of practical theology in America is sure to expand itself in the immediate future is indicated in the title of a recent work of that versatile and useful writer, Dr. Washington Gladden, "Applied Christianity." The salutary conviction that political economy cannot be relied on by itself to adjust all the intricate relations of men under modern conditions ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... of bravery, endurance, and resourcefulness that test every fibre of the seaman's versatile composition; and a communication to the outer world of the tremendous struggles he is called upon to bear would be calculated to stagger the lay imagination. It would take a spacious library to contain all ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... instruments, and acquaintance with arms. Clean of limb and sure of foot, ready of repartee, fearless and alert, he was, even as a boy, something of what he was to become in maturity, one of the greatest men of his own or any age. Unique in some capacities, versatile and varied in arts and accomplishments, at once vindictive and forgiving, impetuous and politic, shrewd and impulsive, heroic and mean, of long memory for wrongs committed, of decisive act and incisive speech, relentless and magnanimous, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... and at the same time to take off something of his burthen of forty years, by wearing the last fancy of the contemporary buck, a costume of elastic material with distensible warts and horns, changing in colour as he walked, by an ingenious arrangement of versatile chromatophores. And no doubt, if Elizabeth's affection had not been already engaged by the worthless Denton, and if her tastes had not had that odd bias for old-fashioned ways, this extremely chic ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... indeed a remarkable man. His services to science were very great. He laid the foundations of notable structures which, however, other men were to rear. He might have been a greater man had he been less versatile. And yet his versatility was one source of his greatness. He clung to old-fashioned notions, defending the doctrine of 'philogiston' after it had been abandoned by nearly every other chemist of repute. For this he has been ridiculed. But he was not ridiculous, he was singularly open-minded. ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... with all my heart and soul!" the choir boy was declaring in large red letters, which was rather versatile of him considering that his lips were pressed firmly upon the blonde lady's. The placard further announced that he was embracing "America's foremost romantic actress Edwina Ely" and though there was nothing about their posture that could have offended ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... As the afternoons became shorter, and out-of-door occupations in consequence became limited, he found Percy unexpectedly amenable to a quiet course of study, which greatly improved the tone of that versatile young gentleman's mind. Percy still resolutely set his face against a return to school, and offered no encouragement to his perplexed parents in their various schemes for the advancement of his education. Consequently ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... the undertakings outside of Kaiserswerth were initiated personally by Fliedner. When we recall the complex demands of the home field in Germany we marvel at the versatile executive ability of this man, who started life as the humble pastor of an obscure village church. But he loved work. He possessed "iron industry." He was ever hopeful, courageous, and indefatigable. Above all, he trusted completely in the leadings of Divine Providence, and constantly went forward ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... for the beauty, power, and brilliancy of his letters. There are few instances of English style more charming in themselves than the epistles, whether published or still in manuscript, written by that versatile and wonderful person, Daniel Webster. (Nunquam tetigit quod non ornavit.) How copious is their expression! How facile and felicitous their illustrations! What grace! What beauty of diction! What simplicity, elevated by ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... as absolute an instinct in the human mind for the definite, the palpable, and the emphatic, as there is for the mysterious, the versatile, and the elusive. With some, method is a law, and taste severe in affairs, costume, exercise, social intercourse, and faith. The simplicity, directness, uniformity, and pure emphasis or grace of Sculpture have analogies in literature and character: the terse ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... lucid and so nice in its discriminations, was itself an education for the young who grew up to hear it and to speak it. In a genial yet invigorating climate, in a land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity, the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made them the principal source of modern culture. Their moral traits are not so admirable. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... both to a more perfect work and to a truer life. She gave poise and purpose to the "versatile, high-strung, somewhat wayward nature" of her husband, and she "restrained, raised, ennobled, and purified" his life and thought. He stimulated and directed her genius life into its true channel, cared for her business ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... is one of the most versatile words in Italian. Its literal meaning is from; it is daily used to express to. Da me may mean from me: it may also mean to me. Fit or deserving to be done is a common meaning of it; and it is in this sense that Dante uses it in the following passage from the fourth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... ready to show their discontent, that Margaret (in revenge on the hierarchy) would extend the protection they had never found in the previous sway of her husband and Henry V. Possessed of extraordinary craft, and even cunning in secular intrigues, energetic, versatile, bold, indefatigable, and, above all, marvellously gifted with the arts that inflame, stir up, and guide the physical force of masses, Robert Hilyard had been, indeed, the soul and life of the present revolt; and his prudent moderation in resigning ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The ice-floes and the obsolete Church may be alike successful for a time in keeping up the ancient state of things within their own lessening limits, but both are eventually absorbed and disappear. While the more versatile ecclesiastical body, tossed by the cross currents and eddies of novel and uncertain change, loses its true course and makes shipwreck, the rigidly immoveable one, anchored over the worn-out peculiarities of bygone days, is borne down by the irresistible rush of the ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... advice and consolation. What a wonderful man! No wonder the Germans are so fond of him and so proud of him,—a Briareus with a hundred arms; a marvel, a wonder, a prodigy of nature; the most gifted, versatile, hard-working man of his century ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... hours—of an English lady at Peshawar. Even as officially narrated by Mr. MONTAGU it was sufficiently exciting. The most curious and reassuring fact was that all the actors in the drama, abductors and rescuers alike, were Afridis. It is to be hoped that this versatile community includes a cinematograph operator, and that a film will, like the lady, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... as versatile and fascinating as a young Ulysses on a sufficient acquaintance—one whom nature seemed to have first made generously and then to have added music as a dominant power using all the abundant rest, and, as in Mendelssohn, finding expression for itself not only ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and induced him to impart to his benefactor the composition of his extraordinary Powder. This English knight was at different periods of his life an admiral, a theologian, a critic, a metaphysician, a politician, and a disciple of Alchemy. As is not unfrequent with versatile and inflammable people, he caught fire at the first spark of a new medical discovery, and no sooner got home to England than he ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... such cases is seldom appreciated. Again, green has the contract for the greater bulk of the vegetable life of the globe; but his is a monotonous business, like the painting of miles and miles of palings: grass, grass, grass, trees, trees, trees, ad infinitum; whereas yellow leads a roving, versatile life, and is seldom called upon for such monotonous labour. The sands of Sahara are probably the only conspicuous instance of yellow thus working by the piece. It is in the quality, in the diversity of the ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... new aspect of your versatile nature, Solomon. Must I regard you as a personally emancipated moral influence, not committed to the straight and narrow path yourself, but still close enough to it to keep my feet from straying?" ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... have a versatile and vigorous personality with no shadow of a stain upon his character, and with no question upon the part of his bitterest enemy of the honesty of his intentions, or of his devotion to his country's interests. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... strictly positive nature; a tutor was engaged to ground young Wilfrid in mathematics and the physical sciences. The result was that the tutor's enthusiasm for these pursuits communicated itself after a brief repugnance to the versatile pupil; instincts of mastery became as vivid in the study of Euclid and the chemical elements as formerly in the humaner paths of learning; the plan had failed. In the upshot Wilfrid was sent to school; if that did not develop the animal ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... lined with ancestral mail, forgetting that a bear may be taught to dance. While this air of hers lasted, even the inanimate objects in the street appeared to know that she was there; but from a way she had of carelessly overthrowing her dignity by versatile moods, one could not calculate upon its presence to a certainty when she was round corners or in little lanes which demanded no repression of ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... learned this lesson from my sufferings, not to indulge in the luxury of discontent. As my mind recovered its tranquillity, I began to enquire whether the phenomenon I had just seen could have any relation to myself. But though my mind was extremely inquisitive and versatile in this respect, I could discover no sufficient ground upon ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... this most versatile lady made every drop of the soup that was prepared for the men herself, and she has, so a Belgian military doctor says, saved more lives than he has with her timely cups of hot, nourishing food. It is only the most seriously wounded men who ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... was not of a versatile complexion. When his mind was quite made up he carried out the whole of it. But he could not now make up his mind upon either of two questions. Of these questions one was this—should he fight for the king or against him, in the struggle now begun? ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later you will fail. Compare myself, for example. All my life I have been in banks—I have got on in banks. I have even been a bank manager. But was I happy? No. Why wasn't I happy? Because it did not suit my temperament. I am too adventurous—too versatile. Practically I have thrown it over. I do not suppose I shall ever manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, no doubt; but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament—at last.... No! I shall never manage a ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... style which, for grace and suppleness, for its power of being at once turned to any purpose which the author desired, has seldom been matched." It is difficult for those who knew him before he had, by pure hard work, won his way to fame, to realise how one physically so fragile, of so light-somely versatile and whimsical a nature, apparently so ready to be diverted from the main high-road by a desire to explore any brambly lane, had in him the deliberate goal-winning gait of the tortoise. His stubborn tenacity of purpose ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... remember, an article by a distinguished American professor, protesting with great moderation that an important scientific generalization which he published in 1902 had been annexed, without acknowledgment, by a versatile and adroit professor in the University of Berlin—an acquaintance of my own—in the year 1906; and it was not until 1910 that the latter was made to confess his guilt, with much subterfuge ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... our modern disadvantage for a full appreciation of Demosthenes. The old world felt, as we do, his moral and mental greatness, his fire, his self-devotion, his insight. But it felt also, as we can never feel, the versatile perfection of his skill. This it was that made Demosthenes unique to the ancients. The ardent patriot, the far-seeing statesman, were united in his person with the consummate and unapproachable artist. Dionysius devoted two special treatises to Demosthenes,—one on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... Fitzmaurice to her house. He was known as a rising young man, One met him at the best houses; yet he was a prodigious worker, and had made his mark in committees, before the celebrated speech that sent him into all the newspaper columns, or that stubborn and infinitely versatile fight against odds which inspired the artist ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... his play up to scorn were the heartiest in their applause, as long as they did not know that Andersen was its author. Less pronounced was the success of the lyrical drama "Little Kirsten" (1846); and the somewhat ambitious epic "Ahasverus" comes very near being a failure. The next ventures of the versatile and indefatigable poet were the novel "The Two Baronesses" (1849), and the fairy comedies "More than Pearls and Gold" (1849), adapted from a German original, "The Sandman"[23] (1850), and "The Elder ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... less like a church than a collection of large churches enclosed under one gigantic roof.... One is lost in it. It is a city of columns, sculptures, and mosaics." So says the clever, versatile Willis, in his "Pencillings by the Way," and it would certainly take months to examine minutely all that is worthy of attention in this vast pile. Our time, unfortunately, was limited, and we were only able to notice some of the more celebrated and ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... (Hamlet); 'Falstaff and Doll' (King Henry IV., Second Part); 'Macbeth meeting the Witches on the Heath' (Macbeth); 'Robin Goodfellow' (Midsummer Night's Dream). This gallery gave the public an opportunity of judging of Fuseli's versatile powers. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... shine—though very feebly and intermittingly—in England. When he had returned he began to read Kant and Schelling, or rather to mix excursions into their books with the miscellaneous inquiries to which his versatile intellect ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... to her cousin Jacob, and doubtless he thought the steady, plodding, slow-witted son of the house of Dyson a far safer husband for his feather-brained youngest than handsome Cuthbert Trevlyn, with his gentler birth, his quick and keen intelligence, and his versatile, inquiring mind, which was always inclining him to meddle in matters better left alone, and to judge for himself with an independence that was perilous in times like these. Not that Martin Holt was himself averse to independence of ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... barrier, engaged in conversation, Buckingham and Raoul were also talking together as they walked up and down. Manicamp was engaged in devoted attendance on the princess, who already treated him without reserve, on account of his versatile fancy, his frank courtesy of ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... untiring energy and unwearied industry. The idea of the fetes originated at the "Woodman" on an evening in the spring of 1856. The room, on this occasion, was nearly full; Walsh occupied the principal seat. Not far from him was the versatile, erudite, somewhat dogmatic, but always courteous and polite, John Cornforth. There too, was Ambrose Biggs, who since, as Mayor, so fully justified the choice the Corporation made when they elected him to be their head. Nearly opposite was seen the gentlemanlike ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... been usual to put Thomas Middleton in the front rank among the dramatists immediately second to Shakespere; but I have myself no hesitation in doing so. If he is not such a poet as Webster, he is even a better, and certainly a more versatile, dramatist; and if his plays are inferior as plays to those of Fletcher and Massinger, he has a mastery of the very highest tragedy, which neither of them could attain. Except the best scenes of The White Devil, and The Duchess of Malfi, there is nothing out of Shakespere ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... perpetual source of weakness. But many of the causes which ruined Athens were in full operation at Florence. First and foremost was the petulant and variable temper of a democracy, so well described by Plato, and so ably analyzed by Machiavelli. The want of agreement among the versatile Florentines, fertile in plans but incapable of concerted action, was a chief source of political debility. Varchi and Segni both relate how, in spite of wealth, ability, and formidable forces, the Florentine exiles under the guidance of Filippo ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... came to an end, the monks were unanimous in choosing John of Hertford as his successor, and the new Abbot lost no time in showing favour to Matthew Paris. Next year Roger de Wendover died, and who could there be so worthy to succeed him as historiographer as the versatile and accomplished brother, who by this time was the boast of the great house? And historiographer accordingly Matthew became—mutatis mutandis, a sort of 13th-century editor of the 'Times;' his business was to gather from all points of the compass, if not the latest news, yet the best ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... people, to answer many disagreeable questions, and suffered in every way extremely from the consequences of her beneficent enterprise. But she displayed a coolness and businesslike common sense worthy of a less versatile philanthropist, and found time, amid the temporary ruin of her work, to pay due attention to Margaret. She had scarcely noticed the girl before, taking her very much on trust, and being preoccupied with various schemes of social enjoyment. But now she was struck by her beauty ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... This wonderfully versatile metre admits of keeping the right medium between the dignified, almost prancing hexameter, and the shorter metres of the lyrics. Its feet are nimble and fleet, but yet full of vigor and expressiveness. In addition, the Kalevala uses alliteration, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... impressive new handbills describing his firm as "Wholesale Chemists, Druggists and Perfumers," he apparently no longer prospered in the drug trade, for old New York City directories show that he shortly turned his main energies to the practice of law. Versatile as he was, Lucius entered the Union Army as a surgeon during the Civil War, and upon his return he resumed his legal career, continuing to his death in 1876. Aside from his role in the Comstock medicine business, Lucius also ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... the man; justified, in very great varieties, by the simple consideration of what he himself has to say, quite independently of any real or supposed connection with this or that literary age or school. Let us close with the words of a most [16] versatile master of English—happily not yet included in Mr. Saintsbury's book—a writer who has dealt with all the perturbing influences of our century in a manner as classical, as idiomatic, as ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... The uniformity of excellence in the Duveneck room forbids any attempt at picking out individual works; however, Duveneck's equally great accomplishments on another wall, in the field of etching, are apt to be easily overlooked. The sarcophagus of his wife, done by his versatile hand, increases the admiration that we, must hold for this liberal genius. Duveneck's art, no matter how much it is rooted in foreign soil, will forever make its influence felt for the best ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... a Miss Wang, and has now been married for the last two years. This Mr. Lien has lately obtained by purchase the rank of sub-prefect. He too takes little pleasure in books, but as far as worldly affairs go, he is so versatile and glib of tongue, that he has recently taken up his quarters with his uncle Mr. Cheng, to whom he gives a helping hand in the management of domestic matters. Who would have thought it, however, ever since his marriage with his worthy wife, not a single person, whether ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Caesar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The first general—the only triumphant politician—inferior to none in eloquence—comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... now the conversation began to take other forms. Banquo began to enter into the dialogue. His contributions so far had been mainly interjectory and blasphemous—a department of which he was obviously a more versatile exponent than the other, who was by no means a 'prentice hand. And here I must note a curious thing. Whether it was that the box afforded no proper theatre for exhibiting the natural dignity of my carriage, or that the light was not good, or that I am a ruffian at heart and had been caught ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... 605; oscillate &c 314; vibrate between, two extremes, oscillate between, two extremes; alternate; have as man phases as the moon. Adj. changeable, changeful; changing &c 140; mutable, variable, checkered, ever changing; protean, proteiform^; versatile. unstaid^, inconstant; unsteady, unstable, unfixed, unsettled; fluctuating &c v.; restless; agitated &c 315; erratic, fickle; irresolute &c 605; capricious &c 608; touch and go; inconsonant, fitful, spasmodic; vibratory; vagrant, wayward; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of which later she was to gather such a rich harvest in the confidence of her fellow-women. Her eager mind was a rich soil for the growth of ideas springing from her fertile brain; which led her to be both conservative and impetuous, grave or vivacious, ever fearless and versatile, all pervaded with the ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... guardian. Without society,—without the education and powerful assistance which it furnishes,—the finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary capacities in the very respect in which it ought to shine. The more extensive a man's knowledge, the more luxuriant his imagination, the more versatile his talent,—the more costly has his education been, the more remarkable and numerous were his teachers and his models, and the greater is his debt. The farmer produces from the time that he leaves his cradle until he enters his grave: the fruits of art and science are late and scarce; ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... listen at the telephone, as we turn the button of an incandescent lamp or travel in an electromobile, we are partakers in a revolution more swift and profound than has ever before been enacted upon earth. Until the nineteenth century fire was justly accounted the most useful and versatile servant of man. To-day electricity is doing all that fire ever did, and doing it better, while it accomplishes uncounted tasks far beyond the reach of flame, however ingeniously applied. We may thus observe under our eyes just such an impetus to human intelligence and power as when fire ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... obliged to you for sending me a copy of your letter, which I have read with the greatest pleasure.... I see that in the statement just published by authority, no Prussian documents are given. I think your letter will be a puzzling one; but the spirit of practical Protestantism is subtle and versatile, and able to set aside everything—laws, principles, rubrics, and canons. Else I do not see how the mischief which I apprehend could ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... alter this desirable policy—for something in Lord Valleys' character made him fear that, in real emergency, he would exert himself to the point of the gravest discomfort sooner than be left to wait behind. A fellow like young Harbinger, of course, he understood—versatile, 'full of beans,' as he expressed it to himself in his more confidential moments, who had imbibed the new wine (very intoxicating it was) of desire for social reform. He would have to be given his head a little—but there would be no difficulty with him, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... again You take the poets' word for me—those low And scurvy fellows who lump all their spleen And call the mess my portrait! But in fact, I am more versatile, more broad, more kind Than they conceive. I venture to believe That I ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... Ogilby,—dancing-master, theatrical manager, playwright, scholar, translator, poet,—now best known, perhaps, for the ridicule he inspired in Dryden's MacFlecknoe and Pope's Dunciad. At the beginning of his versatile career he was a successful London dancing-master, popular with "the nobility and gentry." When Thomas Earl of Strafford was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he took Ogilby with him to Dublin, to teach his wife ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... through the mossy halls, flit audible visions of houris, with veiled, starry eyes, flying tag-ends of things and a swish of silk, bequeathing to the dull hallways an odor of gaiety and a memory of frangipanni. Serious young comedians, with versatile Adam's apples, gather in doorways and talk of Booth. Far-reaching from somewhere comes the smell of ham and red cabbage, and the crash of ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... greatest unity, who develops the leading idea in the central figure, and makes all the subordinate figures, lights, and shades point to that center and find expression there. So in every well-balanced life, no matter how versatile in endowments or how broad in culture, there is one grand central purpose, in which all the subordinate powers of the soul are brought to a focus, and where they will find fit expression. In nature we see no waste of energy, nothing left to chance. Since the shuttle of creation shot for the first ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... often overwhelm myself, and her, with muttered opprobriums, calling myself 'convict,' her 'lady-bird'; asking what manner of man was I that I should dare so great a thing; and as for her, what was she to be the Mother of a world?—a versatile butterfly with a woman's brow! And continually now in my fiercer moods I was meditating ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... see that Dr. Ryerson's character was a many-sided one; while his talents were remarkably versatile. He was an able writer on public affairs; a noted Wesleyan Minister, and a successful and skilful leader among his brethren. But his fame in the future will mainly rest upon the fact that he was a distinguished Canadian Educationist, and the Founder of a great system of Public Education for ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Mr Jollyboy made Martin his head clerk; and then, becoming impatient, he made him his partner off-hand. Then he made Barney O'Flannagan an overseer in the warehouses; and when the duties of the day were over, the versatile Irishman became his confidential servant and went to sup and sleep at the Old Hulk; which, he used to remark, was quite a natural and proper and decidedly comfortable place to come to an ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... out in the highest style of literary art. I am pleased to give the following estimate from an author who knew him well: "As an editorial writer, Dr. Talmage was versatile and prolific, and his weekly contributions on an immense variety of topics would fill many volumes. His writing was as entertaining and pungent as his preaching, and full of brilliant eccentricities—'Talmagisms,' as they were called. He coined new words and invented new phrases. If the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... the leading lady in the Salvini troupe. She now directs a company of her own, and has been succeeded in her former position by the estimable Signora Piamonti, whom Salvini declares to be one of the most versatile artistes he has ever known, equally good in the highest tragedy or the liveliest farce. Her Dalilla in Samson was much admired in America, but her rendering of the role of Francesca di Rimini in the tragedy of that name is perhaps ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... all these manifestations, and he took himself not less seriously as an arbiter of letters, art, and religion than as a divinely appointed ruler of the State. The many parts he played were signs of versatile emotion rather than of power; and his significance in history is that he was the crest of a wave, its superficial froth and foam without its massive strength. A little man in a great position, he was powerless to ride the whirlwind or direct the storm, and he figured largely in the public eye because ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... one of the most versatile of men. We saw him here at home with the oar in the open. He was an excellent professor of anatomy, renowned for his insight and readiness in adapting means to ends in the difficult science where his main work lay. Literature ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... genius and the rather unusual ability to make those progressive changes in living and government which enabled them to make the most of their surroundings and opportunities, and to advance while others stood still. Far more than other Greeks, the people of Attica were imaginative, original, versatile, adaptable, progressive, endowed with rare mental ability, keenly sensitive to beauty in nature and art, and possessed of a wonderful sense of proportion and a capacity for moderation in all things. Only on such an assumption can we account ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... that this was the road which led from where Wedgwood lived to where lived his lady-love. Josiah and Sarah had many a smile over the fact that Cupid had taken a hand in road-building. Evidently Dan Cupid is a very busy and versatile individual. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... England and France in 1856, but not to act. At that time he saw the famous English comedians Compton, Buckstone, Robson, and Wright, and that extraordinary actor, fine alike in tragedy and comedy, the versatile Samuel Phelps. In 1857 he was associated with Laura Keene at her theatre in New York; and from that date onward his career has been upon a high and sunlit path, visible to the world. His first part at Laura Keene's theatre was Dr. Pangloss. Then came ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... questions I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, "'Tis that which we all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... functions,—has furnished a consecutive number of essays so surprising in novelty, so diverse in sentiment, so consistent in treatment, and so forcibly original, as those embraced in this volume? What intellect so versatile as to reproduce in song and narrative the characteristic styles of so many, ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... how to charm," he replied. But, seeing her stiffen, he resumed, "With your voice. That is enough. It would be a mistake for you to be versatile. Versatility is for the amateur. The artist is a ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... country in the light of a more or less connected tradition, it is impossible not be struck by the originality and diversity of the various forms which it assumed. Though as a literary kind it never rivalled its Italian model in fertility, it evinced an individual and versatile quality which we seek in vain in other countries. To substantiate this claim and to show how far the vitality of the English pastoral was due to its hybrid origin will be my chief aim in this chapter. When I come to deal ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... even though he did not get a single rise. (See “Life of W. Connor Magee,” by J. C. McDonnell.) And the writer once read, with much enjoyment, an article on salmon fishing in the “Quarterly Review,” which was attributed to the versatile pen of the Bishop of Winchester, better known as “Samuel of Oxford,” who sought occasional relief from his almost superhuman labours on the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... first papers printed. This had been going on for some time when Earle S. Goodrich, the editor of the Pioneer, heard of it, and he accordingly made preparation to perpetrate a huge joke on the Minnesotian. Mr. Goodrich was a very versatile writer and he prepared four or five columns of bogus telegraph and had it set up and two or three copies of the Pioneer printed for the especial use of the Minnesotian. The scheme worked to a charm. ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... resist the passage of the Military Service Bill was chiefly remarkable for his epigrammatic description of the present SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR—"a man of great capacity, a man of most restless and versatile energy and unconquerable will, and of the most vivid and most illimitable and elusive vision of any politician of recent time." Several public schoolmasters, I understand, have already noted its possibilities as a suitable extract for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... grandfather on his mother's side was Josiah Wedgwood, one of the most versatile of men. He was as fine in spirit as those exquisite designs by Flaxman that you will see today on the Wedgwood pottery. Josiah Wedgwood was a businessman—an organizer, and he was beyond this, an artist, a naturalist, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... tea-cosy may have to do for an Admiral's cocked hat; it all depends on whether the amateur actor can swear like an Admiral. A hearth-rug may have to do for a bear's fur; it all depends on whether the wearer is a polished and versatile man of the world and can grunt like a bear. A clergyman's hat (to my own private and certain knowledge) can be punched and thumped into the exact shape of a policeman's helmet; it all depends on the clergyman. I mean it depends on his permission; his imprimatur; his nihil obstat. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... unearthed coal briquettes from the heap outside, shovelled tons of snow from the veranda and made himself useful and amiable to every one. Murphy, our stand-by in small talk, travel, history, literature and what not, was the versatile storeman. The store in the veranda was continually invaded by similar snow to that which covered the provision boxes outside. To keep the veranda cleared, renew the supplies and satisfy the demands of the kitchen ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... it had played itself out in Normandy inns, was here, in this Inn on a Rock, to give us a series of farewell performances. On no other stage, we were agreed, could the versatile French character have had as admirable and picturesque a setting; and surely, on no other bit of French soil could such an astonishing and amazing variety of types be assembled for a final appearance, as came up, day after day, to make the tour ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... found him at the St. Denis, and we had dinner together. I now know how completely he deceived me as to his condition. With the intensity and exaltation often characteristic of the consumptive, he led me to think that he was only slightly ailing, was gay and versatile as ever, insisted on going somewhere for the evening 'to hear some music,' and absolutely demanded to exercise through the evening the rights of host in a way that baffled my inexperience completely. Only just as I left him did he let fall a single ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... him better, I found out that such acts as these were characteristic of Richard Harding Davis. The world knew him as one of the most vivid and versatile and picturesque writers that our country has produced in the last half-century, but his friends knew him as one of the kindest and gentlest and most honest and most unselfish of men—a real human being, firm in his convictions, ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... therefore, we abandon the sublime, and offer our art services for anything that may present itself. A bona fide painter is a rarity in the town I am describing, so Nicasio and I are comparatively alone in the fine art field. Our patrons are numerous, but we are expected by them to be as versatile as the ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... and credulous because few were philosophical or gifted with intellectual courage. Yet he had, what was possessed by his contemporaries, a faint and intermittent thirst for knowledge, of which he himself hardly knew the meaning." Henry was shrewd, tenacious of purpose, capricious and versatile. In spite of his unrestrained indulgences and his monstrous claims of power, which, be it remembered, he was able to enforce, and notwithstanding any other vices or faults that may be truthfully charged against him, ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... versatile little book of short stories, "The Lower Bureau Drawer" is Emma Upton Vaughn, a Kansas City, Kansas teacher. These heart stories, showing keen insight of human nature—especially woman nature—deal with every day life, each one a fascinating ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker
... knowing what a bitter, stinging pain her "pleasure" was. In vain Ellinor tried to plan how they could take Dixon with them to East Chester. If he had been a woman it would have been a feasible step; but they were only to keep one servant, and Dixon, capable and versatile as he was, would not do for that servant. All this was what passed through Ellinor's mind: it is still a question whether Dixon would have felt his love of his native place, with all its associations and remembrances, or his love for Ellinor, the ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... England's oldest and most successful descriptive writers, talks very entertainingly regarding the emancipated slave. The first trip made to this country by the versatile writer referred to was during ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... held on tenterhooks for many a day thereafter—trouble for Sergeant Collins, who was directly in command of the guard—"Collins ne Oolahan," as Freeman wrote him down, it having been discovered that this versatile Celt had served a previous enlistment in the "Lost and Strayed," when four of its companies were pioneering shortly after the war, where even the paymaster couldn't find them. Such of them as could be found in course of years were gathered up and sent to San Francisco for further ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... preferred meeting interesting men and women to admiring places or scenery. Among my pleasantest memories of Los Angeles are my visits to Madame Fremont in her pretty red cottage, presented by loving friends. It is a privilege to meet such a clever, versatile woman. Her conversation flashes with epigrams and pithy sayings, and her heart is almost as young as when it was captured by ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... that was not to be counted to him, to detract from his admitted excellence. His place is among 'The Wise Ones,' the second, east. 5. Zan Ch'iu, styled Tsze-yu (TD, rl). He was related to the two former, and of the same age as Chung-kung. He was noted among the disciples for his versatile ability and many acquirements. Tsze-kung said of him, 'Respectful to the old, and kind to the young; attentive to guests and visitors; fond of learning and skilled in many arts; diligent in his examination of things:— these are what ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... the one hand, the favorable location and the rich natural resources of the United States have furnished a substantial basis for industrial progress. On the other hand, we must note that the American people are energetic and versatile,—combining, to a happy degree, the qualities of initiative and originality, perseverance and adaptability. The great wealth and prosperity of the country as a whole have been the result of the combination of a favorable land and ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson |
