"Adept" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the one who best knew the country, was Ben Clark, a young man who had lived with the Cheyennes during much of his boyhood, and who not only had a pretty good knowledge of the country, but also spoke fluently the Cheyenne and Arapahoe dialects, and was an adept ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... a very adept at this sort of thing, and his skill enabled him to complete the business in such a manner that had his "griskins" been submitted to the light, no one could have told they had ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... said to have told a representative of a daily paper, that "an adept in Theosophy uses his supernatural powers solely for his own convenience, just as ordinary people avail themselves of a messenger, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... passed a few jokes upon him, at his skill in gulling swells, and taking in flats; for he was considered an adept. Jamie chucked at the compliments, and smiled at what was before them. They then fell to the viands, and ate with the hearty gusto of robust health. The eggs were certainly boiled too hard; but that defect they took good care to remedy, by softening them well with nice fresh ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... said they might be more adept at telepathy than we are," Rynason said. "It was a chance ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... to him that he was as great an adept at sleeping as the guide, and he turned away, half ill-humouredly, to finish his rough toilet, and then he busied himself in making preparations for breakfast, which entailed a severe fight with self, for a sensation of hunger soon developed itself. But he won by a vigorous ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... the street the Piper stept, Smiling first a little smile, As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while; Then, like a musical adept, To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled, Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled; And ere three shrill notes the pipe had uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... Harrods were among the few families who escaped unharmed to Fort Littleton. When James was sixteen years of age he served with his brother William on Forbes's campaign, and very likely saw further service during that war. In 1772, when he had attained wide celebrity on the border as an adept in woodcraft, he helped William settle on Ten Mile Creek, a tributary of the Monongahela; and in 1773 he and several other explored Kentucky, returning home by way of Greenbrier River. We have seen (p. 152, note) that he was surveying the site of Harrodsburg in ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the flow, either by word or act. He was not especially acquainted with the ways of women, but being a close observer of nature and an adept at reasoning from analogy, he assumed that a sudden storm meant equally sudden clearing, so he held his peace and, for ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... who can speak several tongues, and is an adept at disguise, this Fair, with its citizens from every clime, will be a better place for concealment than London, Paris, and New York ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... first Roman known to have borne the surname of Sapiens He was one of the earliest of the juriconsults who took pupils.] was in like manner surnamed The Wise, but both of them were so called for other reasons than those which have given you this name,—Atilius, for his reputation as an adept in municipal law, Cato, for the versatility of his endowments for there were reported to his honor many measures wisely planned and vigorously carried through in the Senate, and many cases skilfully defended in the courts, so that in his old age The Wise was generally applied ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find more soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by learning in good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a certain trade ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... particularly helpful to them in their Dictionary work. He was probably one of those men whose true character does not come out until they attain success. But no sooner was Furetiere an Immortal than he began to distinguish himself in unanticipated ways. He proved himself an adept in parody and satire, and so long as he contented himself with laughing at people like Charles Sorel, the author of Francion, who had no friends, the Academicians were calm and amused, But Furetiere was not merely the author of that extremely amusing medley, Le Roman ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... such as that all deities are forms and passing shapes of one essence; that all have their proper places and that gods, creeds and ceremonies are necessary helps in the lower stages of the religious life but immaterial to the adept. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... clever answers of some Spanish boys who before the preaching were catechized, as usual, in the Christian doctrine, that he threw down, from the balcony where he stood listening, to the boys a number of stamped images to reward them. This encouraged the boys to learn thoroughly, and become adept in these exercises, and inspired Ours to continue this holy practice, thus favored with such sincerity and benevolence; and those who beheld it were edified, and held us in greater esteem. Through these discourses and exercises the children, and even some ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... adept at a game which consisted mostly in keeping close watch upon those who for this reason or that engaged her attention, without giving them the slightest reason to suspect she was doing anything of ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... an adept at outfitting a yacht for a cruise. Without going into details I'll only say that we carried very little that was superfluous and lacked nothing that would ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... was very adept indeed at keeping a closed mouth. It is one of the first lessons of ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... the reason is that it is genuine coffee, no chicory or other mixture. Yet I have seen passable coffee made of poor material by an adept. Our dear old grandmother was compelled in war-times to make it from chicory, but would use no deception, so when she invited friends to take supper she would not say, 'Come to afternoon ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... delayed their departure as did some Kenyahs who were on their way to Apo Kayan, and the people of the kampong did not go to their ladangs. The following day the sound of the gong was again heard, but this time it was occasioned by the fact that an adept had taken augurs from the flight of the red hawk, and to him it was given ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... for Hollyhock was an adept at small manual jobs. She had observed in her rambles over the Palace of the Kings a small neglected hut, said to be haunted by the ghost from the neighbouring loch. As Hollyhock had not a scrap of fear of the ghost, knowing only too well that he did not appear, ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... only increased by Lucien's graciousness. Des Lupeaulx was right; Lucien was wanting in tact. It never crossed his mind that this history of the patent was one of the mystifications at which Mme. d'Espard was an adept. Emboldened with success and the flattering distinction shown to him by Mlle. des Touches, he stayed till two o'clock in the morning for a word in private with his hostess. Lucien had learned in Royalist newspaper offices that ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... she might, to hear this young woman talking the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of those persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates of one of our great universities are living examples of this precocious but enduring intellectual ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... secretary of state.[10] Newcastle, the most prominent figure among the great whig nobles, derived his power from influence; he had an unrivalled experience in party management and as a dispenser of patronage, and though personally above accepting a bribe of any kind, he was an adept at corrupt practices. He would have been incapable of conducting the war, for he was ignorant, timid, and vacillating, but he knew how to gain the support of parliament and how to find the supplies ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... Joel, who very much liked Rachel, for she was always ready to play anything that he proposed, and was a perfect adept in climbing trees and inventing a circus out of small material; "now that's just prime! I wish she ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... perseverance. Never had the captain's cabin been in such good order. She learned all the lessons he set her, and read whenever she had time; she plied her needle diligently; and Mr Shobbrok took especial delight in teaching her embroidery, in which, notwithstanding the roughness of his hands, he was an adept. Indeed, not a moment of her time was idly spent. She took her walks regularly on deck during the day, with her father or Walter: and when they were engaged, Nub followed her about like her shadow; not that he often spoke to her, but he ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... earliest years had been constantly on the stage. He played the gamin in folk-scenes and the monster in burlesques. Besides, he was an adept at thunder and lightning; by means of cracking a whip and the close imitation of the neighing of horses, he announced the approaching stage-coach; he lighted the moon in "Der Freischutz;" and with a kettle and pair of tongs gave forewarning ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... from Minamoto Mitsunaka, who flourished in the tenth century and by whose order the heirloom swords, Hige-kiri and Hiza-kiri, were forged. This Yorimasa was an expert bowman, a skilled soldier, and an adept versifier, accomplishments not infrequently combined in one person during the Heian epoch. Go-Shirakawa, appreciating Yorimasa's abilities, nominated him director of the Imperial Estates Bureau (Kurando) and afterwards made him governor ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... since the principle on which he set out predicated the non-existence of such laws. The advantage of the peep enjoyed into his private note-book is, that we have his incompleted inquiries containing the stories as to which even he—a very poor adept at scepticism—required some confirmation. It is quite evident that we thus have something more valuable to philosophy, and infinitely more amusing, than his completed labours would have been. Here, for instance, is one of his break-downs—an interesting ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... leadership should be provided in a vastly more varied range than the older civilization required. At first the leaders in the higher education of women, like all nouveaux riche, showed determination to prove themselves adept in the traditions of the scholastic world into which they had so recently entered. Classic curricula were strictly adhered to and all "practical" courses viewed with open distrust except those leading to the inherited professions, and to teaching, as these ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... short, a cunning cheat whose most serious ailments were to be regarded with the least sympathy and the utmost suspicion. Yet in spite of this disquieting fact the old hand, whom long practice had made an adept at deception, and who, when he was so inclined, could simulate "complaints of a nature to baffle the skill of any professional man," [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1540—Capt. Barker, 5 Nov. 1807.] rarely ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... confessor, an adroit Dominican. The confessor, it is true, has two rivals, the Countess Belverde, a lady distinguished for her piety, and a German astrologer or alchemist, lately come to Pianura, and calling himself a descendant of the Egyptian priesthood and an adept of the higher or secret doctrines of Neoplatonism. These three, however, though ostensibly rivals for the Duke's favour, live on such good terms with one another that they are suspected of having entered into a secret partnership; while some regard them all ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... started from Scotland Yard in the first instance with an open warrant for the arrest of the supposed murderer. He handed this document up to the captain of the Crow, and that gentleman, who was by no means an adept in the unseamanlike accomplishments of reading and writing, turned it over, and examined it thoughtfully ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... facing him, though, could have seen him scattering dust in liberal proportions over himself and his horse a short time before, they might not have fallen into his trap so easily. With quirt and spur, he had worked his horse into a sweat. At such tricks, Bob Harding was an adept. ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... for a moment. The Police Magistrate at Brantford, before whom many of these little domesticities come for their due appreciation (for they disclose, often, elements of really baffling complexity) not less than their ventilation and unravelling, is an eminently peace-loving man, and quite an adept at patching up such-like conjugal trifles. He will dispense from his tribunal sage advice, and prescribe remedial measures, which shall have untold efficacy, in dispelling mutual mistrust, restoring mutual confidence, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... "I was adept at fooling the deity. I prayed immediately after all crimes until eventually prayer and crime became indistinguishable to me. I believed that because a man cried out 'My God!' when a safe fell on him, it proved that belief was rooted deep in the human breast. Then I went to school. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... good Republican, a follower in the wake of Norrie Simms and young Truman Leslie MacDonald. His father-in-law was both rich and moderately influential. Having lent himself to some campaign speaking, and to party work in general, he proved quite an adept. Because of all these things—his ability, such as it was, his pliability, and his thoroughly respectable savor—he had been slated as candidate for mayor on the Republican ticket, which had ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... utmost disorder. This was actually the circumstance that turned the scale of battle. The Austrians pursued their good fortune with uncommon impetuosity, and in a few minutes left the field clear for the mother of our hero, who was such an adept in the art of stripping, that in the twinkling of an eye the bodies of the aga and his Arabian lay naked to the skin. It would have been happy for her, had she been contented with these first-fruits, reaped from the fortune of the day, and retired with her spoils, which were not inconsiderable; but, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... for visitors having business with the parson is in the middle, turned to his end. Within reach of his hand is a stationery case, and a cabinet photograph in a frame. Behind him the right hand wall, recessed above the fireplace, is fitted with bookshelves, on which an adept eye can measure the parson's divinity and casuistry by a complete set of Browning's poems and Maurice's Theological Essays, and guess at his politics from a yellow backed Progress and Poverty, Fabian Essays, a Dream of John Ball, Marx's Capital, ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... as love-making or wine-bibbing seem to a strait-laced parson. It was inevitable, therefore, that he should never avert by his words any ill-will naturally caused by his acts; that he should never soothe disappointment, or attract calculating selfishness. He was an adept in alienation, a novice in conciliation. His magnetism was negative. He made few friends; and had no interested following whatsoever. No one was enthusiastic on his behalf; no band worked for him with the ardor of personal devotion. His party was composed of those who had sufficient ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... bolder as she continued her evil practices, but, unlike thieves generally, she grew to be more and more cautious. She acquired in time remarkable skill at showing an outwardly honest face. Indeed she became such an adept at dissimulation that the suspicion of even Jason Philip, aroused as it had been during the course of a careful investigation, was ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... Forrest's men were as adept as Morgan's raiders in making a show of force seem twice the number of men actually in the field. They now whirled in and out of a wild pattern which should impress the Yankee picket with the fact that at least a full ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... time for measuring the fall of rain for the last twenty-four hours, we found the rain-gauge and the bottle had been removed, so we sent Kidgwiga to inform the king we wished his magicians to come at once and institute a search for it. Kidgwiga immediately returned with the necessary adept, an old man, nearly blind, dressed in strips of old leather fastened to the waist, and carrying in one hand a cow's horn primed with magic powder, carefully covered on the mouth with leather, from which dangled an iron bell. The old creature ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... The Countess, an adept in the lie implied—practised by her, that she might not subject herself to future punishment (in which she was so devout a believer, that she condemned ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... date, she became an adept at inventing excuses to go to the Conservatorium when she thought he was likely to be there; and, suddenly grown rebellious, she shook off Johanna's protectorship, which until now had weighed lightly on her. She grew fastidious about her ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... disguise to make a man a successful creeper and spyer. You couldn't simply say to yourself, 'I will creep.' If you attempted to do it in your own person, you would be detected instantly. You had to be an adept at masking your personality. You had to be one man at Bristol and another quite different man at Hull—especially if, like Henry, you were of a gregarious disposition, and ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... reproduction—it possesses wonderful clinging powers, its legs with hook attachment actually entering under the skin. Its chief delight consists in inserting its head right under your cutaneous tissues, wherefrom it can suck your blood with convenient ease. It is wonderfully adept at this, and while I was asleep, occasionally as many as eight or ten of these brutes were able to settle down comfortably to their work without my noticing them; and some—and it speaks highly for their ability—were even able to enter my skin (in covered parts of the body) ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to me of love [writes George Sand], and owned that he was little inclined to sudden passion, to enthusiasm, and in any case no adept in expressing it in an attractive manner. He spoke of a friendship that would stand any test, and compared the tranquil happiness of our hosts [she was then staying with some friends] to that which he believed he could ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Caen to Falaise, from Mortain to Bayeux or Saint-Lo, even going into Mayenne in his wanderings. Although he would never have acknowledged it, we may say that he was one of the men usually employed in attacking public vehicles: in fact, he was an adept at it and went by the name of ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... that he should be reduced to such means of communication. The next instant Cecilia was shrinking from the adept intriguer—French-taught! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... abundance of fish, as the light winds fanned us slowly along, sometimes freshening into a moderate breeze, and occasionally dying away to a calm. The "chef d'oeuvre" of our mulatto skipper who was also cook, was conch soup, and he was not only an adept at cooking but also at catching the conch. In those almost transparent waters, the smallest object can be distinctly seen at the depth of three or four fathoms. When soup was to be prepared Captain Dick would take his station ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... truthfulness rule out onions; but his inferences and conclusions have the odor and the taste of onions. He stands on a safe platform to begin with; but he is an unsafe guide when he walks away from it. His arguments in this case are an illustration of his own declaration: "An adept in logic may be a ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... of the settlers until they could gather harvests of their own. Artisans and laborers of skill and industry had to be induced to risk the hazards of the new world. Soldiers were required for defense and mariners for the exploration of inland waters. Leaders of good judgment, adept in managing men, had to be discovered. Altogether such an enterprise demanded capital larger than the ordinary merchant or gentleman could amass and involved risks more imminent than he dared to assume. Though in later days, after initial ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... the Nile is one of the most beautiful and grand palaces ever erected by the hand of man. You are ministered to by slaves, and your councillors of state come to you with their reports. You are tall, handsome and of a most kingly presence. Your personal bravery is unquestioned, you are an adept in all manly sports, but you will not go to war as you very properly detest all violence. For this reason there is little to relate of your reign. It was uneventful and distinguished only by your wise ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... out of Italy. I was surprised to learn that they were all from the hand of the owner. My evident admiration pleased my new friend, and led to talk upon his part, which showed him no less elevated in his theories of art than an adept in the practice. Without fatiguing the reader with irrelevant criticism, it is necessary, perhaps, as elucidating much of the design and character of the work which these prefatory pages introduce, that I should briefly observe, that he insisted as much upon the connection of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... The Hindu adept sometimes suspends before the eyes of his subject a bright ball of carnelian or crystal, in the steady contemplation of which the sensitive swims off into the realms of subjectivity—that mysterious bourn from whence no traveler brings ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... school which to-day is represented in its advanced form by Liszt and Von Billow. Schumann called him "the boldest and proudest poetic spirit of the times." In addition to this remarkable poetic power, he was a splendidly-trained musician, a great adept in style, and one of the most original masters of rhythm and harmony that the records of music show. All his works, though wanting in breadth and robustness of tone, are characterized by the utmost finish and refinement. Full of delicate and unexpected beauties, elaborated with the finest ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... and movements are just what one wants to make one's hearth a paradise. Every man under such circumstances is conscious of being a great physiognomist. Nature, he knows, has a language of her own, which she uses with strict veracity, and he considers himself an adept in the language. Nature has written out his bride's character for him in those exquisite lines of cheek and lip and chin, in those eyelids delicate as petals, in those long lashes curled like the stamen ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... and much loathed spot. There were grids to walk on, but these more resembled greasy poles, for the slabs had been placed longitudinally on cross runners, and many of us used to slide off the end into some swampy hole. One of "B" Company's officers was a particular adept at this, and fell into some hole or other almost every night. These parties often managed to add to our general excitement by discovering some real or supposed spy along their route, and on one occasion there was quite a small stir round Cookers ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... otherwise I should cheerfully follow your directions, as I rise at five or six every day. Theo. makes amazing progress at figures. Though Louisa has worked at them all winter, and appeared quite an adept at first, yet Theo. is now before her, and assists her to make her sums. You will really be surprised at her improvement. I think her time so well spent that I shall not wish to return to town sooner than I am obliged. She does not ride on horseback, though ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... life; but we miss the grand lessons, usually, until some human Teacher enforces them. His methods are the same as those of the artists: between whose office and his there was at first no difference;—Bard means only, originally, an Adept Teacher. Such a one selects experiences out of life for his pupils, and illumines them through the circumstances under which they are applied; just as the true artist selects objects from nature, and by his manner of treating them, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the Europeans. He is passionately fond of music, wild over poetry, inquisitive about paintings, a connoisseur in everything—I cannot remember all. He has friends who know architecture, and though skilled in his own profession, he is an adept in others. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... paws in token of its fierce struggle, yet had perished after all, being allured in some opposite direction by tempting bait, or irresistible scent laid by the same skilful hand. In bear hunting also Michel was an adept, and he lacked not opportunity for this sport on the banks of the Mackenzie. Many a time would he and, perhaps, one other Indian glide down the river in his swift canoe, and suddenly the keen observant eyes would ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... said. "I would like to add that not only do I collect these small arms, but I am very adept at using them. Something I will demonstrate to you very shortly," he ...
— The Eyes Have It • James McKimmey
... speaker a trifle resentfully. Mrs. Hildreth, like many busy people, was an adept at pointing ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... amorous intrigue, playing the harp, drawing landscapes, singing ballads, dancing Greek dances, giving supper parties, entertaining pretty women, such as the Comtesse de Beaufort and the actress Mademoiselle Descoings, presiding all night long over a trente-et-un or biribi table and an adept at rouge et noir, she still found time to be charitable to her friends. Inquisitive and interfering, giddy-pated and frivolous, she understood men but knew nothing of the masses; as indifferent to the creed she professed as to the opinions she felt bound to ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... room. A minute passed but no one had yet begun dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess Bezukhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and laid it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, an adept in his art, grasping his partner firmly round her waist, with confident deliberation started smoothly, gliding first round the edge of the circle, then at the corner of the room he caught Helene's left hand and turned her, the only sound audible, apart from the ever-quickening ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... that if the turncock was to come, see, and overcome the reluctance of the allotted cock-to-be-turned, the water would burst out at every pore of the service-pipes in that house, except the taps; and would know also that the adept who came to soften their hearts and handles would have to go back for his tools, and would be ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... was Jose bar Chalafta, and his remark was made to a lady, possibly a Roman matron of high quality, in Sepphoris. Rabbi Jose was evidently an adept in meeting the puzzling questions of women, for as many as sixteen interviews between him and "matrons" are recorded in Agadic literature. Whether because prophetic of its subsequent popularity, ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... offered by the bureau to any one who would betray his accomplices, and Monsieur Favart was placed at the head of a commission of inquiry. This person had himself been a faux monnoyer, and was an adept in the art, and it was he who had discovered the redoubted coiner who had brought the crime into such notoriety. Monsieur Favart was a man of the most vigilant acuteness, the most indefatigable research, and of a courage which; perhaps, is more common than we suppose. It is a popular error ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or newsboy, he is an adept in all the tricks of the trade; and as a fast young man about town among his kind, he is worthy his white prototype: the swagger, the impertinent look, the coarse remark, the loud laugh, are all in the best style. As a lounger and starer also, on the ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... not adept at analysis, he was. Nothing ever entered his mind or heart that he could not separate and define. It was strange; it was almost laughable; to have fenced as long and adroitly as he had fenced, and then to be disarmed ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... higher than the narrow mentality of fallen ministers. As this degradation continued, there sprang into being religious wars, monstrosities that were unknown in those times when Divinity shed illumination and guidance on the nations by means of those mighty souls, the Adept-Kings: ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... compass and chain his father had earned his livelihood amid the wrecks of the Civil War. Hale went to the old Transylvania University at Lexington, the first seat of learning planted beyond the Alleghanies. He was fond of history, of the sciences and literature, was unusually adept in Latin and Greek, and had a passion for mathematics. He was graduated with honours, he taught two years and got his degree of Master of Arts, but the pioneer spirit in his blood would still out, and his polite learning he then threw ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... to the stolen piece, he carried the tomahawk and knife at his girdle, and there could be no question that he was an adept in their use. ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... as we have come through the years to know them, were of course adept masters at the many subtle arts of propaganda, and they used those arts to the very limits of their skill. They deliberately fomented, as their ancient record shows, the wars, small at first and then ever larger, ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... been respectable. He had an uncommon freedom of address, a large fund of humour, great facility in the invention of his sentiments, and a ready and easy manner of expressing them. He was likewise, for the time he lived in, a great adept in the literature of the Greeks; and, in the heat of a debate, he could sting, and gash, as well as ridicule his opponents. Almost cotemporary with these was L. Gellius, who was not so much to be valued for his positive, as for his negative ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... their saner weighing of considerations, their higher power of resisting emotional suggestion. The very fact that marriages occur at all is a proof, indeed, that they are more cool-headed than men, and more adept in employing their intellectual resources, for it is plainly to a man's interest to avoid marriage as long as possible, and as plainly to a woman's interest to make a favourable marriage as soon as she can. The efforts ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... Apostles. The languages he was supposed to know were Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Persian. He was also said to be acquainted with astronomy, and even with the Kabbalah, of which, according to the Kabbalists, he was an ardent adept. After his death, they say, he appeared to his grandson Samuel to teach him the true pronunciation of the Ineffable Name. Medical knowledge was also attributed to Rashi, and a medical work ascribed to his authorship. One scholar ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... not an adept at concealing his emotions, and he stared in unqualified surprise at the long figure in brown which of a sudden intruded into his range of vision. The morning paper upon his knees fluttered unnoticed to the ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... that moment, outside the grated door of the Choir, having eluded the vigilance of Mr. Tope by shifty resources in which he is an adept, Deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through the bars, and stares astounded from the threatener ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... note-paper. It's scented, too; and that's vulgar from American standpoints. Also, it's feminine. No, my word for it, the woman who wrote that note bought the paper in Ottawa and brought it here. She did the typewriting herself, which was but natural; and she is not an adept, as anyone may tell by the clumsy, irregular way in which she ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... particularly intriguing, for by now one is sufficiently familiar with accounts of the removal of wounded under fire and the sort of work at which these four hundred American University men proved themselves so adept at half-a-dozen points between Flanders and Alsace. Americans, long at odds with "ruthlessness" (and at last forced to the inevitable logical conclusion in regard to it), may well be glad to be able to point, amongst other creditable things, to this history of service given without hesitation ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... mad swirls. He had seized a bale of the false assignats, and at the risk of being crushed succeeded in throwing it between the wheels of the carronade. This decisive and perilous manoeuvre could not have been executed with more precision and adroitness by an adept in all the exercises given in the work of Durosel's "Manual of ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... let us hope you are an adept at making an even and smoothly finished seal. Choose a plain-colored wax rather than one speckled with metal. With the sort of paper described for country houses, or for young people, or those living in studios or bungalows, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... they have not understood the meaning of this expression. The Anarchist who understands his part, instead of massacring somebody or other, will exclusively strive to bring this person round to his opinions, and to make of him an adept who, in his turn, will make "propaganda of deed" by showing himself good and just to all ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... letting the life out of a woman's heart, when it is already faint from disappointment! The spirit is oftener broken by unyielding, but not seemingly cruel pressure, than by outrageous violence. And Winston would show himself an adept in such ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... his collar, and his whip lifted. The whip did not look formidable. Mason received the threat as a joke, and laughed in Turkey's face. Perceiving, however, that Turkey looked dangerous, with a sudden wriggle, at which he was an adept, he broke free, and, trusting to his tried speed of foot, turned his head and made a grimace as he took to his heels. Before, however, he could widen the space between them sufficiently, Turkey's whip came down upon him. With a howl of pain ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... adept for whose arms Life held delicious offerings perished here, How many in the prime of all that charms, Crowned with all ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... journey, you may depend upon never getting any of it back; when on having studied anew the "art of self-defence," to protect you against another art, which you must also study, in close connexion with the "belle arti," you are become really an adept, and duly qualified for that diploma. Study antiquities in public museums; so shall you learn to appraise at their true value the gauds of dealers, which, if you have not educated your taste into a wholesome fastidiousness, by a diligent study of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... went down the street, the hubbub and confusion of the fire growing more and more indistinct behind them. They walked slowly, and, for a time, neither spoke; yet the silence was of a kind which the adept rejoiced to have produced thus soon—their second meeting. For he believed there were more strange things in heaven and earth than Horatio wot; and one of the strangest was that whenever he was near an attractive woman during ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... that our sterling young candidate for district attorney had not yet become skilled in dalliance with the equivocal; that he was no adept in ambiguity; that he would confront all issues with a rugged valiance susceptible of no misconstruction; that, in short, George Remington ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... way, d'ye see, Mr. Lindsey," said Chisholm, who was becoming an adept at putting statements before people. "You know that bit of a public there is along the river yonder, outside the wall—the Cod and Lobster? Well, James Macfarlane, that keeps it, he came to me, maybe an hour or ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... speedily to return to your royal island with as little eclat as you came thither? The world, my dear Countess, has changed since we were young. Men fought in the Civil War with good swords and muskets; but now we fight with indictments and oaths, and such like legal weapons. You are no adept in such warfare; and though I am well aware you know how to hold out a castle, I doubt much if you have the art to parry off an impeachment. This Plot has come upon us like a land storm—there is no steering the vessel in the teeth of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... time by twenty ships sailing while the dispute was in progress.[365] Apparently they returned in safety, but the seizure of English ships at Bordeaux in the following March justified Henry's caution.[366] The King was already an adept in statecraft, and there was at least an element of truth in the praise which Wolsey bestowed on his pupil. "No man," he wrote, "can more groundly consider the politic governance of your said realm, nor more assuredly look to the preservation thereof, than ye yourself." And ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... his statements. There are a large number of different figures of speech, but such fine distinctions as the rhetoricians make are unnecessary for the ordinary student of literature. It is the meaning the figures convey that concerns us, for an adept in reading always notices the skilful use of figures, and his pleasure is heightened by ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... well cooked, and although Fred and Teddy would not have minded having one or two of the dainties that old Martha was so adept in preparing, it was plain that her prophecy of their early death from starvation was not going to be fulfilled. They made a most satisfactory meal, marred only by the fact that Teddy's piece of pie was devoured by some unknown neighbor while ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... infallibly would have been but for me. Baby, in future years you may thank your uncle Leon for saving your life. Perhaps if I whistle it will stop howling. I'll try," said Leon, whistling, in which art he was a great adept. ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... Swinton, was a pale, precise-looking young man with a somewhat servile demeanour, under which he concealed an inordinately good opinion of himself. His ideas were centred in and bounded by the art of stenography,—he was an adept in shorthand and typewriting, could jot down, I forget how many crowds of jostling words a minute, and never made a mistake. He was a clock-work model of punctuality and dispatch, of respectfulness and obedience,—but he was no more than a machine,— he could not be moved to a spontaneous utterance ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... a hearty breakfast off the aforesaid bacon and eggs, with soft tack laid in the day before, and washed all down with some most excellent coffee, in the concoction of which beverage Bob was an adept, and then, as soon as he had washed up, and put matters to rights in his pantry, and made arrangements for dinner, I went below and ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... confessions from prisoners, by means of torture, a mode long since abolished in this country; but the king and his ministers did not wish to render themselve obnoxious to the Romanists by resorting to the rack. Instead, therefore, of using torture, they employed craft; and though Garnet was an adept in the art of dissimilation, yet he was outwitted on this occasion. An individual was appointed as the keeper of the prisoner, who, by pretending to deplore the condition of the Romanists in England, as well as by complaints against ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury
... yourselves. Your bard has made you very nonchalant and blest; but as he has excused us from damnation, I don't envy you your blessedness much—a little, to be sure. I remember, last year, * * said to me, at * *, 'Have we not passed our last month like the gods of Lucretius?' And so we had. She is an adept in the text of the original (which I like too); and when that booby Bus. sent his translating prospectus, she subscribed. But, the devil prompting him to add a specimen, she transmitted him a subsequent answer, saying, that 'after perusing ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... an event, was to bring his Winchester to the right position and discharge it with the utmost celerity. His experience in the Civil War and in Texas rendered him an adept at this business, but, on the other hand, it will be seen that the precautions of the Comanche himself could be ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... to have lighted upon a congenial occupation somewhat late in life, or perhaps previous practice had made him an adept in it. His time was fully occupied in carrying out a series of experiments upon his wife's pride, with a view to humble and bring it to the ground. If he did not fully succeed in that, he succeeded in making her hate him as scarcely ever was man ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... She was an adept at the art of preservation, and greatly as she disliked physical exertion, she toiled laboriously over her own person an hour at least every day, and never employed a maid to assist her. One's rival might buy ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dissecting-board, was written, as I judge, by a bare-foot Minorite of forty; compiled, that is, from the wonderings, the pretty adjustments and naive disquisitions of any such weatherworn brown men as you may see to- day toiling up the Calvary to their Convent. And in this same story- telling Giotto is an adept. He loves to gather his fellows round him and speak of Saints and Archangels, where our youngsters talk of fairy godmothers and white rabbits. To say this is not Art, as the critics profanely teach, is monstrous. Is not the Fioretti ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... poets, painters, and artificers; for it would not have been very easy to represent the Gods planning and executing any work in another form, and perhaps this opinion arose from the idea which mankind have of their own beauty. But do not you, who are so great an adept in physics, see what a soothing flatterer, what a sort of procuress, nature is to herself? Do you think there is any creature on the land or in the sea that is not highly delighted with its own form? ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the game of craps, learned from the Southern negro. With a pair of dice purchased for a cent or two at the corner news-stand and a few pennies obtained by newspaper selling or petty thieving the youngster is equipped with the necessary implements for gambling, and he soon becomes adept in cleaning out the ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... dinner Ella idled about the shore with the children till dusk, thinking of the yet uncovered photograph in her room, with a serene sense of something ecstatic to come. For, with the subtle luxuriousness of fancy in which this young woman was an adept, on learning that her husband was to be absent that night she had refrained from incontinently rushing upstairs and opening the picture-frame, preferring to reserve the inspection till she could be alone, and a more romantic tinge be imparted to the occasion ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... lay by Matching Green, and as I stopped at the village inn to refresh my horse with a pail of gruel and myself with a glass of ale, who should come up but old Tawney, Tom Cuffe's second horseman! Besides being an adept at his calling, familiar with every cross-road and almost every field in the county, he knew nearly as well as a hunted fox himself which way the creature meant to run. Tawney was a great gossip, and quite a ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... you have acquired the knack, the operation has to be renewed every time you relight your pipe. This involves a sad loss of time, and in my case it afforded a butt for the dull wit of visitors. Otherwise I found it satisfactory, and I was soon astonishingly adept at making paper screws. Eventually my brier became as serviceable as formerly, though not, perhaps, so handsome. I fastened on the holder with sealing-wax, and often a week passed without my having to renew ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... stayed in the hotel at least once previously. If she is able to announce on arrival, "Here we are as usual!" and to greet the proprietor and staff by name, this often gives an initial blow exceedingly hard to parry. English visitors have been proving very adept at the sport this season, with Americans a good second. The German game, on the contrary, is slower ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... Margaret had borne there from her birth! In short, their stature being much the same, though Betty was more thickly built, except in the strongest light it would not have been easy to distinguish them apart, even unveiled, for at all such arts of the altering of the looks of women, Inez was an adept, and ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... it not strike even you, Meletus, as wonderful when in all ordinary concerns the best people should obtain, I do not say only an equal share, but an exclusive preference; but in my case, simply because I am selected by certain people as an adept in respect of the greatest treasure men possess—education, I am on that account to be prosecuted by you, ...
— The Apology • Xenophon
... She smiled, and said with gay indifference, "Mr. C—— was here a very short time." "Well, then, was it Mr. ——?" She hesitated, and then replied faintly, "No." This was a mere trick to mislead; one of the profoundnesses of Satan, in which she is an adept. "But," she added hastily, "she could make no more confidences." "Then," said I, "you have something to communicate." "No; but she had once mentioned a thing of the sort, which I had hinted to her mother, though it signified little." All this while ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... selected in her own mind the four girls who were most likely to do credit to the "establishment;" and these were secretly determined upon, although it was very well to promise the reward to the most diligent. She was really not aware of the falseness of this conduct; being an adept in that species of sophistry with which people persuade themselves that what they wish to ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... chests in which book-rolls, strange vessels, and an endless variety of raiment of every shape and size were stored, from the simple chiton of the common laborer to the star-embroidered talar of the adept. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ready for this and the distance between himself and the guard was well calculated. He launched himself like a catapult-dart against the slim figure, and was fortunate enough to seize the gun. Frank was an adept at the Japanese ju-jitsu game, and, much to the astonishment of the Filipino, he soon found himself, minus his gun, dropping to the ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Apennines. Unfortunately, there chanced to be a heap of broken stones for the mending of the road which encroached a little on the roadway. And it so happened that His Imperial and Royal Highness, never very dexterous in the use of his limbs or an adept in the performance of such courtly gymnastics, backed in bowing on this unlucky heap of stones, and was tripped by it in such sort that the imperial and royal heels went into the air, and the grand duke made his last exit from Tuscany ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... support her postulates with the requisite legal learning, embracing a knowledge of the common and statute law authorities from Blackstone down. The address abounded in historical and literary allusions which show its author to be a person of broad culture as well as an adept in "book learning." Following came another address from Mrs. Bloomer, in which she disposed—as he expressed, to Dr. McNamara's entire satisfaction—of the stock biblical argument down from Moses to Paul against "woman's rights" ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various |
