"Aptitude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Christinos more confident of a speedy termination to the war than when Mina took the command. The well-earned reputation of that chief, his peculiar aptitude for mountain warfare, and intimate acquaintance with the country of Navarre, which had been the scene of his triumphs during the war against Napoleon, certainly pointed him out as the most fitting man to oppose to Zumalacarregui. Forgetting that similar hopes had been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the year 1869.1 Messrs. Temple, Riggs, and Calhoun at Smyrna, and Messrs. Schneider and Ladd at Broosa, had made the Greek language their principal medium of intercourse with the people. Mr. Riggs having a rare aptitude for acquiring languages, had begun to edit works in the Bulgarian, Armenian, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... is the well-known aptitude shown by poodles for digging out truffles, an accomplishment of which I often read in my youth. If ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... Young Women's Christian Association, or an older friend who is able to advise her and, finally, the girl should help herself. She should think carefully of the kind of work it seems likely that she may get to do and ask herself what employment she finds most attractive and whether she has some aptitude ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... applications. The citizen of the south is more given to act upon impulse; he is more clever, more frank, more generous, more intellectual, and more brilliant. The former, with a greater degree of activity, of common sense, of information, and of general aptitude, has the characteristic good and evil qualities of the middle classes. The latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the weaknesses, and the magnanimity of ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... provision of nature he is in this half-hatched civilization of ours, which merely distracts our energies by multiplying our needs and leaves us no better off than we were before we discovered them! He seems to have a natural aptitude for discerning, or even inventing, your wants and supplies them before you yourself are aware of them. While in his hands nothing petty invades you. Great-mindedness becomes possible. "Magnanimus AEneas" must have had an excellent Boy. What is the history of the ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... report of your aptitude for acquiring languages, and assures me that you will soon ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... able to indulge with caution his own tastes. Partly in order to conciliate the King, and partly, no doubt, from inclination, he gave up a portion of his time to military and political business, and thus gradually acquired such an aptitude for affairs as his most intimate associates were not aware that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... done a great work for California. The son of a Frenchman, showing an early aptitude for mathematics, he had secured an appointment to the United States engineering corps, and, after various minor expeditions in which he had acquitted himself well, was put in charge of an expedition for the exploration of the ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... temperament of Maurice, to be thrown into constant communication with an associate as full of vigorous activity as Ronald Walton, without being stirred and inspired by the contact. The force, decision, aptitude, promptness, which distinguished Ronald, had constituted him a sort of prince among his fellow-students, who gave him the lead in all their united movements, without defining to themselves his claim to supremacy. Ronald's character was not free from imperfections; but ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... give a factitious merit in the eyes of many critics, which could not be an occasion of vainglory to the consciousness of the most vainglorious of writers. You made me smile by your suggestion about the aptitude of critics aforesaid for courting Lady Geraldines. Certes—however it may be—the poem has had more attention than its due. Oh, and I must tell you that I had a letter the other day from Mr. Westwood (one of my correspondents unknown) referring to 'Blackwood,' and observing ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... this boyish heart from the intrusive, ever present mentor who not only shared his father's affections but made use of them to influence that father against the career he had chosen, in favour of one he not only disliked but for which he lacked all aptitude. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... and theological activities, he was fast growing doubtful of his fitness for the job of herding other people into the fold. He found himself with a growing disinclination for such a task as his life work. Since that was the only thing he had any aptitude for or training in, when he thought of cutting loose and facing the world at large without the least idea of what he should do or how he should do it, he perceived himself in a good deal ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... brothers. There is no stint to the faithful service they have given to the Germans. But for them our task would have been much easier. For drilling and parade the native mind shows great keenness and aptitude; little squads of men are drilled voluntarily by their own N.C.O.'s in their spare time; and often, just after an official drill is over, they drill one another again. Smart and well-disciplined they are most punctilious in ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... spoken. We have now to speak of Semitic religion as found in the lands bordering on the eastern Mediterranean in a more original form. The Semitic peoples outside of Babylonia founded no lasting empires, and showed no great aptitude for art or for literary style; but, in point of religion, they communicated to the world impulses of immeasurable force, which will act powerfully on the world as long as the Prophet is named or ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... colonial army is an anchor, and Frejus is full of officers who wear it. They are mostly men of the Midi, Roman Gauls every inch of them. The Lamys, the Gallienis, the Joffres, the Fochs, the Lyauteys were born with a genius for leadership in war. Their aptitude for African conquest and their joy in African colonization are the heritage of their native land. The fortunes of southern France and northern Africa were inseparable through the ten centuries of the spread of civilization and the Latin and Teutonic invasions in the Western Mediterranean. The connection ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... Natural; they regard the world in its inward essence and not in its form.' Thus human sciences are but analyses of form. The man of science as the world goes is purely external like his knowledge; his inner being is only used to preserve his aptitude for the perception of external truths. The Angelic Spirit goes far beyond that; his knowledge is the thought of which human science is but the utterance; he derives that knowledge from the Logos, and learns the law of correspondences ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... there was an excellent young man, named Ramadan, who was the clerk of the detachment. This intelligent young fellow was a general favourite among our own men, and also among the natives. He had a great aptitude for languages, and he quickly mastered sufficient of the Unyoro to ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... into the belief that they are seeking a personal end in order that they may be induced to effect a far greater impersonal end: the creation of the future race. The intensity of their passion is not the measure of the personal happiness they will secure but the measure of their aptitude for producing offspring. In accepting passion and renouncing the counsels of cautious prudence the youth and the girl are really sacrificing their chances of selfish happiness and fulfilling the larger ends of Nature. As Schopenhauer saw ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had quietly fallen asleep. A prayer was repeated before and after dinner. The visitors seemed to think our dishes very palatable, and even the Royal Family ate with good appetite, though they had so recently made a substantial meal. Their conduct was extremely decorous, and showed much aptitude in imitation. They made use of the knives, forks, and spoons as readily as if they had been always accustomed to them; and the wine, though by no means despised, was very ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... architecture, or in anything else; and not infrequently they seem to be even more immovable objects than the buildings themselves, so fixed and inflexible are they. Such figures as these only detract from the interest of the drawing, instead of adding to it, and the draughtsman who has no special aptitude is wise in either omitting them altogether, or in using very few, and is perhaps still wiser if he entrusts the drawing of these to one of his associates more accomplished ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... at all from will and desire of their own, but agitated violently and incessantly by some hidden hand, forced into playing parts they did not want to play, saying words they had no wish to speak, cutting antics for which they had no aptitude or liking. Cruelties lurked everywhere, waiting in the confused mummery. Reality was being left and with it the practical grasp of those powerful simplicities that alone can guide life through confusion. I felt this with stinging certainty. Everyone seemed playing a part, goaded with ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... delivered them over to the fatal malaria, the Italians are, mentally, the most richly endowed people in Europe. M. de Rayneval, who is not the man to flatter them, admits that they have "intelligence, penetration, and aptitude for everything." The cultivation of the arts is no less natural to them than is the study of the sciences; their first steps in every path open to human intellect are singularly rapid, and if but too many of them ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... statesman respecting the republic which he had so long governed, both in peace and war, with so much success. There was also an admirable propriety in his style of conversation, in which wit was tempered with gravity; a wonderful aptitude for acquiring, and at the same time communicating, information; and his life was in perfect correspondence and unison with his language. He used to say that the government of Rome was superior to that of other states for this ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... example to the young. No generous outburst of wrath disfigures Mr. MacDonald's speeches, no rash utterance is ever to be apologised for, no hasty impulse to be regretted. In the Labour movement Mr. MacDonald won success over older men by an indefatigable industry, a marked aptitude for politics, and by an obvious prosperity. Other things being equal, it is inevitable that in politics, as in commerce, the needy, impecunious man will be rejected in favour of the man with an assured balance at the bank, and the man of regular ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... we know of we began to speculate upon what were the causes which had subjected woman to man; in other words, how was it that man had got the upper hand, and kept it? That women's minds were not inferior to men's we were forced to admit; that their aptitude for cultivation is often greater, was not to be denied. As to the assertion that man makes laws, or that his frame is of more robust material, it is no argument, as a revolt on the part of the other sex would soon do away with ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... War as to whether West Point had really vindicated a place for itself. Many an American, full of that over-confidence which besets us, maintained that a man could become a good soldier by a turn of the hand as it were. Given courage, physical vigour, and fair practical aptitude, a lawyer, a merchant, or a civil engineer could take sword in hand and at short notice head a squadron or muster an army. This view has so far as I know been set forward by no one more plausibly than by Jacob D. Cox, a stout civilian soldier who led well the Twenty-third Corps and ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... to harmonious development of the faculties manual work has a direct influence on fitness for home and social life. It greatly develops good sense and aptitude for dealing with ordinary difficulties as they arise. In common emergencies it is the "handy" member of the household whose judgment and help are called upon, not the brilliant person or one who has specialized in any branch, ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... born in 1878 in the lands of the Tswana-speaking people, south of Mafeking. His origins were ordinary enough. What was remarkable was the aptitude he showed for education and learning after a few years schooling under the tuition of a remarkable liberal German Lutheran missionary, the Rev. Ludorf. At the age of sixteen Plaatje (using the Dutch nickname of his grandfather as a surname) joined the Post Office ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... here a moment, to assail that old principle—which my father, along with countless others, held so strongly—that a fellow who is really worth while ought to know by his Junior year in college just what his life-work is to be. A few with an early developed special aptitude do, but very few. Carl entered college in August, 1896, in Engineering; but after a term found that it had no further appeal for him. "But a fellow ought to stick to a thing, whether he likes it or not!" If one must be dogmatic, then I say, "A fellow should ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... confess, for I could not disguise from myself the fact that I was taken with her, "Gazen and she are not an ill-matched pair by any means. They are alike in many respects, and a contrast in others. They have common ground in their love and aptitude for science; yet each has something which the other lacks. She has poetry and sentiment for instance, but he—well, I'm afraid that if he ever had any it has all evaporated by this time. On the other hand, she"—but it puzzled ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... solacing him, and ensuring that his works of charity would be as a "triumphant chariot" to carry him one day to heaven. But Sir Paul Pindar was more than benevolent; he was a master in business affairs and no mean diplomatist. His commercial aptitude he put to profitable use during a fifteen years' residence in Italy; his skill as a negotiator was tested and proved by nine years' service in Constantinople as the ambassador of James I to Turkey. At the date of his final return to England, 1623, the merchant ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... hesitation, and find ideas, turn of expression, and words at will, preserving a presence of mind, and keeping myself collected, without once suffering even a momentary confusion. For what could I hope, feeling as I did, my want of aptitude to express myself with ease? I had been reduced to the most mortifying silence at Geneva, before an assembly which was favorable to me, and previously resolved to approve of everything I should say. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... information of distant objects, why were not my richly plumed neighbours aware of what was passing in my study? Why did their feathery "feelers" leave them in ignorance of events which would have brought flocks of the other Eggar? Once more, the organ does not determine the aptitude. One individual or species is gifted, but another is not, despite ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... that one gains facility, and improves from day to day, is a source of sincere pleasure, however far short of perfection our attempts may fall; and, generally speaking, our choice of a profession is mainly dictated by a certain feeling of aptitude for and interest in ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bear the title of cook, or a cook worthy to be a philosopher, according to the numerous curious passages scattered in Athenaeus, was an extraordinary genius, endowed not merely with a natural aptitude, but with all acquired accomplishments. The philosophy, or the metaphysics, of cookery appears ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... which have a more national or even local tinge and are yet not legendary. The homely flavour attached to many stories of this kind is very apparent, and it is evident that they have been put together in oral form by unknown 'makers,' some of whom had either a natural or artistic aptitude for story-telling. In the first of the following tales it is curious to note how the ancient Breton theme has been put by its peasant narrator ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... question. I do know and think that I always have known my own powers. Neither has my aptitude in debate nor my capacity for work justified me in looking to the premiership. But that, forgive me, is now not worthy of consideration. It is because you do work and can work, and because you have fitted yourself for that continued course of lucid explanation which we now call debate, that ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... whom they called Max seemed to be looked upon as a leader, for it is absolutely necessary that in every pack of boys some one takes the initiative. His whole name was Max Hastings, and on numberless occasions he had shown an aptitude for "doing things" when the occasion arose, that gained him the respect of his chums. For a complete record of these achievements the reader is referred to earlier volumes of this series, where between the covers will be found much ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... make Him not only anthropomorphic, but of the very lowest type, jealous and revengeful, loving violence rather than mercy. I know no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman. Miriam, the eldest sister of Moses and Aaron, a genius, a prophetess, with the family aptitude for diplomacy and government, is continually set aside because of her sex—permitted to lead the women in singing and dancing, nothing more. No woman could offer sacrifices nor eat the holy meats because, according to the Jews, she was too ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... etc., whose labors were in the house or in close personal contact with masters and mistresses. This class was made up of the brightest and quickest, mulattoes being preferred because of their greater aptitude. These servants had almost as much to do with the whites as did the other blacks and absorbed no small amount of learning. Yet the results were not always satisfactory. A southern lady after visiting for a time in ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... of art, the serenity of the sky, the nameless charm which hangs about an Italian landscape, and Allston's enthusiasm as an artist, nearly decided him to remain in Rome and adopt the profession of a painter. But after indulging in this dream, it occurred to him that it was not so much a natural aptitude for the art as the lovely scenery and Allston's companionship that had attracted him to it. He saw something of Roman society; Torlonia the banker was especially assiduous in his attentions. It turned ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... results to which the ambition of young Lincoln aspired, so he contrived to go into the grocery business; but in this he was unsuccessful, owing to an inherent deficiency in business habits and aptitude. He was, however, gifted with shrewd sense, a quick sense of humor with keen wit, and a marked steadiness of character, which gained him both friends and popularity in the miserable little community ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... another rich, interesting, and full of meaning. On hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man's experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences. This is in the highest degree ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... weeded out three aspirants for honors on the eleven, who had shown no genuine aptitude for the exciting game where headwork and footwork combined ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... military class. From the time now under discussion the military class came to be looked upon as a distinct and separate part of the population. It was composed of those who in the time of war showed an aptitude for arms, and who were most serviceable in the campaigns which they undertook. Gradually they became distinct from the agricultural peasantry, and by education and training came to look upon arms as their legitimate profession. ...
— Japan • David Murray
... at Llanfair became acquainted with the boy, and struck with his natural talents, determined that he should have all the benefit which education could bestow. He accordingly, at his own expense sent him to school at Beaumaris, where he displayed a remarkable aptitude for the acquisition of learning. He subsequently sent him to Jesus College, Oxford, and supported him there whilst studying for the church. Whilst at Jesus, Gronwy distinguished himself as a Greek and Latin scholar, and ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... offered impressive statistical support for some of Diggs's charges when it investigated the diverse and conflicting enlistment and assignment patterns of the different services. The Navy and Marine Corps came in for special criticism. Even when the complexities of mental aptitude requirements and use of draftees versus enlistees (p. 522) were discounted, the commission found that these two services consistently employed a significantly smaller percentage of Negroes than the Army and Air Force. A similar disparity existed in assignment procedures. The commission ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... What follows as a natural consequence? Men reconcile themselves to swindling. Though they themselves mean to be honest, dishonesty of itself is no longer odious to them. Then there comes the jealousy that others should be growing rich with the approval of all the world,—and the natural aptitude to do what all the world approves. It seems to me that the existence of a Melmotte is not compatible with a wholesome state of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... taken my last look at about nine o'clock, and had mentally resolved to go out before daybreak and repeat Coleridge's celebrated hymn; but I advise any one who has any such liturgic designs to execute them over night, for after a day of climbing one acquires an aptitude for sleep that interferes with early rising. When I left last evening its countenance was "filled with rosy light," and they tell us, that hours before it is daylight in the valley this mountain top breaks into ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... cease to love her; and she dreaded nothing now so much as losing his love, though she had no grounds for fearing it. But she could not help being grateful to him for his attitude to her, and showing that she appreciated it. He, who had in her opinion such a marked aptitude for a political career, in which he would have been certain to play a leading part—he had sacrificed his ambition for her sake, and never betrayed the slightest regret. He was more lovingly respectful to her than ever, and the constant care that she should not feel the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... of consideration the political achievements of the Scotch-Irish, it appears to me that the part played in politics by the Irish in America does not testify to any high political genius. They have shown there an extraordinary aptitude for political organisation, which, if it had been guided by anything approaching to political thought, would have placed them in a far higher position in American public life than that which they now occupy. But the fact is that it would be ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... all may advance as rapidly as their abilities permit, the recruits are grouped according to proficiency as instruction progresses. Those who lack aptitude and quickness are separated from the others and placed under experienced ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... nothing is settled yet," she at last responded; "the newspapers spoke out too soon. The Prime Minister sent for Sacco, and they had a talk together. But Sacco hesitates a good deal; he fears that he has no aptitude for the Department of Agriculture. Ah! if it were only the Finances—However, in any case, he would not have come to a decision without consulting you. What do you ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... separate the subtile from the gross, in the first operation, which is wholly internal, is to free our soul from all prejudice and all vice. This is effected by the use of the philosophical SALT, that is to say, of WISDOM; of MERCURY, that is to say, of personal aptitude and labor; and of SULPHUR, which represents the vital energy, and the ardor of the will. Thus we succeed in changing into spiritual gold such things even as are of least value, and even the foul things of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... months it is fit for the butcher; whilst the Merino, though supplied with excellent herbage, must be preserved for nearly four years before it is ready for the shambles. The crossing of good herds has resulted in the development of numerous varieties, all remarkable for their aptitude to fatten and to arrive early at maturity. The Leicester—itself supposed to be a cross—has greatly improved the Lincoln, and the Hampshire and Southdown have produced an excellent cross. Of course, each breed and cross has its admirers; indeed, ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... this subject, but what I see,' said Emily.—'Well, ma'am, but you shall see it, if you will only step this way to the casement.'—Emily could not forbear laughing, and Annette looked surprised. Perceiving her extreme aptitude to credit the marvellous, Emily forbore to mention the subject she had intended, lest it should overcome her with idle terrors, and she began to speak on a lively topic—the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Jacqueline's, her pleasure in them was a rather piteous thing to see. As her strength rapidly returned, under the influence of care and good feeding, she became absorbed in the task of altering these treasures to fit herself. For this she showed such aptitude and taste that Jemima spoke to her ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... in great numbers of persons, both old and young, what may be called the natural aptitude of healing. They are kept back from trying to help because it is regarded as so dangerous a thing to go near fever, and also to interfere where only professional skill is legally allowed. To apply such a remedy as that which we have here sketched for gastric fever ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... have not less mental aptitude, but no one, I am sure, would like to assert that it is safe to subject girls to as much intellectual pressure as may be safely applied to boys. One teacher of both boys and girls confirmed my own observation, that there is often some clog in the development ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... lingering hope for her husband. He had a good voice. At college it was considered remarkable,—a clear, high tenor. He had done little with his gift except make social capital out of it. And he had some aptitude for acting. He had been a four years' star in the college operas. If the judge had not belonged to the settled classes, Larry might have adorned a "Broadway show." Instead, through his father's influence, he had attempted finance—and remained an amateur, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Tom's immediate danger was over, and he was so far pronounced safe as to make his mother perfectly easy; for being now used to the sight of him in his suffering, helpless state, and hearing only the best, and never thinking beyond what she heard, with no disposition for alarm and no aptitude at a hint, Lady Bertram was the happiest subject in the world for a little medical imposition. The fever was subdued; the fever had been his complaint; of course he would soon be well again. Lady Bertram could think nothing less, and Fanny shared her aunt's security, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... He brought two other boys last time. They all told me to stick to it, and seemed much amused—probably at the stupidity of those porters. But really, Mr. Punch, Willesden Junction ought to be simplified. It may be all very well for me, with a phrenological aptitude for this sort of thing; but these different levels, platforms, and stairs must be very puzzling to less gifted people, such as the green ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... read eagerly and thoroughly such few books as came in his way. Later, his taste for reading seemed to grow less. He had a keen instinct for reality, and perhaps he found little in books that satisfied him. For poetry and philosophy he had small aptitude, and in science he had no training. What books he read he seemed to digest and get the pith of. Once, made suddenly conscious by defeat of his lack of book-culture, he took up Euclid's geometry, and ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... mind cast a hue of melancholy over the pleasure the young Venetian felt in his mistress' presence. A woman's instinct has amazing aptitude for harmony of feeling; it assumes the hue, it vibrates to the note suggested by her lover. The pungent flavor of coquettish spice is far indeed from spurring affection so much as this gentle sympathy of tenderness. The smartness of a coquette too clearly marks opposition; however ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... who even wish to discover truth. In how many societies the problems of philology which face every person who speaks English are left unattempted! And if the inquiring or the successfully inquiring class of minds is small, much smaller, of course, is the class of those possessing the scientific aptitude in an eminent degree. During the last age this most distinguished class was to a very great extent absorbed in the study of phenomena, a study which had fallen into arrears. For we stood possessed, in rudiment, of means of observation, means for ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... that there is a tendency, a probability, greater or less according to circumstances, but always considerable, that the descendants of cultivated parents will have, by born nervous organisation, a greater aptitude for cultivation than the descendants of such as are not cultivated; and that this tendency augments, in some enhanced ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... intellectual than the mediaeval page. Henry Peacham, in 1623, described noblemen's flagging faith in a university education. They sent their sons to Oxford or Cambridge at an early age, and if the striplings did not immediately lay hold on philosophy, declared that they had no aptitude for learning, and removed them to a dancing school. "These young things," as he calls the Oxford students "of twelve, thirteene, or foureteene, that have no more care than to expect the next Carrier, ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... first place Beethoven was not a pure-blooded German, but partly Flemish on his father's side. His paternal grandfather, Ludwig van[133] Beethoven, was a man of strong character and of a certain musical aptitude, who had migrated from the neighborhood of Antwerp to Bonn where he served as court musician to the Elector of Cologne. The paternal grandmother early developed a passion for drink and ended her days confined in a convent. The son of this couple, Johann (the father of the composer) was a tenor ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... marks in one way the culmination of Horace's powers. The brilliance of the first years of the Empire stimulated the social aptitude and dramatic perception of a poet who lived in the heart of Rome, already free from fear or ambition, but as yet untouched by the melancholy temper which grew on him in later years. He employs the semi-dramatic form of ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... Mexican Indian as destitute of all imagination, though when to a certain degree educated, he attributes to him facility in learning, a clearness of understanding, a natural turn for reasoning, and a particular aptitude to subtilize and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... of their blood in the province. If such there are, they may perhaps be found in some of the tribes on both sides of the Salt Range, such as Gakkhars, Janjuas, Awans Tiwanas, Ghebas, and Johdras, who are fine horsemen and expert tent-peggers, not "tall heavy men without any natural aptitude for horsemanship," as Sir Herbert Risley described his typical Panjabi ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the passion and the tragedies of life and ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... so consistent with his dress; he gives his genius a darkling swagger, and a romantic envelope, which, being removed, you find, not a bravo, but a kind chirping soul; not a moody poet avoiding mankind for the better company of his own great thoughts, but a jolly little chap who has an aptitude for painting brocade gowns, a bit of armour (with figures inside them), or trees and cattle, or gondolas and buildings, or what not; an instinct for the picturesque, which exhibits itself in his works, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... criticism, until Padre Camorra, not to be outdone, ventured to ask for at least thirty legs for each doll, because, if the others wanted noses, couldn't he require feet? So they fell to discussing whether the Indian had or had not any aptitude for sculpture, and whether it would be advisable to encourage that art, until there arose a general dispute, which was cut short by Don Custodio's declaration that the Indians had the aptitude, but that ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... time nor at any other. I am quite certain that never in my life have I gone forth conquering and to conquer in affairs of the heart. You need to be a Casanova—which Harkness was in his little way—and I have had no aptitude for the part. But as I said just now I absorbed his teachings and made use of them. So far as he gave me food for reflection I ate it, and assimilated it in my own manner. Neither by him nor by any person far more considerable than himself has my imagination been ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... fancied, because of her natural aptitude for taking care of sick people, that she might get to be a trained nurse. But she was obliged to abandon that idea, for she found that only young people were wanted. She also thought that some charitable organization might employ her, but she did not understand ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... arctic exploration as early as 1886 and discovered he had an aptitude for its grueling demands on several minor expeditions to Greenland and the arctic ice cap. In 1893 he became determined to reach the North Pole, and he spent the next 15 years in unsuccessful attempts to achieve his ambition. In 1908 Peary left ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... Law. They are quick in seizing the secret of a successful trade of paying manufacture, and not rarely better the instruction; a skill for which they are hated and despised by their own aristocracy in the markets, and branded as spoilers of every good thing as soon as it appears. If this aptitude and eagerness for trade be a fault, the Christians have themselves to blame for it. Even a superficial glance at the history of Israel proves that as long as the people lived on their native soil, and could live out their own lives, they showed ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... a few days than another in a month, while some can solve with ease a mathematical problem that others could never grasp. So it is here. Perhaps I was in a favourable frame of mind on dying, for the so-called supernatural always interested me on earth, or I had a natural aptitude for these things; for soon after death I was able to affect the senses of the ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... movements which agitated the country. The new Government, on entering on its delicate functions, has been impressed with the want of your Excellency to give preponderance to this maritime state, by the imposing aptitude of your Excellency's measures and extraordinary renown, so highly prized by the Chilenos, and ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... measure of the advances made in farming during the two hundred years elapsed since Cato's time; but those advances were not great. There was advance in power to systematize facts, advance in literary aptitude, but no very noticeable gain in methods of culture. Columella gives the results of wider observation, and of more persistent study; but, for aught I can see, a man could get a crop of lentils as well with Cato as with Columbia; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... character, and it is this which is transmitted from generation to generation. Acquirements are not hereditary, like habits and peculiarities, physical or mental. A man does not transmit to his descendants his learning, though he may transmit the aptitude for it. This is illustrated in factories where skilled labor is handed down and fixed in the same families, that is, where the same kind of labor is continued from one generation to another. The child, put to work, has not the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... immediately told him that he must seize the spark of sympathy in its flight. It could not be stopped, but it might be turned to his own purpose. It would not suffice for him now that he should simply defend the question he had asked. The court was showing its aptitude for pathos, and he also must be pathetic on his own side. He knew well enough that he could not arrest public opinion which was going against him, by shewing that his question was a proper question; but he might do ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... that natural aptitude for facing facts, for looking at life steadily and fearlessly, which had been born in a recoil from the sentimental habit of mind, she said quietly, "John, Alice Rokeby came to see ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... scientific talk which had in truth nothing to do with the event, but was always applied to it in Columbus's writings from this date onwards; and going on to describe the voyage, the sea of weeds, the landfall, his intercourse with the natives, their aptitude for labour and Christianity, and the hopes he has of their early conversion to the Catholic Church. And then follows a long description of the wonderful climate, "like May in Andalusia," the noble rivers, and gorgeous scenery, the trees ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... the inhabitants of modern Greece, deteriorated and debased as they are by political servitude, many of those qualities which distinguished their predecessors: the same natural acuteness—the same sensibility to pleasure—the same pliancy of mind and elasticity of body—the same aptitude for the arts of imitation—and the same striking physiognomy. That bright, serene sky—that happy combination of land and water, constituting the perfection of the picturesque, and that balmy softness of its ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... by the extraordinary scientific acumen they displayed, as well as by their adaptability to the forces of nature. Then, the money!—the immense sums which this strange creature, Morgana Royal, had entrusted to him!—and with it all, the keen, business aptitude she had displayed, knowing to a centime how much she had spent, though there seemed no limit to how much she yet intended to spend! He looked back to the time he had first seen her, when on visiting Sicily apparently as an American tourist only, she had taken a fancy to a ruined "palazzo" ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... parents were Nonconformists, and he was educated at a "commercial" school at Edmonton, where the teaching did not aim at much beyond writing and accounts, all that was supposed, at that time, to be needful for a young tradesman. The chief point remembered of his childhood was an aptitude and handiness which caused all little breakages to be kept for John to repair,—a small quality, but one of no small importance in the life of a missionary, who often finds ready resource essential to ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... healthy normalities of school than it would have been had he stayed eating his own thoughts at Cloom, when religion either falls away entirely from a boy or flares up into a sudden vitality. Ishmael's blood ran with too much of inherited aptitude for prayer for the former pitfall to ensnare him, but the latter yawned beside him now and he thrilled to its attractions. Sliding his stout, shiny shoe back and forth with the stiff attempt at elegance so deprecated by Mr. Eliot, he asked himself whether the Lord could ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... an ardent politician (Joseph Cowen received his earliest impressions from him—and never forgot his indebtedness), but the able historian of Northumberland, Durham, and of Newcastle itself, a town in which he spent his life and his energies. If I possess any hereditary aptitude for journalism, it is to him I owe it; whilst to my mother, who at a time when miniature painting was fashionable, cultivated the natural artistic taste with much success, I am directly indebted for such artistic faculties as are innate ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... American naturalist, with whom he became intimately acquainted; he also formed the friendship of Alexander Lawson, an emigrant engraver, who initiated him in the art of etching, colouring, and engraving. Discovering an aptitude in the accurate delineation of birds, he was led to the study of ornithology; with which he became so much interested, that he projected a work descriptive, with drawings, of all the birds of the Middle States, and even of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... junior examiner - will tell you!" and with that, little Mr. Bouncer nudged Mr. Verdant Green, who took his cue with astonishing aptitude, and glared through his glasses at the trembling Mr. Pucker, who stood blushing, and bowing, and heartily repenting that his school-boy vanity had led him to invest four-and-sixpence in "100 cards, and plate, engraved with name ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... outcome of his stay. She returned with a small penny account-book, a bottle of ink and an execrable pen, wrote Lewisham's name on the cover of this, and a receipt for eighteen shillings on the first page. She was evidently a person of considerable business aptitude. Lewisham paid, and the transaction terminated. "Szhure to be gomfortable," followed him ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... his heart the Doctor was disappointed with the ill-success of his more formal education. A boy, chosen by so acute an observer for his aptitude, and guided along the path of learning by so philosophic an instructor, was bound, by the nature of the universe, to make a more obvious and lasting advance. Now Jean-Marie was slow in all things, impenetrable in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their uncouth and imperfect ways. Their extraordinarily complex method of governing themselves, and their intricate political machinery would be very distressing to us, and are calculated to make one think that a keen pleasure in governing or in being overgoverned—not a special aptitude or genius for governing—must have been very common among them. From the alarming blunders made in directing public affairs, and from the manner in which beneficial measures were opposed by the party out of office, it appears quite certain that the instincts of true statesmanship ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... marvel of the passage—viz., the abiding "Englishness" of it, the native ring of it in our ears after five centuries of linguistic and metrical development. To whom, besides Chaucer himself, do we owe this? For while Chaucer has remained substantially the same, apparently we have an aptitude that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers had not. The answer surely is: We owe it to our nineteenth century poets, and particularly to Tennyson, Swinburne, and William Morris. Years ago Mr. R.H. Horne said most acutely that the principle of Chaucer's rhythm is "inseparable from a full and fair ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... perpetual pre-eminence of the national navy—required an exception to be made. But for the maintenance of our maritime supremacy it was, as Burke had preached three-quarters of a century before, better to trust to the spirit of the people, to their attachment to their government, and to their innate aptitude for seamanship, which they seem to have inherited from the hardy rovers of the dark ages, and which no other nation shares with them in an equal degree. And if that may safely be trusted, as undoubtedly it may, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... much more graceful in her movement. And she could already assume a personal dignity of manner which had never been within her mother's reach. She had become aware of a certain brusqueness of speech in her mother, a certain aptitude to say sharp things without thinking whether the sharpness was becoming to the position which she held, and, taking advantage of the example, the girl had already learned that she might gain more than she would ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... home; any method, therefore, that can be taken at first to gratify them, should be adopted; for unless this can be done, you may be sure they will cry. Having proceeded thus far, we have then to class them according to their capacity and age, and according as they shew an aptitude in obeying your several commands. Those who obey them with the greatest readiness ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... entertained with lectures of surpassing excellence; but it was seldom that such readers could be found. It seems also that at an early period men became readers, not because they had any especial aptitude for offices of instruction, or because they had some especial fund of information—but simply because it was their turn to read. Routine placed them in the pulpit for a certain number of weeks; and when they had done all that routine required of them, and had thereby qualified themselves ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... chime now sounding from the stables. I have fed on bread and milk (a dreadfully opaque diet) and I await the morning Church in humble hope. It will begin in half an hour. We keep early hours in the country. So you will be able exactly to measure my aptitude and fullness for letter writing by the quantity written now, before I bolt off for hat, gloves, and prayerbook. I always put on my thickest great coat to go to our Church in: as fungi grow in great numbers about ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald |
