"Facility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ascertain, so far as may be compatible with professional rules, how far my clients are acquainted with documents alleged or imagined to be in existence, and how far their conduct might be guided by desire to afford every reasonable facility?" ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the discovery of the incipient causes of madness, by the facility it afforded us for the dissection and examination of the minutest portions of the ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... and hours of labour. Identical theories and demands, preferred simultaneously in Austria, Germany, France, England, and America, must be largely due to the force of example operating through the modern facility of communication. A universal movement in favour of shorter hours would seem best fitted to secure the amelioration of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... between the two women. After Mercedes had freely taught Saxon the loose-wristed facility of playing accompaniments on the ukulele, she proposed an exchange. Her time was past, she said, for such frivolities, and she offered the instrument for the breakfast cap of which Saxon had made ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... and the affair was hushed. I was obliged, however, to walk circumspectly, and saw my companion the prince very seldom, who was prowling about every day, quite unconcerned about his safety. He was every day a new man, however, and needed not to be alarmed at any danger; for such a facility had he in disguising himself that, if it had not been for a password which we had between us, for the purposes of recognition, I never could have known ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... ample justice to the gallantry of the Patriarch Jacob. He offers to serve Laban, seven years for Rachel. "Nothing is too much," cries the venerable novelist, "when one really loves;" and this admirable observation he confirms by the facility with which the obliging Rachel allows Leah for one night to her husband! In this manner the patriarchs are made to speak in the tone of the tenderest lovers; Judith is a Parisian coquette, Holofernes is rude as a German baron; and their dialogues ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... no one was more clearly aware than Coombe himself, and the finished facility—even felicity—of his evasion of any attempt at delicately valued cross examination was felt to ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and inexplicable experiments relative to the strength of the human frame, which you have yourself seen and admired, is that in which a heavy man is raised with the greatest facility, when he is lifted up the instant that his own lungs and those of the persons who raise him are inflated with air. This experiment was, I believe, first shown in England a few years ago by Major H., ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... apparent manoeuvring, to see more of De Vayne at various men's rooms, and he generally made a point of sitting next to him when he could. He had naturally a most insinuating address and a suppleness of manner which enabled him to adapt himself with facility to the tastes and temperaments of the men among whom he was thrown. There were few who could make themselves more pleasant and plausible when it ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... regard to Venetian matters. That painting in oil was known long prior to Van Eyck, no one who has read the documents upon the subject can for a moment doubt; but it was, in the common way, so inferior in brilliancy, and probably in facility of use to other methods, that it ceased to be in use. It seems pretty clear that this "perfect method" came from Flanders, first to Naples, then to Venice; and probably by means of Antonello da Messina, (however some dates may disagree, or it may be possible there were two of that name ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... more thoroughly to test her skill several of them bought stacks of chips and began to play in earnest; they played their bets open, they coppered, they split, they strung them, and at the finish they called the turn. Rouletta paid and took; she measured stacks of counters with unerring facility, she overlooked no bets. She ran out the cards, upset the box, and began ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... functions of destruction, on the other hand, as an affirmative or constructive work, the long treatise of Van Dale is most unsatisfactory. It leaves us with a hollow sound ringing in the ear, of malicious laughter from gnomes and imps grinning over the weaknesses of man—his paralytic facility in believing—his fraudulent villany in abusing this facility—but in no point accounting for those real effects of diffusive social benefits from the Oracle machinery, which must arrest the attention of candid students, amidst some opposite ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Siegfried, impatient to go on, smashes the Spear and ascends the path to where we see the distant glow of the flames. The music is supremely noble and touching, with just a hint here and there of over-facility: I mean chiefly that the vocal phrases are not tense and full of character as are those in the Valkyrie: they seem to have been put in to fit the orchestral web. In an earlier chapter I spoke of this weakness in the Ring; and from this point onward ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... for The Churchman, afterwards gathered in a charming volume called "The Knighting of the Twins, and Ten Other Tales" (1891). Previous to this, he had attempted "A Wave of Life"—a novel whose chief value is autobiographic. Then he showed his clever facility at dialogue in a collection of "Six Conversations and Some Correspondence;" also in "The Smart Set." But, after the success of "Brummell," followed by "Frederic Lemaitre" (December 1, 1890) for Henry Miller, a dramatic season hardly passed that Fitch was ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... an excellent judge of position; and not only knew, but could point out the localities of the whole country through which he passed. His facility of communicating the information he had acquired, was thus displayed before a concourse of spectators. Previously to general Brock's crossing over to Detroit, he asked him what sort of a country he should have to pass through, in case of ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... to the various humours of the successive pontiffs, the papal capital drew within its walls eminent scholars from all the states of the Italian peninsula. Rome was the world-city, a centre from which radiated honours, distinctions, and fortune. Gifts of oratory, facility in debate, ability in the conduct of diplomatic negotiations, a masterly style in Latin composition, and even perfection in penmanship, were all marketable accomplishments, for which Rome was the highest bidder. If classical learning and the graces of literature received but intermittent ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... was that of a poet. He called himself a practical poet, because he made a regular business of it, turning his poetic inspirations into salable verse with the facility and success, as he himself expressed it, of a man who makes boxes out of wood. Moreover, he sold these poems as readily as any carpenter sold his boxes. Like himself, Claude Locker's poems were always short, always in request, and ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... and screamed: "Ha! ha! methinks I hear our German-Italians or our Italian-Germans struggling with an aria from Pucitta, [Footnote: Vincenzo Pucitta (1778-1861) was an Italian opera composer, whose music "shows great facility, but no invention." He also wrote several songs.] or Portogallo, [Footnote: Il Portogallo was the Italian sobriquet of a Portuguese musician named Mark Anthony Simao (1763-1829). He lived alternately in Italy and Portugal, and wrote several operas.] ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... any tiling that might defeat the plans and obscure the glory of Columbus; and it may be added that he always showed himself more disposed to patronize mercenary adventurers than upright and high-minded men. He granted Ojeda every facility; furnishing him with copies of the papers and charts of Columbus, by which to direct himself in his course, and a letter of license signed with his own name, though not with that of the sovereigns. In this, it was stipulated that he should not touch at any land belonging to ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... French had, as early as the end of September, expressed the wish to see his army resume its initial place on the left of the allied armies. He explained this wish on the ground of the greater facility of which his communications would have the advantage in this new position, and also of the impending arrival of two divisions of infantry from home and of two infantry divisions and a cavalry division from India, which would be able to deploy more easily ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... one hears more, than of the readiness and facility with which an Italian learns a new art or a new trade, adapts himself to the use of new tools, and acquires a dexterity in the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... instance, no one would dare to assume personal responsibility for the debts of a railroad, nor could such an enterprise be managed if every transfer of interest dissolved the company. The desired limitation of responsibility and facility of transfer of interest are secured ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... many of us have learnt from experience that the fair sex, with all its charm, is not always averse to "broder" the simple truth, especially when a prospect of scandal is concerned. Bath, we may feel sure, would have offered in those days every facility of this nature, if required; and it may be fairly assumed that the mise-en-scene for this print was the same as that of the "Long Minuet." From "Dear me! You don't say so!" we proceed through the stages of "Heigh ho!" "O fye!" "Indeed!" "There now!" to that lively dandy who ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... Mis' Molly would have preferred; but any deficiency in this regard, or in the matter of the stranger's features, which, while not unpleasing, leaned toward the broad mulatto type, was more than compensated in her eyes by very straight black hair, and, as soon appeared, a great facility of complimentary speech. On his introduction Mr. Wain bowed low, assumed an air of great admiration, and expressed his extreme delight in making the acquaintance ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... facility of the whole chest is the measure of the health, strength, grace and normal actions of a human being. It is of ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... extending into the temples, where the front and middle lobes unite. "A great diameter in this direction," he says, "is always a favorable augury for the memory of words. I have seen persons who with an ordinary conformation of the eyes yet learned by heart with great facility. But in these cases the diameter from one temple to the other is ordinarily very considerable, and sometimes even the inferior part of the temples is projecting, which attests a great development of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... does the Utopian child, with his eyes always fixed on desirable ends, find a pleasure in doing things which other children are wont to regard as drudgery, but he has the further advantage of being able to master with comparative facility what other children find difficult as well as distasteful. From first to last, the training given in Utopia makes, as we have seen, for the development of faculty. In my last chapter I set forth in detail some of the ways and means by which Egeria tries to cultivate the expansive instincts of her ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... libretto with as great a perfection as the music to Don Giovanni, which had a good one. The same inspiration was there, always apt to the occasion. Swinburne is ready to write in any known form of verse, with an equal facility and (this is the all-important point) the same inspiration. Loving the form of the drama, and capable of turning it to his uses, not of bending it to its own, he has filled play after play with music, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Hodgson's literary facility was extraordinary. He rhymed with an ease which almost rivals that of Byron, and from 1807 to 1818 he poured out quantities of verse, English and Latin, original and translated, besides writing articles for the 'Quarterly', ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Cremorne: she talked with me while she finished her letter, and then read it to me, exactly as in old times. She writes with admirable facility, and peculiar elegance of expression, as ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Verner, had by this time sufficiently mastered the art of penmanship to enter the events of the day in my journal with facility, which I seldom failed to do. My notes are, however, far too numerous to be copied. I therefore write out only such as I deem most likely to ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... became settled that the policy of the central Government was to take possession of the border states by force, the people of Virginia decided that the battle was to be fought on her soil. Her nearness to Washington, the facility of land communication, and the availability of her waterways for transportation purposes, all pointed to this; and the southern Government also became aware that the Potomac boundary of the Confederacy was the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... run of great popularity. There was an excellent dark room, with every facility for developing and washing, and this term the members had subscribed for an enlarging apparatus, with which they hoped to do great things. As well as these recognized school pursuits, the girls had all kinds of minor waves of ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... receive Christianity with more facility when they saw the rites and ceremonies to which they were accustomed adopted in the church. So the religion of the Christians was made to conform very nearly to that of the Pagans in ...
— Water Baptism • James H. Moon
... hollies in clothing the streets with shadow. Several citizens, as Mr. Richard Wright and Mr. Thomas C. Hand, whose handsome cottages are tasteful specimens of our seaside architecture, have been tempted by this facility of vegetable life at Atlantic City to lay out elaborate gardens, which with suitable culture are successful. Fine avenues of the best construction lead off to Shell Beach or to the single hill boasted by the locality. Finally, remembering the claims of the great democracy to a wash-basin, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... earth understood him. The consequence was that he was forthwith enrolled in her train. It soothed him to be near a woman. Did she venture her guess as to the cause of his conduct, she blotted it out with a facility women have, and cast on it a melancholy hue he was taught to participate in. She spoke of sorrows, personal sorrows, much as he might speak of his—vaguely, and with self-blame. And she understood him. How the dark unfathomed wealth within us gleams to a woman's eye! We are at compound interest ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to try making him work, to see if he would, or was accustomed to it. He was sufficiently accustomed to it that he could do whatever she suggested with facility that indicated practice, and there was no question of his willingness. He urged her to make suggestions as to what else he could do, after he had made all the needed repairs about the house and premises. Kate was enjoying herself immensely, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... honorable Mr.——- in a day or two again. In the mean while, I am staying, incognita, at the house of our friend, Mr. Blocque, who has afforded me every facility in return for the safeguard I brought him, to protect his property when we occupy Richmond. The city is in a terrible state. Mr. Blocque has just come in, and informs me that he has been garroted near the capitol, and robbed of ten thousand dollars in ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... take a wrong direction, when they conflict with the welfare of the community. When these energies, these human impulses to act, are right, when they aim at useful results, then they must have every facility, every possible channel opened to their outflow. And the very first and most essential condition of this free outflow of life among multitudes is, that there be order among them—that there be some system, some methodical arrangement ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... never been fairly tried. For, owing to his prodigious superiority in weight, strength, and skill, his victories had always been certain and easy; and in proportion to the facility with which he uniformly smashed an antagonist, his pugnacity and insolence were inflamed. He thus became an odious nuisance in the neighbourhood, and the terror of every mother who had a son, and ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Greene and his compeers; but the attacks which Nash directed against the Puritans and his rivals were the first English works which shook utterly off the pedantry and extravagance of Euphuism. In his lightness, his facility, his vivacity, his directness of speech, we have the beginning of popular literature. It had descended from the closet to the street, and the very change implied that the street was ready to receive it. ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... stoutly opposed the legend of "medium-size game." The dachshunds may look like bologna sausages on legs, ran the gist of her argument; and they may progress like rather lively measuring worms; and the usefulness of their structure may seem to limit itself to a facility for getting under furniture without stooping, but—Mrs. Kitty's eloquence always ended by convincing herself, and she became very serious—but that is not the dogs' fault. Rather it is the fault of ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... portrait of RUBENS is of great life and beauty, and Rembrandt, who was not less masterly in engraving than in painting, as appears sufficiently in his portraits of the BURGOMASTER SIX, the two COPPENOLS, the ADVOCATE TOLLING, the goldsmith LUTMA, all showing singular facility and originality. Contemporary with Rembrandt was Cornelis Visscher, also designer and engraver, whose portraits were unsurpassed in boldness and picturesque effect. At least one authority has accorded to this artist ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... business to understand the quippus, keep in memory the historical poems, give attention to the science and practice of medicine, and train their pupils in knowledge. These were not priests; they were the "learned men" of Peru, and the government allowed them every facility for study and for communicating instruction. How much they knew of astronomy it is not easy to say. They had knowledge of some of the planets, and it is claimed that there is some reason to believe they used aids to eyesight in studying the heavens, such as some ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... to which girls take almost as naturally as to dancing is that of rowing, an accomplishment thoroughly feminine, learned with great facility, and on the whole safer than most other sports. Yet until within a few years no one thought of it in connection with women, unless with semi-mythical beings, like Ellen Douglas or Grace Darling. Even now it is chiefly a city accomplishment, and you rarely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... African residing in Virginia, did not know how to read or write, but had great facility in arithmetical calculations. He was once asked, how many seconds has an individual lived when he is seventy years, seven months, and seven days old? In a minute and a half he answered the question. One of the company took a pen, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... augment the Army at once, and by at least thirty thousand men. Considerations of home policy make this also advisable; the country is eager for War at this moment, and ready to grant men and money. It will be a great facility hereafter to have obtained what is most needed at first. If the force should finally not be wanted, retrenchments may very easily be made. The Crown should at least have the power of raising the men without the necessity for further application ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Holmes's favorite measure, in his longer poems, is the heroic couplet which Pope's example seems to have consecrated forever to satiric and didactic verse. He writes as easily in this {490} meter as if it were prose, and with much of Pope's epigrammatic neatness. He also manages with facility the anapaestics of Moore and the ballad stanza which Hood had made the vehicle for his drolleries. It cannot be expected that verses manufactured to pop with the corks and fizz with the champagne at academic banquets should much outlive the occasion; or that the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... he said, "just tell the Office of Works that it is the Prime Minister's wish that I should have every facility, and as to staff, look at these." As he spoke he touched a bundle of papers which lay on the table. "You have ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... bear confinement, that they have been known to live ten years in captivity, continuing in song the greater part of each year. This tendency to sing and call make them valuable as brace-birds, decoy-birds, and call-birds, to be used by the birdcatcher with his ground nets, while the facility with which others are captured, the numbers to be obtained, and the constant demand for them by the public, render the goldfinch one of the most important species ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... apparent to Judge Custis, from this and other silent things, that a light-hearted, affectionate, strong, yet womanly, engine of energy constituted the young Delaware lawyer-politician. Keen, cunning, impulsive, hopeful, his feet provincial, his head among the birds, he combined facility and earnestness in almost mercurial relations to each other, and the Judge saw that these must ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... their leaving Salamanca before they arrived at Cadiz. Terence had, during the journey, greatly improved his knowledge of Spanish by his conversation with the muleteers and, as the language was so similar to the Portuguese, he soon acquired facility in speaking it. They put up at a small fonda, or inn, frequented by muleteers; and Terence at once made his way to the house where he heard that the British agent resided. The latter, on hearing his story, ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... 2. Facility and certainty of action when submerged. 3. Speed when running on the surface. 4. Speed when submerged. 5. Endurance, both submerged and on the surface. 6. Stability. 7. Visibility of object to ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... scholars there. I attended the examination of the school to which he was attached," said Mrs. Bird, "and I was very much surprised at the acquirements of the pupils; this lad was distinguished above all the rest—he answered questions that would have puzzled older heads, with the greatest facility. I am exceedingly anxious to get him admitted to the academy, as I am confident he will do honour to the interest I ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... congenial,—popular impression to the contrary notwithstanding. Minds of a feather flock together; but minds of gold are apt to remain apart, each sufficient unto itself. It is in sports, pastimes, business, politics, that men congregate with facility; in literary and intellectual pursuits the leaders are anti-pathetic in proportion to their true greatness. Now and then two, and more rarely three, are united by bonds of quick understanding and sympathy, but men of profound convictions ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... retained his instructions, and converse with wonderful facility on the characteristics and customs ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... invalid, Alfred brushing, picking and pinching the white and greenish bumps from face and night-shirt, indulging in language not proper even on a Texas ranch, he slowly worked his way to the watering trough (the only bathing facility), followed by the invalid, who was parting his whiskers to free them from the hidden lumps, meanwhile endeavoring to console Alfred: "Never mindt, Alfred. Never mindt. Your shirt vill vash all right, und my viskers, too," parting his whiskers and dumping ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... fullfill then as kill those birds, that thought not of such a thunder bolt. There are yett more countreys as fruitfull and as beautifull as the Spaniards to conquer, which may be done with as much ease & facility, and prove as rich, if not richer, for bread & wine; and all other things are as plentifull as in any part of Europ. This I have seene, which am sure the Spaniards have not in such plenty. Now I come backe with my victory, which was to us more then tenne thousand pistoles. We lived by it 5 ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... especially as the shore was covered with pebbles and large stones; yet, in the midst of these breakers, were ten or twelve Indians swimming for their amusement: Whenever a surf broke near them, they dived under it, and, to all appearance with infinite facility, rose again on the other side. This diversion was greatly improved by the stern of an old canoe, which they happened to find upon the spot; they took this before them, and swam out with it as far as the outermost breach, then two or three of them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the destruction of their religion. From the outbreak at Vellore in 1806, on to the great mutiny of 1857, this charge was persistently made. The Sepoys were allowed all the religious liberty compatible with military obedience; they had every facility for following their religious customs; they were fenced off from Christian influences as no other part of the community was; they were solemnly assured again and again their religion would be scrupulously ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... they confess that they understand the queer utterings of this newest claimant for the palm of musical eccentricity. With Debussy, Strauss and others it is different, for the skilled musician at once recognizes an astonishing facility to produce effects altogether new and often wonderfully fascinating. With Reger one seems to be impressed with tremendous effort and little result. Strauss, however, is really a very great master; so great that it is difficult to get the proper perspective ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... the facility of humanity, at times. Moreover, we do not know all the circumstances yet. But let us examine the facts we have discovered. We believe that the girl visited her father's house on the night of his death, and has since disappeared. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... attached like them to Government in this Colony at present but it will ever be maintained by such a regular military force as this established in it that will constantly reunite itself with the utmost facility and consequently may be always maintained upon the most ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... at the watering-place. Dick accordingly piloted his morose companion to the spot, and pointed out how excellently it was adapted to the purpose of watering ships, drawing his attention to the deep-water immediately beneath the low cascade, and dilating upon the facility with which boats could be brought alongside. But it was clearly apparent to him that Turnbull was absolutely uninterested in the subject; and he was by no means sorry when, upon the return to the camp, the latter declined his invitation to remain on shore to dinner, and curtly requested ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... there to converse in tongues and then giving way to others through failures of persistence—whether in pupils or preceptors I know not. There hovers even Count Adam Gurowski, Polish, patriotic, exiled, temporarily famous, with the vision of his being invoked for facility and then relinquished for difficulty; though I scarce guess on which of his battle-grounds—he was so polyglot that he even had a rich command of ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... In slow movements he played with a breadth and beauty of tone, and a delicacy and refinement of expression almost unequalled. His hands were of exceptional size and strength, and enabled him to execute the most difficult double stops and stretches with the greatest facility. Even in quick passages he preserved a broad, full tone, and his staccato was brilliant and effective. He disliked the use of the "springing bow," which came with the modern ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... remedied, as it was impossible, except in the case of intentional fraud, to go behind parliamentary titles.[44] In cases in which the land was let at low rents, and in cases where tenants held under leases which would soon expire, the facility of raising the rents was constantly specified by the authority of the Court ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... gracious, and affable, discussing with politicians, jurists, financiers, economic and sociological questions with a brilliancy and insight that fairly astonished them. With literary men and musicians, she chatted intelligently of the latest novels and pictures and operas with the facility and expertness of a connoisseur. Other men, drawn by her exceptional beauty, fascinated by the spell of her soulful eyes, her tall graceful figure, and delicate classic face, framed in Grecian head dress, ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... jealousies of its inhabitants, their hereditary barbarism, obstinate ferocity, and above all, an uncongenial climate. To surmount these difficulties, commerce is the most certain medium to inspire its Chiefs and Natives with confidence, and to obtain a facility of intercourse with the Interior country. Sanctioned by that pursuit, I have been favoured with information from a large circle of Native Chiefs, and Tribes, relative to their customs, their habits, localities, predilections, and the existing state ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... been touched—yea, and possessed—with an extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which the philosophers call intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution: and I have often thought that of all the persons living that I have known, your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man by Nature knoweth all things, and ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... thirty leagues to the east-south-east, and where, they said, the people gathered gold out of the sand with candles at night, and afterwards made bars of it with a hammer. They told him this by signs; and we have only one more instance of the Admiral's facility in interpreting signs in favour of his own beliefs. It is only a few days later that in the same Journal he says, "The people of these lands do not understand me, nor do I nor any other person I have with me understand them; and these Indians ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... even to us to see the extreme facility with which an arrow can interrupt the essential physiological processes of life and destroy it. We have come to the belief that no beast is too tough or too large to be slain by an arrow. With especially constructed heads sharpened to the utmost nicety, I have shot through a double thickness ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... extent to which savings banks have been used, even by the humblest classes, proves that he was as much mistaken in this as he was in many of the views which he maintained. There are thousands of persons who would probably never have thought of laying by a penny, but for the facility of the savings bank: it would have seemed so useless to try. The small hoard in the cupboard was too ready at hand, and would have become dissipated before it accumulated to any amount; but no sooner was a place of deposit provided, where ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... food, has risen greatly with the introduction of steam-vessels. When I arrived in 1850, a middle-sized one could be bought pretty readily for ninepence, but when I left in 1859, they were with difficulty obtained at eight and nine shillings each. The abundance of turtles, or rather the facility with which they can be found and caught, varies with the amount of annual subsidence of the waters. When the river sinks less than the average, they are scarce; but when more, they can be caught in plenty, the bays and shallow lagoons in the forest ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... unsystematic way—ought, one would say, to be very systematically considered and dealt with by the modern States. For a nation to plant out large bodies of colonists on comparatively unoccupied lands, as in Africa or Australia or Canada, in a deliberate and organized fashion, with every facility towards co-operation and success, and yet on the principle of leaving, each colonial unit plenty of freedom and autonomy, would not be a very difficult task, nor a very expensive one, considering the end in view. And in such a case there would really be no adequate reason for ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... loves mystery. She wants a dark retreat, hidden from the eye. I would like, nevertheless, to watch her in the privacy of her home and to witness her work with the same facility as if she were nest-building in the open air. Perhaps there are some interesting characteristics to be picked up in the depths of her retreats. It remains to be seen whether my wish ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... short, he is what the world calls a good father; that is, he wants to spoil his children, and, in order to do this easily, he thinks fit to retain his present instructor, who is not very learned, but who takes part in their games and joyous sports with wonderful facility, who points out the letters of the alphabet to the little girl, who takes the little boys to mass, and who, no less obliging than the worthy Abbe P. of our acquaintance, would readily dance for Madame's amusement. Such a profession would not suit you, you who ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... her room, she saw again the look of her lover, that cruel and dolorous look. She knew with what facility he fell into despair, the promptness of his will not to will. She had seen him run away thus on the shore of the Arno. Happy then in her sadness and in her anguish, she could run after him and say, "Come." Now, again surrounded, watched, she should have ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... many such discussions, some ending well, others ill. But I never yet witnessed one in which such arrangements were (as in this case) presented crudely, to be accepted or refused, without any previous discussion as to the mode of shaping them, or any facility offered, or even intimated, for softening down such difficulties as such proposals are always more or less ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... this plant a more valuable acquisition to the green-house, is its hardiness, its readiness to flower, and the facility with which it may ...
— The Botanical Magazine v 2 - or Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... let on leases for terms varying from twenty to thirty years, and in farms of sufficient size to employ at the least two or three ploughs. The unlimited issues of government paper and the security afforded by these leases induced the Scottish banks to afford every facility to landlords and tenants to embark capital in the improvement of the land. The substantial education supplied by the parish schools, of which nearly the whole population could then avail themselves, had diffused through all ranks such a measure of intelligence ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to say I'm going to sell Denby Hall. Messrs. Spooner and Smithson's people are coming in this afternoon. So give them every facility. Also tea, or beer, or whisky, or whatever they want. About what's going to happen to you and Mrs. Peddle, don't worry a bit. I'll look after that. You've been jolly good friends of mine all my life, and I'll see that everything's as right ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... more than the men, for they are instructed in the art of crying, that is, to have their tears ready on all occasions: but this is attained very easily by most. Some indeed arrive at the utmost perfection in this art with incredible facility. ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... anxious. desde since, after, from. desdicha misfortune. desear to desire. desembarcar to disembark. desembocar to empty, pour. desencajar to force from its place, socket, etc. desencanto disenchantment, disillusion. desenfado facility, boldness. desenganar to undeceive. desengano undeceiving, disillusion. desenojar to appease, placate. desenterrar to disinter. desentumecer to relieve of numbness or swelling. desenvolver to unfold. deseo ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... gladden his heart by looking on them. What else is the significance of statues and portraits produced by the various arts? You will scarcely maintain the paradox that what is worthy of admiration when produced by art is blameworthy when produced by nature; for nature has an even greater facility and truth than art. Long labour is expended over all the portraits wrought by the hand of man, yet they never attain to such truth as is revealed by a mirror. Clay is lacking in life, marble in colour, painting in solidity, and all three in motion, which is the most convincing element in a ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... think, little doubt that Chesterton is a far more important man than Shaw. He has the facility for getting hold of the things that matter; he is never ill-natured; he does not make fun of other people. Much as the writer admires the wit and brilliancy of Shaw, he cannot help feeling that ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... on slavery brought into Charleston from some of our sister States within the last four years (and once from Sierra Leone), and distributed amongst the colored population of the city, for which there was a great facility, in consequence of the unrestricted intercourse allowed to persons of color between the different States in the Union, and the speeches in Congress of those opposed to the admission of Missouri into the Union, perhaps garbled and misrepresented, furnished ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... expense of importing fresh immigrants. I am assured that the only expense to the colony is the fee for survey, amounting to eighteen dollars for a ten-acre allotment, as the Coolie prefers the thinly-wooded and comparatively poor lands, from the greater facility of clearing them; and these lands are quite unsaleable to other customers. Therefore, for less than 4 pounds, an acclimatised Indian labourer with his family (and it must be remembered that, while the Negro families increase very ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... a special facility offered her by a power external to herself in the circumstance that Mr. Swancourt had proposed to leave home the night previous to her wished-for day. Her father seldom took long journeys; seldom slept from home except perhaps on the night following a ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... and too broad a man not to know that, while by doing the same thing, or bearing the same thing, many times,—by experience, that is,—one acquires a facility not otherwise communicable, in a novel situation a man is abler to act, the more he has availed himself of the knowledge and the suggestions of others. Absorbed with the duties of his station, it was of the first importance that he should ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... spontaneous and luxuriant cultivation of all that captivates the fancy and enlivens the leisure. If there were something pedantic in their affectation of philosophy, it was so graced and vivified by a brilliancy of conversation, a charm of manner carried almost to a science, a womanly facility of softening all that comes within their circle, of suiting yet refining each complexity and discord of character admitted to their intercourse, that it had at least nothing masculine or harsh. Wisdom, taken lightly or easily, seemed but another shape ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... was in the best taste: viands excellent—wine superb; never did I sip racier Madeira, and the Champagne trickled down one's throat with the same facility that man ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... breaking into the house every night did not afford me the facility I wished. For I wanted to see Lady Alice during the day, or at least in the evening before she went to sleep; as otherwise I could not thoroughly judge of her condition. So I got Wood to pack up a small stock of provisions for me in his haversack, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... to examine the favourite amusement of later royalty, do we find that the interludes brought forward in the pauses of the banquets of Henry VIII. have a claim to any refinement upon those old miracle-plays. They have gained in facility and wit; they have lost in poetry. They have lost pathos too, and have gathered grossness. In the comedies which soon appear, there is far more of fun than of art; and although the historical play had existed for some time, and the ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... of them fit for the grand company to which his merits, unappreciated at home, had introduced him. He began to take private lessons in dancing and singing, and as he possessed a certain natural grace, invisible when he was out of humor, but always appearing when he wanted to please, and a certain facility of imitation as well, he was soon able to dance excellently, and sing with more or less dullness a few songs of the sort fashionable at the time. But he took so little delight in music or singing for its own sake that in any allusion to his sister's practicing ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... fervour of execution. He is the painter of great, blue rivers curving towards the horizon; of blossoming orchards; of bright hills with red-roofed hamlets scattered about; he is, beyond all, the painter of French skies which he presents with admirable vivacity and facility. He has the feeling for the transparency of atmosphere, and if his technique allies him directly with Impressionism, one can well feel, that he painted spontaneously and that this technique happened to be adapted to his nature, ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... Pliny and dabbling in chemistry, Shelley was not wholly neglectful of Etonian studies. He acquired a fluent, if not a correct, knowledge of both Greek and Latin, and astonished his contemporaries by the facility with which he produced verses in the latter language. His powers of memory were extraordinary, and the rapidity with which he read a book, taking in seven or eight lines at a glance, and seizing the sense upon the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... is all one to me," said the unhappy Mr. Hornblower, proceeding with fatal facility to make a bad matter worse. "They're all too kind of flashy. Now, my mother used to have a dress," he continued, meeting Persis' sympathetic gaze, "that suited me down to the ground. Satin, it was, or maybe 'twas silk or velvet. Anyhow, it looked rich. And ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... who speaks with such facility and who is always in good humor could not have such ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... Had he not sought refuge where no human being would think of seeking refuge, namely, in that old, dilapidated ruin, where, when his pursuers were so close upon his track, he had succeeded in eluding their grasp with a facility which looked as if he had vanished into thin air, or as if the very earth had opened to receive him bodily within its ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... all. She's a most accomplished creature is Constance. Sings, they tell me,—for it's not in English, so I don't understand it,—divinely; plays ditto; draws ditto. Speaks every language (except English) with equal facility ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... was gradually growing smooth before me. I, in a few weeks, conquered the teasing difficulties inseparable from the commencement of almost every career. Ere long I had acquired as much facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my pupils; and as I had encountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they never ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Dialogues, gives a striking example of the facility with which devils insinuate themselves into women. He tells how a nun, being in the garden, saw a lettuce which she thought looked tender. She plucked it, and, neglecting to bless it by making the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... bad or good; he no doubt wanted a lyric facility and technical skill; but he had the source of poetry in his spiritual perception. He was a good reader and critic, and his judgment on poetry was to the ground of it. He could not be deceived as to the presence or absence of the poetic element in any composition, and his ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... transcriptions, furnishes good evidence of the genuineness and authenticity of the original manuscripts, though it is not now known where they are, if still in existence. In making a new copy for the press every facility was granted by the Librarians of the Advocates' Library, with their well-known courtesy and liberality; and much aid was rendered by David Laing, Esq., a gentleman thoroughly conversant with Scottish ecclesiastical literature, and generously ready to communicate ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... books many of the now flourishing ports on the south coast are described as "creeks under Exeter". From ancient records it seems certain that an arm of the sea extended to the very walls of the city, and from the facility thus afforded to commerce, Exeter, at a very early period, became the great trading port of the West Country. Of the various trades carried on here those of the woollen and its allied industries were the most numerous. It was also one of those favoured ...
— Exeter • Sidney Heath
... renewed the charge made two years earlier that Sumner had violated his oath of office. This attack called forth from Sumner another attempt to defend the one weak point in his speech of 1852, for he was always irritated by reference to this subject, and at the same time he enjoyed a fine facility in the use of language which ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... Quito, where, after long separation, he met Sucre, and found in the loyal friendship of the Great Marshal of Ayacucho some comfort in the midst of all the bitterness which filled his soul. On that occasion, for the first time, Bolivar's facility and felicity of language failed him, and his tears were the only expression of his feelings. He received in Quito a manifesto issued by Paez regarding the murderous attempt of the 25th of September, once more protesting that he was loyal to Bolivar. Again mentioning ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... engine; it has gone through worlds of fancy and reflection, dragging me behind it; and long experience has given it so great facility, that I have only to fire up, whistle, and fix my couplings, and away goes my locomotive with no end ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... faculties were concentrated upon the ground. With a swinging gait the human bloodhound traveled swiftly and silently along the edge of the crevasse, noting every bunch of moss, fragment of stone, drift of snow or bit of moist earth, reading the shorthand notes of Nature with facility which far excelled the ability of my own stenographer to read her own notes when the latter are a few hours old. But a short time had elapsed before I heard a shout, and, hurrying to the place where my big friend was seated, ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... fleet. The most valuable lesson of the war was that such victories required working for, and particularly in cases where the belligerents face each other from either side of a narrow sea. In such conditions it was proved that owing to the facility of retreat and the restricted possibilities of pursuit a complete decision is not to be looked for without very special strategical preparation. The new doctrine in fact gave that new direction to strategy which has been already referred to. It was no longer a question of whether to ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... "Cherasvwechiano khorasho pakornashae vass blagadoroo," and the distinguished American retired with a proud consciousness of having done his duty. I was not very much enlightened as to the state of the bride's health; but, judging from the facility with which she rattled off this tremendous sentence, we concluded that she must be well. Nothing but a robust constitution and the most excellent health would have enabled her to do it. Convulsed with laughter, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... course, of his countrymen, whom he would most cordially have welcomed, from seeking his acquaintance. But as it was, no "English gentleman ever approached him, with the common forms of introduction, that did not come away at once surprised and charmed by the kind courtesy and facility of his manners, the unpretending play of his conversation, and, on a nearer intercourse, the frank youthful spirits, to the flow of which he gave way with such a zest as even to deceive some of those who best ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... more formal schooling than this, was too poor to enter college, but had what he modestly called a "knack at rhyming," and much facility in prose. He turned to journalism and politics, for which he possessed a notable instinct. For a while he thought he had "done with poetry and literature." Then in 1833, at twenty-six, came Garrison's stirring letter ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry |
