"Knack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wanders, Heaven-directed, to the poor. Pictures like these, dear madam, to design, Asks no firm hand, and no unerring line; Some wandering touches, some reflected light, Some flying stroke alone can hit 'em right: For how should equal colours do the knack? Chameleons who can paint in white and black? "Yet Chloe sure was formed without a spot"— Nature in her then erred not, but forgot. "With every pleasing, every prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?"—She wants ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... writings. They are the work of a man of no mean education, and bear the stamp—however spontaneously his songs sing themselves in our ears—of culture and study. In a letter to Dr. Moore several years later than now, Burns himself declared against the popular view. 'I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn the Muses' trade is a gift bestowed by Him who forms the secret bias of the soul; but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, attention, labour, and pains. At least I am resolved to try my doctrine ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... resolved to regenerate his life, and love Lily and none but her. He looked round the room, considering how he could get away. Frank was talking business. He would not disturb him. No doubt Thigh was concocting some swindle, but he (Mike) knew nothing of business; he had a knack of turning the king at ecarte, but was nowhere once bills and the cooking of accounts were introduced. Should he post the letter? That was the question, and it played in his ears like an electric bell. Here was the letter; he could feel it through his coat, lying over his heart, and there ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... anything useful in the whole course of his life. It is often very curious to trace the sources of greatness. With Mr. Chamberlaine, I think it came from the whiteness of his hands, and from a certain knack he had of looking as though he could say a great deal, though it suited him better to be silent, and say nothing. Of outside deportment, no doubt, he ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... The music of 'Der Wildschuetz' is no less bright and unpretentious than that of 'Czar und Zimmermann'; in fact, these two works may be taken as good specimens of Lortzing's engaging talent. His strongest points are a clever knack of treating the voices contrapuntally in concerted pieces, and a humorous trick of orchestration, two features with which English audiences have become pleasantly familiar in Sir Arthur Sullivan's operettas, which works indeed ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... slack-water. The steamers pick their way carefully; we do not give them as wide a berth as formerly, for the wakes they turn are no longer savage—but wakes, even when sent out by stern-wheelers at full speed, now give us little trouble; it did not take long to learn the knack of "taking" them. Whether you meet them at right angles, or in the trough, there is the same delicious sensation of rising and falling on the long swells—there is no danger, so long as you are outside the line of foaming breakers; within those, you may ship water, which is not desirable when ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... the boiler slid off and fell to the pavement with a noise that nearly caused a runaway, and brought the hot-cheeked William much derisory attention from a passing street-car. However, he presently caught the knack of keeping it in position, and ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... conversation which was the cause of this narrative. There had been news of the return of one Lord Denbeigh to Warwickshire—by report as wild a cavalier as ever fought, and a godless body to boot. Marian, who, as I have said, had always a certain knack for ghost stories and the like, froze me with her accounts o' this wild lord's ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... childhood; and, certainly, the figures are more intricate than the cotillion. Some of the steps resemble the Scotch reel or barn dance, especially when the dancers beat time with their heels, and we certainly think the swinging measure of the mazurka is often more knack ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... eight-mile line of guns accurately trained the day before, enemy guns, trained with lesser accuracy, did their best to inflict an equal punishment. The effect was a combination of the solemnity and the littleness of man which defies every knack of human ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... if she be a woman who insists, as I do, upon her indefeasible right to sing bass. I know that it helps things along for a woman to look after a man's linen and buttons, and do his fine work generally, because she seems to have a kind of natural knack at the business. I am aware that it is exceedingly pleasant to hear a woman sing treble, if she sings it well, but I am talking, be it remembered, of woman's right to sing bass. Let us stick to ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... financial mystery; he was in and out of offices, always purposeful, always in a hurry, but always with sufficient time to observe the strictest niceties of polite behavior. It was a part of his plan to create an atmosphere of his own, to emphasize his knack for quick, decisive, well-calculated action. The money he received from Coverly enabled him to maintain the posture he had assumed; he spent it with his usual prodigality, receiving little direct benefit, but making each dollar look ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... won't be familiar with us; low company in a tap-room will." And he certainly proved the truth of his own words. The like of him for making intimate friends of total strangers at the shortest notice I have never met with before or since. Cautious as the Scotch are, Mr. Dark seemed to have the knack of twisting them round his finger as he pleased. He varied his way artfully with different men, but there were three standing opinions of his which he made a point of expressing in all varieties of company while we were in Scotland. In the first ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... altar of which hangs a picture by West. I never could look at it long enough to make out its design; for this artist (though it pains me to say it of so respectable a countryman) had a gift of frigidity, a knack of grinding ice into his paint, a power of stupefying the spectator's perceptions and quelling his sympathy, beyond any other limner that ever handled a brush. In spite of many pangs of conscience, I seize this opportunity to wreak a lifelong abhorrence ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... He can make all the letters separately, and he knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got on that much, under me; but he can't put them together. He's too old to acquire the knack ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... that he has an artistic rule over his 'accidents,' for 'surprises' have a wonderful knack of falling into the general plan of his life, as though but waited for. Our first meeting with him was a singular instance of this. I say 'our,' for Narcissus and I chanced to be walking a holiday together at the time. It fell on this wise. At Tewkesbury ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... of the Moral-Plays had vigour enough, it appears, to propagate themselves into the drama of comedy and tragedy after the main body of them had been withdrawn. An apt instance of this is furnished in A Knack to know a Knave, entered at the Stationers' in 1593, but written several years before. It was printed in 1594, the title-page stating that it had been "acted sundry times by Edward Alleyn and his company," ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... compared with the simple and stately facts. Who could have imagined such a heart-break as that? Yet it went along with the fulfillment of everyday duty and made no more noise than a grave under foot. I doubt if fiction will ever get the knack of such things." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to cook and have a natural knack for it. Others hate it. If you are one of the former, select a propitious moment to suggest that you will cook, if the rest will wash the dishes and supply the wood and water. Thus you will get first crack at the fire in the chill of morning; and at night you can squat ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... if I carry it, as there is, I trust, much hope I shall, Mr. Gibson says there will be funds to divide 6s. in the pound, without counting upon getting anything from Constable or Hurst, but sheer hard cash of my own. Such another pull is possible, especially if Boney succeeds, and the rogue had a knack at success. Such another, I say, and we touch ground I believe, for surely Constable, Robinson, etc., must pay something; the struggle is worth ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Spain, whose huge battalions, in close order, like so many towers, but towers that could repair their breaches, remained unshaken amidst all the rest of the rout, and delivered their fire on all sides. Thrice the young conqueror tried to break these fearless warriors; thrice he was driven knack by the valiant Count of Fuentes, who was seen carried about in his chair, and, in spite of his infirmities, showing that a warrior's soul is mistress of the body it animates. But yield they must: in vain through ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... used to put it in his peppery reproof, I always did have a knack of tumbling head first the instant an opportunity offered. This time I had gone in heels and all, and now came up in as fine a confusion as any bashful bumpkin ever displayed before his lady. Frances Sutherland had regained her composure and came to my rescue with ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... white men try it over and over again, and I have tried it myself, but it ain't no manner of good. The Almighty has given us a lot of knowledge that he has not given to these black fellows, but he has balanced it up by giving them the knack of lighting a fire which he has not given to us. I never heard of a white man who could ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... parenco. Kiss kisi. Kitchen kuirejo. Kitchen-garden legoma gxardeno. Kitchen-gardener legomgxardenisto. Kitchen-jack turnrostilo. Kitchen utensils kuirilaro. Kite (bird) milvo. Kite (toy) flugludilo. Knack lerteco. Knacker defelisto. Knapsack tornistro. Knave fripono. Knave (cards) lakeo. Knavery friponeco. Knead knedi. Kneading-trough knedujo. Knee genuo. Kneecap genuosto. Kneel genufleksi. Knell ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... in a few words, and described her as if she had been some knick-knack for sale at an auction. Her hair came low on her forehead like a golden net, her skin was dazzlingly white, while her bright eyes threw out glances that were like those flashes of summer lightning which dart across the sky on a calm night ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... moment there are said to be a lot o' slaves ready for shipment and only waitin' till the 'Firefly' is out of the way. More than this my friend could not tell, so that's w'y I went to excogitate.—I beg parding, sir, for being so long wi' my yarn, but I ain't got the knack o' cuttin' it short, ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... And moreover, I never paid a dollar for any man's vote and never promised one. There are some ways of doing a thing that are as good as others which other people don't happen to think about, or don't have the knack of succeeding in, if they do happen to think of them. My dear sir, I am obliged to knock some of your expenses in the head—for never a cent was paid a Congressman or Senator on the part of ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... with India. It is an able piece of descriptive writing. It is marked by a conscious and deliberate resolve that the "effect" shall be made. It shows us the Indian city from a high distance, as it appeared to an observer with a knack for vividly delivering his impressions. It is in no sense an inspired wrestle with the reality of India; and in that it is typical. Mr Kipling has never claimed to grasp or interpret his Indian theme. He has stood away almost ostentatiously from ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... now, with a clear ripple of joyousness, at some passing quip between our host and sharp-tongued Lady Berenicia, both of whom employed pretty liberally their Irish knack of saying witty, biting things. The sound came strangely to my ears, as if it were some other ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... mastic dust is required to produce a nice frosting is only to be determined by practice. The way to obtain the knack is to frost a few scraps to "get your hand in." Nitric acid of full strength is used, dipping the piece into a shallow dish for a few seconds. A good-sized soup plate would answer very nicely for frosting the bottom plate, which, it will be ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... business of designing the latter, then she'd have to set about learning, in a systematic way, to paint them; find out the proper way to begin, and take her time about it. Her two weeks at the academy had proved that it wasn't a knack that she could pick up casually. But there were books on costumes, she knew; histories of clothes, that went as far back as any sort of histories, with marvelous colored plates which gave you all the details. Bertie Willis had told her all about that ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the aspect ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... question of knack," Jimphy continued. "You get into the way of it and you can't stop. Sometimes a tune gets into my head and I have to keep on humming it or whistling it. I'm not what you'd call a sentimental fellow at all, but that song ... you ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... He took me into his den while he rummaged through his books to find some which would be acceptable to me—'May as well give 'em away before it's too late, ye know'—and then he settled back in his easy chair to puff at a pipe. I must note down one of his phrases which tickled me—he has such a knack for the proverbial and the epigrammatic. 'He's cut his cloth, he can wear his breeches,' he said of a certain scapegrace. He chuckled over the Suffolk phrase 'a chance child,' for a bastard (alluding to one such of his acquaintance ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... of a peculiar knack of jerking the date-stone, which makes it strike with great force: I never saw this "Inwa" practised, but it reminds me of the water splashing with one hand in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... out pretty shapes in thin cardboard with the point of a penknife. But when, at his suggestion, Brotteaux gave him some string and a bodkin, he showed himself very apt in endowing with motion the little creatures he had failed to make and teaching them to dance. He had a happy knack, by way of trying them afterwards, of making them each execute three or four steps of a gavotte, and when they rewarded his pains, a smile would flicker ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... late when Wilson reached Hilda's apartment on this particular December afternoon, and he found her alone. She sent for fresh tea and made him comfortable, as she had such a knack of making ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... look back upon it is really impossible for me to be much affected by the passing wave of dissatisfaction with Mr. Balfour. Men of first-rate ability and character are rare. Still rarer are men who, having those qualities, also have the knack of compelling the attention and respect even of a hostile House of Commons. When a party possesses a leader with all these gifts, it is not likely to change him in ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... of this county, sir," the old gentleman said, smiling at the man's knack of mimicry. "My home, Arden, is but a few ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... one goat can jump another can follow, as the Kaffirs say, how much more is this the case when an animal so active and so vigorous as the lion is concerned! And now came the further question, how were we to beguile the lioness to return? Lions are animals that have a strange knack of appearing when they are not wanted, and keeping studiously out of the way when their presence is required. Of course it was possible that if she had found Jim-Jim to her liking she would come back to see if there were any more of his kind about, but still ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... after him and fetched him back. You have no idea how full of fun he was. Poor Peter! with all his faults I could not help liking him, for he was charming at times. He could set you off into a fit of laughter with a word. He had a knack of his own for springing a joke upon you in the most unexpected way. I shall never forget the evening when they came to tell me that he had been found dead on the road to Langoat. I went and had ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... of man was Zachary? He was eminently sensible and conciliatory; he contrived to make northern barbarians hear reason in a way which puts him high among that section of the early popes who had the knack of managing uneducated swordsmen. He kept the peace in Italy to an extent which historians mention with admiration. Even Bale, that Maharajah of pope-haters, allows himself to quote in favor of Zachary, that "multa ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... our town laid in ruins; yet I truly believe the English rule would be a benefit to this distracted realm. Their own colonies, if report speaks truth, are far more flourishing and strong than any France has ever planted. You have the knack of it, you Britons. Sometimes I doubt whether we shall ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... imply that it should be unfinished, but that, when the painter has set down what the imagination grasped in one view, he shall stop, no matter where, and not attempt to eke out the deficiency by formula or by knack of fingers. Wherever the inspiration leaves him, there is an end of the picture. Beyond that we get only his personalities; no skill, no earnestness of intention, etc., can avail him; he is only mystifying himself or us. At these points ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Scarron or Moliere," said De Malfort. "I have heard more wit in one evening at Scarron's than in a week at Whitehall. Wit in France has its basis in thought and erudition. Here it is the sparkle and froth of empty minds, a trick of speech, a knack of saying brutal things under a pretence of humour, varnishing real impertinence with mock wit. I have heard Rowley laugh at insolences which, addressed to Louis, would have ensured the speaker a year in ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... required in dipping these rushes in the scalding fat or grease; but this knack also is to be attained by practice. The careful wife of an industrious Hampshire labourer obtains all her fat for nothing; for she saves the scumrnings of her bacon-pot for this use; and, if the grease abounds with salt, she causes the salt to precipitate ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... you ought. Besides, the path which looks attractive, and tempts to the indulgence of many appetites and habits which a Christian man must rigidly subdue, does not continue so attractive. Earthly pleasures have a strange knack of losing their charm, and, at the same time, increasing their hold, with familiarity. Many a man who has plunged into some kind of dissipation because of the titillation of his senses which he found in it, discovers that the titillation diminishes and the tyranny grows; and that when ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... grace and humor and freshness,—such refined humor it is, too, and so evidently the work of a gentleman. What a happy knack he has of giving the taste of a landscape, or any ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... 1] laughing with one another, flinging their little jokes about the table, and expecting that the Doctor might, as was often his wont, set some ponderous old English joke trundling round among the breakfast cups; eating the corn-cakes which crusty Hannah, with the aboriginal part of her, had a knack of making in a peculiar and exquisite fashion. But there was an empty chair at table; one cup, one little jug of milk, and another of pure water, with no guest to ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with whom life, for twenty-five years, had dealt kindly. He had perfect health, an income more than sufficient for his needs, a profession which interested without monopolizing him, a thoroughly contented disposition, and the happy knack of ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... it is a woman; good looking, possessing the knack of dressing smartly, capable and efficient, and less than 40 years old. For six years she had been head bookkeeper in Marbury Hall, an apartment hotel of the best class, at 164 West Seventy-fourth Street. For more than two years of that time, according to the prosecuting ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... weapons which seemed to possess personal skill and ferocity. Later, workmen found that certain tools had a knack of fitting smoothly in the hand—seeming even to divine the grain of the wood they worked on. The individual characteristics of violins were notorious, so that a violin which sang joyously under ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... charge of the refreshments. The duchess of Snarleyow is dressing a doll that is to be named by Senator Defew and raffled at five dollars a guess. Mrs. Gushington-Andrews is to take entire control of the fancy knick-knack table, where we shall sell gold match-boxes, solid silver automobile head-lights, cigar-cutters, cocktail-shakers, and other necessities of life among the select. I don't see how the thing ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... Cop! Her cooking knack Would conquer fifty Catos— The Queen of tarts, and tuck, and tack, And cream, and ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... The type is not on the whole so fine as the Egyptian, but it is not so heavy as that of the Chaldaeans in the time of Gudea. The Theban artists have represented it in their battle-scenes, and while individualising every soldier or Asiatic prisoner with a happy knack so as to avoid monotony, they have with much intelligence impressed upon all of them the marks of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... experience of Vooda's persuasive tongue and knack of casuistry, did not wish to argue the point—knowing, as he did full well, the object of Vooda's visit—and at once made up his mind that he would not see ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... the wood-cutter was less grieved than his wife, but she browbeat him, and he was of the same opinion as many other people, who like a woman to have the knack of saying the right thing, but not the trick of being always ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... the book, Chesterton joyously refutes a few anti-Christian arguments by means of his extraordinary knack of seeing the large and obvious, and therefore generally overlooked things. He believes in Christianity because he is a rationalist, and the evidence in its favour has convinced him. The arguments with which he deals are these. That men ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... choice of articles, apart from their usefulness, is an appetising occupation, and to exchange bald, uniform shillings for a fine big, figurative knick-knack, such as a windmill, a gross of green spectacles, or a cocked hat, gives us a direct and emphatic sense of gain. We have had many shillings before, as good as these; but this is the first time we have possessed a windmill. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Nick learned such little tricks of cap and cloak as a lady's page need have, the carriage best fitted for his place, and how to come into a room where great folks were. Moreover, how to back out again, bowing, and not fall over the stools—which was no little art, until Nick caught the knack of peeping slyly between his ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... their chief interest to the English newspapers. They are allowed to gossip about everything, and the writers have the knack of making the merest trifles seem amusing. Happy is the nation where anything may ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... invariably have the largest following and will possess the greatest amount of influence over his fellows. The fact cannot be disputed that men of great brilliancy of intellect, without tact, have been distanced by others far less talented, who possessed the knack of getting near to the masses with the object in view to lead and control them. A military commander who knows how to muster and marshal his men so as to make them most effective when a battle is pending, will be unquestionably successful in ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... flying eagle with one stroke of my pen, but I never could do all this. And yet I thought myself a fine fellow, I warrant you. And these sums! why man! I must make you my agent. I need one, I'm sure; for though I get an accountant every two or three years to do up my books, they somehow have the knack of getting wrong again. Those quarries, Mrs. Browne, which every one says are so valuable, and for the stone out of which receive orders amounting to hundreds of pounds, what d'ye think was the profit I made last ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... could see just that in the Legion, if everyone will work for just that—better citizenship—the Legion's aim will be realized in its deepest and truest sense. Bishop Brent has a knack of hitting the nail on the head with such force that the sparks fly and by their light comes insight—ask anyone from out Manila-way if it isn't so. The short address was greeted with thunderous applause. The newly born Legion knew ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... converted into his popular drama, The Castle Spectre. This play was staged in 1798, and was reconverted by Miss Sarah Wilkinson in 1820 into a romance. Lewis spreads his banquet with a lavish hand, and crudities and absurdities abound, but he has a knack of choosing situations well adapted for stage effect. The play, aptly described by Coleridge as a "peccant thing of Noise, Froth and Impermanence,"[45] would offer a happy hunting ground to those who delight ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... la Duchesse drily, "time has a knack now and then of flying faster than we wish. Well, my dear, so long as this day brings you happiness, the old folk who stay at home have ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... structure. He maintains that the turning-point of good or bad Latinity is, not idiom, as Mr. White says, but structure. Then Mr. Black, the father, is led on to speak of himself, and of his youthful studies; and he ends by giving Harry a history of his own search after the knack of writing Latin. I do not see quite how this is to the point of Mr. White's paper, which cannot be said to contradict Mr. Black's narrative; but for this very reason, I may consistently quote it, for from a different ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... Indiarubber Man when the corporal had withdrawn. "Really, Phillips has a knack of disclosing great truths as if they were the ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his fingers, some special knack evidently, and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... smile was the most engaging part of him; it had the knack of disarming the most wrathful. It had served him many a time in the hour of retribution, and he never scrupled to make use of it. It was quite his most ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... and the best got up gig in that part of the country; but it was Mr. Mulready's manner which above all had raised him to his present position in the esteem of the good people of Marsden. He had the knack of adapting himself to the ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... that he was a carpenter by trade. During the evening he was much surprised to meet Cox at the tavern. Fox was a genial fellow, and, after a paying day's work always made himself agreeable to those whom he met at the tavern where he put up. He had the knack of getting easily acquainted, and soon was on the best of terms with Cox and his friends. He did not force the acquaintance, but during the evening paid much more attention to Cox's friends than ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... hop-o'-my-thumb dandy, who wore gold chains and his collars turned down, should spoil the trade and draw portraits for nothing! Why did none of the young men come to Scowler? Scowler was obliged to own that Mr. Newcome had considerable talent, and a good knack at catching a likeness. He could not paint a bit, to be sure, but his heads in black-and-white were really tolerable; his sketches of horses very vigorous and lifelike. Mr. Gandish said if Clive would come for three or four years into his academy he could make something ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... knowledge he might put forth would prove of very slight profit to him, as author. Writing of his replies given to certain mathematical professors, who had sent him problems for solution, he remarks that, although he may have a happy knack of dispatching with rapidity any work begun, he always begins too late. In his fifty-eighth year he answered one of these queries, involving three very difficult problems, within seven days; a feat which he judges to be a marvel: but what profit will it bring him now? ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... was a fellow who had the most singularly ingenious knack of doing everything the wrong way. He grew up in his humble Irish home full of mischief to the eyes of every one save his admiring mother. But, to do him justice, he never meant harm in the course of his life, and he was most anxious to offer his services on every occasion to ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... years, it seems, Have the happiest knack at solving dreams, I shall leave to my ancient feminine friends Of the Standard to say ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... as he lit an excellent cigar, and puffed the faint blue rings of smoke out into the clear moonlit atmosphere, he was in a very agreeable frame of mind. He was crafty and clever in his way,—one of those to whom the Yankee term "cute" would apply in its fullest sense,—and he had the happy knack of forgetting his own mistakes and follies, and excusing his own sins with as much ease as though he were one of the "blood-royal" of nations. Vices he had in plenty in common with most men,—except that his particular form of licentiousness ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... country, and Tuck so far forgave my rudeness to him as to come with us to carry the basket.—Oh, yes, indeed, I am becoming thoroughly domesticated on Earth. And, my dear, these humans are docility itself when you once acquire the knack of making them do exactly as you wish, which is as easy as falling off a log.—A log is the external evidence of a pre-existent tree, cylindrical in form, and though often sticky, not sufficiently so ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... with the same stale rhetoric about closer fellowship and the higher life. No one ever approximately equalled Bernard Shaw in the power of finding really fresh and personal arguments for these recent schemes and creeds. No one ever came within a mile of him in the knack of actually producing a new argument for a new philosophy. I give two instances to cover the kind of thing I mean. Bernard Shaw (being honestly eager to put himself on the modern side in everything) put himself ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... happenings have the knack of settling down into the commonplace,—and so in due course the days at the Palazzo d'Oro went on tranquilly,—Manella being established there and known as "la bella Signora Seaton" by the natives of the little surrounding villages, ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... and fairly retentive memories, it is easy for the teacher, especially if he is a strict disciplinarian, to make his pupils retain the greater part of what they have been taught. To skim off and give back to the teacher (or examiner) portions of the floating films of information, is a knack which comes with practice, and which the average child easily acquires. The teacher will, of course, demand that his school shall be examined on a clearly-defined syllabus; and the examiner, in his own interest, will gladly comply with this demand. The examiner will go further ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... at boarding school who always sent him the nicest presents for Christmas. He had a knack of knowing what a boy wanted, and this football was ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... Rogers Clark had long resided in Kentucky, he and two companions discovered a camp of some forty new-comers actually starving, though buffalo were plenty. Clark and his friends speedily relieved their necessities by killing fourteen of the great beasts; for when once the hunters had found out the knack, the buffalo were easier slaughtered than any ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... products and the themes of a symphony may certainly be considered its children. The public often seems to have slight idea of the sanctity and mystery of a musical idea. Composers are considered people with a kind of "knack" in writing down notes. In reality, a musical idea is as wonderful a thing as we can conceive—a miracle of life and yet intangible, ethereal. The composer apparently creates something out of nothing, pure fancy being wrought into terms of communication. ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... enough to possess the necessary knack will soon be in request as jockey at the forthcoming meeting, when, if he should happen to secure a win, the confidence it immediately gives him does more than any other thing to transform him into a really ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... day as he vish'd at the brook, He flung up, wi' a quick-handed knack, His long line, an' his high-vleen hook Wer a-hitch'd in zome briars at his back. Then he zwore at the brembles, an' prick'd His beaere hand, as he pull'd the hook free; An' ageaen, in a rage, as he kick'd At ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... excellent counsel. One kindly advised him to avoid the ludicrous; another to shun the pathetic; a third assured him that he was tolerable at description, but cautioned him to leave narrative alone; while a fourth declared that he had a very pretty knack at turning a story, and was really entertaining when in a pensive mood, but was grievously mistaken if he imagined himself to possess ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... and very deliberate in all situations, and his reports were of the utmost value. He never appeared to want anything in the way of personal comfort, was quite indifferent in any weather as to whether he slept on a bed or on the ground, and had a happy knack of seeming delighted to start on any mission however difficult and dangerous, or for any place however distant, with nothing but the clothes ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... know what is doing in the art world, who is painting what, and why, then get yourself invited to tea—China tea only. The gathering is picturesque, for the model has, of course, the knack of the effective pose, not only professionally but socially. It is a beautiful club, and it is one more answer to the eternal question Why Girls Don't Marry. With a Models' Club, the Four Arts Club, the Mary Curzon Hotel, and the Lyceum Club, why ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... to dine on Henry's wine and L.F. Austin's wit. This dear, brilliant man, now dead, acted for many years as Henry's secretary, and one of his gifts was the happy knack of hitting off people's peculiarities in rhyme. This dreadful Christmas dinner at Pittsburg was enlivened by a collection of such rhymes, which Mr. Austin called a ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... 'the art of behaving in society,' 'the science of human happiness,' were various modes of expressing the final end of conduct.[5] Sokrates clearly indicated the difference between an unscientific and a scientific art; the one is an incommunicable knack or dexterity, the other is ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... livin'," said Doane. "He can ketch more fish than any other two men in the place—allers seemed to kind o' hev a knack o' whistlin' 'em right into the boat. And then Nelson Briggs, that settled up his mother's estate, allows he 's got over a hundred and ten dollars for him, after payin' debts and all probate expenses. That and the place is all he needs to ...
— The Village Convict - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... truth, Balzac had a knack of presuming that something he intended doing was already done. One notorious example was the white horse he asserted, in presence of a number of guests assembled in Madame de Girardin's drawing-room, had been given by him to Jules Sandeau. The animal in ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... to take his threat seriously, and more than any man I ever met he seemed to possess the knack of falling out of mind. One could forget him more swiftly than the birds forget a false alarm. I don't believe any of us thought of him again until ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... accidentally disregards or ignores its significance. Consider, for example, what an advertising campaign can do with a product's actual specifications. Compare {GIGO}; see also {SNAFU principle}. 2. James Parry , a Usenetter infamous for various surrealist net.pranks and an uncanny, machine-assisted knack for joining any thread in which his nom de ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... lived and died something more than two centuries ago; but the Tregeagle or Tergagle of legend belongs to folk-lore rather than to modern social life. Very old ideas and superstitions have in some manner become attached to a recent name; tradition has a knack of bringing forward its dates; stories of immemorial antiquity are related as though they were the experience of the narrator's father or grandfather, and are modernised to suit that supposition. Legend never sticks at absurdity or anachronism. ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... have been amusing to watch a small sleigh being steered by a novice, with fat individuals sitting on the top of him, trying to avoid the young trees, usually without any success. Unfortunately for me I had a nasty knack of always being in the worst crashes. It is impossible to find a more effective way of destroying boots than continually steering with one's feet. Other people displayed their extensive knowledge of winter sports by ski-ing, or rather lying on their backs, unintentionally waving their skis in ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... villainous looking fellow, due in part to the squint of his eyes that set them at different angles. But he turned out a thoroughly capable man with a knack of getting out of the men all that was ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... a knack of saying what I don't mean," he remarked, rousing himself. "I beg your pardon for this and every other rude speech that I may make, Elizabeth; and ask you to understand that I am only translating my discontent with myself into words when ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... recollected that ten years before, when I went up to Maine to visit my sister, I'd rented the place, just as it stood, to folks of the name of Marchant, a fine couple that didn't look beyond each other unless 'twas at their son. In past times my grandmother had an old-country knack of raising healing herbs and all sorts of sweet-smelling things, along with farm truck, so that folks came from all about to buy them and doctors too, for such things weren't sold so much in shops in those days as they are now, and ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... no further; many of that sort are here and there dispersed up and down this book, either borrowed or by imitation. Therefore one ought to take a little heed not to call that force which is only a pretty knack of writing, and that solid which is only sharp, or that good which ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... thick and half an inch wide, at the ends. The Indian bow was made of wood, and of mountain-goat horns, or of solid bones, glued together. The wooden bow frequently was strengthened by having hide or sinew glued along the back. Until they learned the knack of it, few white men ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... that blind and accidental Greek goddess, who bore the horn of Amalthea and plentifully endowed her followers with a wealth of language and other much-coveted gifts, but not with the most desirable knack at disposing ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... and whiskers," says Tom Smart (Tom sometimes had an unpleasant knack of swearing)—"damn my straps and whiskers," says Tom, "if this ain't ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... really industrious person, but a bilious temperament like Ardessa's couldn't make even a feeble stand against such willingness. Ardessa had grown soft and had lost the knack of turning out work. Sometimes, in her importance and serenity, she shivered. What if O'Mally should die, and she were thrust out into the world to work in competition with the brazen, competent young women she saw about her everywhere? She believed herself indispensable, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... enjoyed simultaneously by the greatest number. Its effect is well described in Margaret Fuller's private journal: "I felt raised above all care, all pain, all fear, and every taint of vulgarity was washed out of the world." I think this is an extremely happy expression. Female writers sometimes have a knack of getting at the heart of a problem by instinct, more easily than men with their superior reasoning powers. "Every taint of vulgarity washed out of the world by music." That is precisely wherein the moral power of music lies; for vulgarity is the twin sister ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... doubts if the "ultra-precious" school really pleases the child; and if he refuse the jam the powder is obviously refused also. One who makes pictures for children, like one who writes them stories, should have the knack of entertaining them without any appearance of condescension in so doing. They will accept any detail that is related to the incident, but are keenly alive to discrepancies of detail or action that clash with the narrative. As they do not demand ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... raising small fruits and berries, and even maintaining a hen roost. Some people (I would I could honestly include myself) have a gift for making things grow and getting crops that are worth the work that has gone into them. Likewise there is such a thing as possessing a knack with that unresponsive and perverse creature, the hen. Possibly good gardening and an egg-producing hen-yard are the result of willingness to take infinite pains but, out of my disappointments and half ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... a young woman who had a knack of getting passes through the lines, and the three girls exchanged looks as knowing as they ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... you've a knack of getting your own way: But, tripe and trotters, you can look on him, And still say that? Ay, you're his grandson, surely— All Barrasford, with not a dash of Haggard, No drop of the wild colt's blood. Ewe's milk you'd bleed If your nose were tapped. Who'd ever guess my ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... boys at Montreal, Shag a little shy at first amidst all the grandeur and wealth of Hal's home, but covering that shyness with a quiet dignity that sat very well on his young shoulders. With a wonderful knack of delicacy, Hal would smooth out any threatened difficulty for the Indian boy—little table entanglements, such as new dishes or unaccustomed foods. But Shag was at times surprisingly outspoken, and the first night at dinner seemingly won Sir George's heart by remarking when ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... hadn't thought of doing it for a permanency. But just for a bit of adventure, if the chance should offer while I'm in the notion. I believe I'd take it. I haven't ridden a cow-pony for fourteen years, but I don't believe I've lost the knack of it." ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... a mere knack, little more than a proof that one had an elegant scholar for one's tutor, as I certainly had. But it is by special grace that a real scholar can send forth another real scholar, and a Kennedy produce a Munro. But to return to the more interesting question of half holidays; I declare that ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... all right. But that's because he's one of those men who have the knack of taking an interest in everything they turn their hands to, and doing it well. But his two passions are Chinese art and women," ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... Elasticity of a Fabric. The old-fashioned plan of testing cloth by tearing it by the hand is unreliable, because tearing frequently requires only a certain skilled knack whereby the best material can be pulled in two. In this way an experienced man may tell good from bad cloth, but he cannot determine slight differences in quality, because he has exerted his strength so often that his capacity to distinguish ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... drop into the cozy lodgings over Bemerton's second-hand bookstore for a drifting, delightful talk with a man of wide reading, who has travelled in unexpected places, who has an original way of looking at life, and a happy knack of expressing what is seen. There are few books which so perfectly suggest without apparent effort a charmingly ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... that the others, the wise business men, threw there and with the town's worst drunkard and half a dozen mistreated, misborn, misunderstood boys he's playing the business game and winning. He's got the knack of making his help feel like partners and he's so square and sensible in his dealings with them that they are all ready to die for him. Now if that isn't the greatest kind of a business ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... is involved. Looking to the way in which character is made, as coral reefs are built up, by a multitude of tiny creatures whose united labours are strong enough to breast the ocean; looking to the mysterious way in which the greatest events in our lives have the knack of growing out of the smallest; looking to the power of habit to make any action of the mind almost instinctive: it is of far more importance that we should become accustomed to apply this precept of seeking guidance from God to the million trifles than to the two or ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... require professional skill," said Patty. "Only good taste and a,—a sort of knack at bows ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... was out of the question in such weather; the only thing possible was to hope for a shift of wind before she got too far out, or a break in the weather. Neither of these events was probable, as all frequenters of South New Zealand know, bad weather having there an unhappy knack of being as persistent ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... lying only, and, which is of something a lower form, obstinacy, are the faults which are to be severely whipped out of them, both in their infancy and in their progress, otherwise they grow up and increase with them; and after a tongue has once got the knack of lying, 'tis not to be imagined how impossible it is to reclaim it whence it comes to pass that we see some, who are otherwise very honest men, so subject and enslaved to this vice. I have an honest lad to my tailor, whom I never knew guilty of one truth, no, not ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... knack of getting up little stories of the town—not exactly news stories, but little odd bits that made people smile without rancour when they saw their names in the quaintly turned items. One day he wrote up a story of a little boy whose mother asked him where he got a dollar that he was flourishing ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... Prince Rupert's aid-de-camp, who died at Naseby manfully in his harness—now, contrasting strangely with the elaborately powdered peruke and delicate lace ruffles of Beau Livingstone, the gallant, with the whitest hand, the softest voice, the neatest knack at a sonnet, and the deadliest rapier at the court of good Queen Anne. Nay, you could trace it in the features of many a fair Edith and Alice, half counteracting the magnetic ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... John, "we were at school together, and I generally had the knack of getting on better than you, and making a ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... the bar," says Johnson, "and knowing himself in no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverence. 'He has,' said Curll, 'a knack at versifying; but in prose I think myself a match for him.' When the Orders of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy." The fact, not mentioned ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli |
