"Versatile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the forces of Nature which had been too strong for the "Albatross," might easily be evaded by this lighter and more versatile machine. It could abandon the sky where the elements were in battle and descend to the surface of the sea; and if the waves beat against it there too heavily, it could always find calm in ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... as self-pronounced. If "Mr." is the Grand-Hotel Jupiter, the Head-Waiter is its Mercury. Nothing modern is so versatile as the Head-Waiter. The first thing about the Head-Waiter is his cigars. These are covered with tinsel and colours: very gay—almost as gay as the Head-Waiter. They are of unpronounceable and unknown brands. They vary in price and size, but agree ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... deal; but I doubt if many of them will ever exhibit the grasp of great principles which we owe to you and your splendid band of contemporaries." If this work helps to preserve the records of the influence and achievements of this illustrious and versatile genius and of the other eminent men who brought the great conception of Evolution to light, it will ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... as generalisation, specially on the subject of the Greeks. Again and again when we think we have laid hold of their characteristic view we are confronted with some new aspect of their life which we cannot fit into harmony with our scheme. There is no formula which will sum up that versatile and many-sided people. And so, in the case before us, we have no sooner made what appears to be the safe and comprehensive statement that the Greeks conceived the relation of man to the gods mechanically, than we are reminded of quite ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... crowns the hill Where Boreas sweeps with icy chill, A masterpiece of studied art Conceived by genius versatile And fashioned with unerring skill, O'erlooks the busy, crowded mart, And, like a kingly domicile, Its burnished dome and sculpture thrill With admiration every heart; And strangers pause beyond ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... is, what are the uses to which he puts his knowledge and capacities? That he knows the ways of the world may impress you, but does he know them to admire them? And if so, where does he stand compared with another, who is less versed and versatile, but who, as your heart tells you, would hate the ways of the world if he did know ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... markedly unguiculate. Standard and wings curled. Keel obtuse with its petals slightly or not at all coherent. The staminal tube, cleft above and below or above only. Stamens superior, often almost, and at times entirely, free. Anthers versatile. Ovary pedunculate, with 2 ovules. Style curved. Stigma terminal. Pod orbicular, smooth or spiny, usually containing one seed, encircled by a broad, rigid wing, ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... courses require that the college should have larger equipment and a more versatile staff. The larger institutions can prepare for specialized sections nearly as easily and cheaply as for duplicate sections; and institutions having only a few students or meager financial support should ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... Voltaire's poem, it was at least the first sign of the coming reaction of sympathetic imagination against the polished common sense of the great Queen Anne school, which had for more than a quarter of a century such influence in Europe.[335] It is a little odd that Voltaire, the most brilliant and versatile branch of this stock, should have broken so energetically away from it, and that he should have done so, shows how open and how strong was the feeling in him for reality and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... my versatile guest was his fly-catching. It is already notorious that the golden-wing is giving up the profession of woodpecker and becoming a ground bird; it is equally patent to one who observes him that the red-head is learning the trade ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... There is no comparison to be instituted between his actual achievements as a builder and a versifier. The whole tenor of his life made him more competent to deal with architecture than with literature. Nevertheless, it is significant that the versatile genius of the man was henceforth restricted to these two channels of expression, and that in both of them his last twenty years of existence produced bloom and fruit of ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Hamburg at a very high price. The consular report on Samoa published in February, 1903, states that "the mainstay of Samoa is cocoa," and it will be interesting to follow the progress of an industry of which the versatile ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary capacities in the very respect in which it ought to shine. The more extensive a man's knowledge, the more luxuriant his imagination, the more versatile his talent,—the more costly has his education been, the more remarkable and numerous were his teachers and his models, and the greater is his debt. The farmer produces from the time that he leaves ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... human creature Chambers is strikingly versatile. It must always be remembered that he started life as a painter. There is a story that Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers sent their first offerings to Life at the same time. Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent a bit of writing. Mr. Gibson's offering ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... not appear that the Reverend Mr. Colburn remained for a long time in this school, for at the close of the session in 1866 we have a record of an exhibition in Bank Hall under the charge of T. J. Ferguson. Ferguson was a versatile character among the Negroes at that time, participating extensively in politics during the reconstruction period, and contending for the enlargement of freedom and opportunity for their race. The next man of consequence after Ferguson was J. L. Camp, who served the system ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... department he accomplished notable, if somewhat conventional, success. The Hamburg theater furnished a field for another somewhat famous figure in musical history, that of Johann Mattheson, a singularly versatile and gifted man, a native of that city (1681-1764). After a liberal education, in which his musical taste and talent became distinguished at an early age, he appeared on the stage as singer, and in one of his own operas, ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... of time Mr. Jollyboy made Martin his head clerk; and then, becoming impatient, he made him his partner off-hand. Then he made Barney O'Flannagan an overseer in the warehouses; and when the duties of the day were over, the versatile Irishman became his confidential servant, and went to sup and sleep at the Old Hulk; which, he used to remark, was quite a natural and proper and decidedly comfortable place to come to an ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... sentimental infidel Rousseau had died a couple of years before, and had been buried at Ermenonville, in the park of the Count de Girardin. In the course of the summer the queen drove over to Ermenonville, and the admirers of the versatile writer flattered themselves that her object was to pay a visit of homage to the shrine of their idol; but they wore greatly mortified to find that, though his tomb was pointed out to her, she took no further ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... big hit. The audience cheered and applauded; which gave me greater confidence in my ability to get through the performance all right. Buntline, who is a very versatile man, saw that it would be a good plan to follow this up, and ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... evident. Setting aside that picked intelligence which flows to the town to compete successfully for intellectual employment, there can be no question but that the townsman has a larger superficial knowledge of the world and human nature. He is shrewd, alert, versatile, quicker, and more resourceful than the countryman. In thought, speech, action, this superiority shows itself. The townsman has a more developed consciousness, his intelligence is constantly stimulated in a thousand ways by larger and more varied society, and by a more ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... last parts, trying to re-imprison the winds of destiny, which the events of the Mexican War had set to roaring over the land. Young America, in the person of Douglas, faced the hierarchy of the earlier republic; and Seward of New York, older than Douglas by some twelve years, but less versatile and attractive, stood now as a spokesman for a ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... town so fond of a man as a successful play."[121] The historian who had to record such strange events, following close on each other, as an author publishing a book of piety, and then a farce, could never have discovered the secret motive of the versatile writer, had not that writer possessed ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... versatile agent; "but, my dear fellow, do try to get it into your head that these things have to go through many intricate stages. First, the trouble which ought to have been foreseen takes place; then weeks are occupied in ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... even a measure, of ancient degeneracy, when the age of Gold was followed if not forgotten by one of Iron. Decadence of arts, of learning and laws, of society itself, was implied in the fact. The more intrepid intelligence, the more versatile energy, amid which we live, have achieved the success of combining the two: so that while it is true now, as of old, that "no mattock plunges a golden edge into the ground, and no nail drives a silver point into the plank," ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... should be supplied with the entertaining and useful productions of Old Humphrey's versatile ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... 1882), 'Isotteo e la Chimera' (Isotteo and the Chimera: Rome, 1890), 'Poema Paradisiaco' and 'Odi Navali' (Marine Odes: Milan, 1893), which leave no doubt of his high rank as poet. The novel, however, is his chosen vehicle of expression, and the one which gives fullest scope to his rich and versatile genius. His first long story, 'Il Piacere' (Pleasure), appeared in 1889. As the title implies, it was pervaded with a frank, almost complacent sensuality, which its author has since been inclined to deprecate. Nevertheless, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Avranches; some traces of it are discernible in the profound "Thoughts of Pascal;" but it was reserved for the present age to elaborate this tendency into a theory, and to give it the form of a regular system. This task was fearlessly undertaken by the eloquent but versatile Lamennais, while as yet he held office in the Church, and was publicly honored as one who was worthy to be called "the latest of the Fathers." His "Essay on Indifference in Matters of Faith," exhibits many proofs of ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... direction. The placing of big, white candles upon it, however, strained the skill and self-control of the men to the last degree. If a candle prefers one set of antics to another, that set is certainly embodied in the versatile schemes for lopping over, which the wretched thing will develop on the best-behaving tree in the world. On a home-made tree the opportunities for a candle's enjoyment of this, its most diverting of accomplishments, are increased remarkably. The day was cold, ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... ending his tour only with the close of the National canvass. Delivering at least one extended address each day at some central point, and speaking frequently by the way, his journey fastened the attention of the country and amply illustrated his versatile and brilliant intellectual powers. No man was more seductive in appeal, or more impressive in sedate and stately eloquence. With his art of persuasion he combined rare skill in evading difficult questions while preserving an appearance of candor. His speeches were as ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... ductile play." The use of the language, so lucid and so nice in its discriminations, was itself an education for the young who grew up to hear it and to speak it. In a genial yet invigorating climate, in a land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity, the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made them the principal source of modern culture. Their moral ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... about 1175 was appointed archbishop of Athens. After the capture of Constantinople by the Franks and the establishment of the Latin empire (1204), he retired to the island of Coos, where he died. He was a versatile writer, and composed homilies, speeches and poems, which, with his correspondence, throw considerable light upon the miserable condition of Attica and Athens at the time. His memorial to Alexis III. Angelus on the abuses of Byzantine administration, the poetical ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... being a writer," said Ideala. "Genius is versatile. There are many ways in which she might succeed. It depends on herself—on the way she is finally impelled to choose. But great she will ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... gripped him so relentlessly that one of his legs was twisted to almost utter uselessness. With his crutches, however, he could get about after his fashion; and being handy with his fingers and versatile of wit, he managed to make a living well enough at the little odd jobs of mechanical repairing which the Settlement folk, and the mill hands in particular, brought to his cabin. His cabin, which was practically a citadel, stood on a steep ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... for the deliberate judgment of Rev. Dr. H. W. Bellows, that as an orator "Beecher and Chapin were his only competitors. He was the admirer and friend of both, and both repaid his affection and his esteem. He had the superior charm of youth and novelty, with a nature more varied, and more versatile faculties and endowments than either. He had a far more artistic and formative nature and genius. His thoughts ran into moulds ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... were a versatile, unsteady race, and exceedingly given to make and unmake kings. They had for a long time vacillated between old Muley Abul Hassan and his son, Boabdil el Chico, sometimes setting up the one, sometimes the other, and sometimes both at once, according to the pinch and pressure of external ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... rendering assistance to such of his passengers as need it, and most of them do need assistance of some kind if for no other reason than to be assured that they are not hurt. The Pullman porter of today must be a very versatile sort of a person, he must have plenty of patience, be a good judge of human nature, quick, kind and observant. Many are the times a gouty and crusty passenger has traveled in my car, who was in such a bad ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... almost every country, and merely local; and every man of sense imitates and conforms to that local good-breeding of the place which he is at. A conformity and flexibility of manners is necessary in the course of the world; that is, with regard to all things which are not wrong in themselves. The 'versatile ingenium' is the most useful of all. It can turn itself instantly from one object to another, assuming the proper manner for each. It can be serious with the grave, cheerful with the gay, and trifling with the frivolous. Endeavor by ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... impieties, and the steps by which they have ascended to those fearfull precepices, they seek to allay the secret pangs of a gnawing worme, by adopting the most prodigious of their crimes into a Religion fitted for the purpose, and versatile as their giddy interest, till at last, encourag'd by the number of thriving Proselytes and successes, they grow feared and confident; swallowing all with ease, and passing from one heresie to another; whilst yet they ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... treatises on all these, and on other subjects, especially gardening and gunnery. He was the inventor of an improved lock to the arquebus, and first divined how to adapt the disposition of his troops to the use of the newly- discovered fire-arms. And in all these things his versatile head and ready hand were personally employed, not by deputy; while coupled with so much artistic taste was a violent passion for hunting, which carried him through many hairbreadth 'scapes. "It was plain," he used to say, "that God Almighty ruled ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The versatile genius of the poet was equally at home in the simpler lyric region of the Haynes Bayley school. Taking for his model the favourite drawing-room ballad of the period, "She wore a wreath of roses the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... is that versatile officer's own sketch of a man with whom he soldiered on one of his campaigns: "He has all the qualifications that go to make an officer above the ruck of them. Endowed with all the dash, pluck, and attractive force that make a born leader of men, he is also steeped in common sense, is careful ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... Dodington was so selfish, obsequious, and versatile as to incur universal opprobrium; he had also another misfortune for a man of society,—he became fat and lethargic. 'My brother Ned' Horace Walpole remarks, 'says he is grown of less consequence, though more weight.' And on another occasion, speaking of a majority in the House of Lords, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... novelty' and variety. The success which it deserves, we are glad to learn it abundantly receives. The 'Brother Jonathan' has changed proprietors, cast its old skin, and comes out as bright and fresh as a June morning. The versatile Mrs. ANN STEPHENS (a lady of fine intellect, who has produced better prose tales and home-sketches than any one of her gifted contemporaries) and Messrs. M'LACHLIN AND SNOW, the resident editors of the 'Jonathan,' discharged their functions to due public acceptance; but a ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... nothing greater or better worth cultivating in life. But I want you to consider the effects of heredity. Jeanne comes from restless, brilliant people. Her mother was a leader of society, a pleasure-loving, clever, unscrupulous woman. Her father was a financier and a diplomat, many-sided, versatile, but with as complex a disposition as any man I ever met. Jeanne will ripen as the years go on; something of her mother, something of her father will appear. It is my place, knowing these things, to see that she does not make a fatal mistake. All that I say to you, Mr. De la Borne, is to let ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was also a poet, and but for the solitude of exile we should probably never have seen that side of this versatile nature. The lines which he writes to the portrait of his son are painfully touching. For some reason they were kept concealed, and found some time afterwards. Here they are, but the English translation does not do ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... chance acquaintance, to judge from Mattheson's account; it stuck in Mattheson's memory for many years and he remembered especially the pastry-cook's boy who blew the organ for Handel and himself. Mattheson was four years older than Handel; he was one of those precociously gifted, versatile, attractive, and rather vain young men who are endowed with so many talents that they never achieve distinction in any branch of art. He is remembered now only by the literary work of his later life, ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... given to work in the burning sun, doubtless as a foretaste of what awaited the obstinate Christian. During the day troops of lithe, active boys of all ages from ten to twenty, had pranced about the garden—bright in face, lively and versatile in disposition; but with a certain cruel look about their black eyes and swarthy features which was the result ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... Schneider, X. 9. Insuper autem ad capsum redae loculamentum firmiter figatur habens tympanum versatile ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... years of age her father removed to Litchfield, Conn., and her happy girlhood was passed in that place. Her bright and versatile mind and ready wit enabled her to pass brilliantly through her school days with but little mental exertion, and those who knew her slightly might have imagined her to be only a bright, thoughtless, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... capable of confidence. In this contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... With such versatile authors as Burks (When does his next story appear?), Starzl, Cummings, Leinster, Vincent and all the rest, how can it help but to overshadow ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... announced my war aims on the Pacific for the benefit of my people my leading Minister had the audacity to obtrude upon my privacy at Tsarskoye Selo and demand that I withdraw the manifesto. This piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war. That magniloquent Minister, with his versatile Irish amanuensis, not only turned my mother against me, but he had the temerity to demand that I dismiss my best agent, Azeff, who alone kept me advised of the machinations of the Social Revolutionists, ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... an entertaining creature she is!—now in Missouri, now in Indiana, and now in Minnesota, always on the go, and all the time shedding needles from various parts of her body as if she really enjoyed it! Then there 's that versatile patriarch who walks hundreds of miles and saws thousands of feet of wood, before breakfast, and shows no signs of giving out. Then there's that remarkable, one may say that historical colored woman who knew Benjamin Franklin, and fought at ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... same number is a rich song from the same fertile and versatile pen, which was sung at one of our Red Lion meetings. That is why I want you to look at it, not that you will understand it, because it is full of allusions to occurrences known only in the scientific circles. At Ipswich ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... distinguished patron of the turf: all England knew him as a sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. But although his whole mind had apparently been given up to the turf, it was not actually so. He had been a member of parliament for eighteen years, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to a dull watering-place, when he had so many avocations at home, had been a great vexation to the Earl; but he was delighted at the versatile spirits which made a holiday and delight of the whole, and found an endless fund of interest and occupation even in his attendance on the wearisome routine of health-seeking. German books, natural ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... down the river in the boat with me," wrote Seward from New York on November 16, 1848. "The versatile people were full of demonstrations of affection to the Vice President, and Mr. Collier divided the honours. The politicians of New York are engaged in plans to take possession of General Taylor before he comes to Washington. Weed is to be supplanted, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... singularly varied, the character is also singularly full and versatile. In this respect, too, he is most unlike the other leading figures of Old Testament history. Contrast him, for example, with the stern majesty of Moses, austere and simple as the tables of stone; or with the ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... writings into another tongue with the same elegance" [as those already done]. It is uncertain who the translator was, but the work was carried out at the instigation of Cassiodorus (480-575), who lived in the time of Justinian, and was a versatile historian. He wrote himself a chronicle of events from Adam to his own day as well as a history of the Goths. In his book on the Institutions of Holy ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... inherited his father's vices, purged of their vulgarity and grossness, without a single particle of his uncertain and capricious good nature. In his manners he appeared more of the gentleman; was lively, shallow, and versatile; but having been educated at an English school and an English college, he felt, or affected to feel, all the fashionable prejudices of the day and of his class against his native country. He was an absentee from both ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... A friendly critic, whose versatile pen it is not easy to mistake, recalls, a-propos of the above, the following passage from Moliere, which shows that Chairmen are much the same all the ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... and was apparently in very high spirits; so high, indeed, that at odd moments his hostess, knowing a good deal, stared at him. He, who was usually so silent a member, to-night outshone even the versatile Beauclerk in the lightness and persistency of ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... plays, which, although published under a nom de guerre (St. Remy), he depended upon the servility of the Parisian press to carry through. He was not a deep thinker, nor was his intellectual horizon a broad one; but his views were liberal, his shallow mind was brilliant and versatile, and to the graceful frivolity of a man of the world he united a taste for the serious financial and political problems of his time. He belonged to that set of bright young politicians who, toward the end of the reign of Louis-Philippe, passed, ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... arrest. Serrurier was posted in a commanding position with a strong reserve, prompt for any unexpected exigence. Even a body of troops were sent to accompany Barras to his country seat, ostensibly as an escort of honor, but in reality to guard against any change in that venal and versatile mind. The most energetic measures were immediately adopted to prevent any rallying point for the disaffected. Bills were everywhere posted, exhorting the citizens to be quiet, and assuring them that powerful efforts were making to save the Republic. These minute precaution were characteristic ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... succumbed, in the succeeding reign, to the attacks of Sher Shah. It may be admitted that if Babar had been immortal he might possibly have beaten back Sher Shah. But that admission serves to prove my argument. Babar was a very able general. So likewise was Sher Khan. Humayun was flighty, versatile, and unpractical; as a general of but small account. It is possible that the Sher Khan who triumphed over Humayun might have been beaten by Babar. But that only proves that the system introduced by Babar was the system to which ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... Bromstead. I went there as a day boy. The charge for my instruction was mainly set off by the periodic visits of my father with a large bag of battered fossils to lecture to us upon geology. I was one of those fortunate youngsters who take readily to school work, I had a good memory, versatile interests and a considerable appetite for commendation, and when I was barely twelve I got a scholarship at the City Merchants School and was entrusted with a scholar's railway season ticket to Victoria. After my father's death a large ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... that he ought to have from this Association and the other nut associations of the country. He is a very able man, at one time the editor of the Post Express in Rochester, the classiest paper in Rochester, and we have some classy ones there, he is an educated man of large experience and very versatile and it seems to me he ought to have substantial support. So I came here with a certified check for 25 memberships to the association and 25 subscriptions to the American Nut Journal as a guarantee of good faith. I believe ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... one of the most versatile, prolific, and popular of American authors, was born at Charleston, South Carolina. His family was poor, and his means of education were limited, yet he managed to prepare himself for the bar, to which he was admitted when twenty-one years of age. The ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... such cases is seldom appreciated. Again, green has the contract for the greater bulk of the vegetable life of the globe; but his is a monotonous business, like the painting of miles and miles of palings: grass, grass, grass, trees, trees, trees, ad infinitum; whereas yellow leads a roving, versatile life, and is seldom called upon for such monotonous labour. The sands of Sahara are probably the only conspicuous instance of yellow thus working by the piece. It is in the quality, in the diversity of the things it colours, rather than in their mileage or tonnage, ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... what might be termed a "person of one idea." Not that her ideas never changed—she was very versatile; but she was animated wholly by one idea at a time, to the exclusion of all others. Two weeks ago, the Catholic Irish priest was the last person she would have thought of with desire to see. Now, of all people in the world, it was from Father ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... pure learning, and not those of outward show and a luxurious style of life among the students. The supervision of theology was entrusted by Frederick to Staupitz, whom personally he held in high esteem, and who, together with the learned and versatile Martin Pollich of Melrichstadt, had already been the most active in his service in promoting the foundation of the university. Staupitz himself entered the theological faculty as its first Dean. ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... be a great politician. Remington as a thinker is almost a great man; he is a profound analyst of society on its human side; he is a gifted critic of public institutions; even his absurd perversity in trying to invent a constructive, motherhood-endowing Toryism is the perversity of a versatile and clever man whose action is precipitated ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... conceived to be the proper demands of the nation. His opponent for a generation was Benjamin Disraeli, the young Jewish novelist, who had first won a following in the House of Commons by voicing the venom of the old-line protectionist Tories against the recreant Peel. Versatile, shifty, brilliant, this adventurous politician made himself indispensable to the Conservatives, and overcame by political moves which were little short of genius, the leadership of the opposition. Indeed, he may be said to have transformed Conservatism, giving it ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... The versatile man who commands more than respect as the biographer of Poe and Wilde; as the (translator of and commentator on Remy de Gourmont; as a folklorist, has shown himself to be consecrated to the truth. The document that Mr. Ransome hurried out of Russia in the early days of the Soviet government ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... industry is disappointingly limited. One is tempted to think that the whole superstructure of cheap and free shelters has tended to the standardisation of a low order of existence in this netherworld that attracted the versatile philanthropist at the head of the ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... mind, keep way with the wheels of his fortune. For so Livy (after he had described Cato Major in these words, In illo viro tantum robur corporis et animi fuit, ut quocunque loco natus esset, fortunam sibi facturus videretur) falleth upon that, that he had versatile ingenium. Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune: for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible. The way of fortune, is like the Milken Way in the sky; which is a meeting or knot of a number of small stars; not seen asunder, but giving light ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... reading some years ago, one or two of the audience had to be carried out in hysterics—they laughed so much; and another man fell backwards off his chair, owing to the extreme comicality of it. The truth is, our versatile keeper is a wonderful reader, and speaking as he does the true Gloucestershire accent, in the same way as some of the squires spoke it a century or more ago, it is extremely amusing to hear him copying the still broader dialect of the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... side-whisker. He was not quite used to that side-whisker yet, for it had only recently come within the margin of cultivation. In active service Grodman had been clean-shaven, like all members of the profession—for surely your detective is the most versatile of actors. Mrs. Drabdump closed the street door quietly, and pointed to the stairs, fear operating like a polite desire to give him precedence. Grodman ascended, amusement still glimmering in his eyes. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... of the journey was a versatile young Dutchman who spoke many languages and proved to be very good company. This gentleman apparently had no great admiration for his fellow-countrymen, as he saw them in Java. He abused with equal impartiality the food and the manner of ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... Robert is still a journalist; he brings to the editor of a paper an article of his composition, a violent attack on a law. "My dear M. Macaire," says the editor, "this must be changed; we must PRAISE this law." "Bon, bon!" says our versatile Macaire. "Je vais retoucher ca, et je vous fais en faveur de la loi ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as regularly to the editor of the Port Folio as they did to him, or as he did to the Secretary of War." In this way the magazine obtained some interesting and valuable biographical notes of military and naval officers. Dr. Caldwell employed as assistant editor the famous and versatile THOMAS COOPER. Cooper was an Englishman, who was born in London in 1759, and had been a member of the National Assembly of France. He quarrelled with Robespierre, and challenged him to a duel. Robespierre swore revenge, and Cooper, knowing that flight alone could save him from the Jacobin Club, ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... Russia felt some alarm. True, the young Kaiser speedily paid a visit to his relative at St. Petersburg; but it soon appeared that the stolid and very reserved Alexander III. knew not what to make of the versatile personality that now controlled the policy of Central Europe. It was therefore natural that France and Russia should take precautionary measures; and we now know that these were begun in ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... December 9.—There is no place in the United States, so far as I know, where the cow is more versatile or ambidextrous, if I may be allowed the use of a term that is far above my station in life, than here in the mountains of North Carolina, where the obese 'possum and the anonymous distiller have ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... You take the poets' word for me—those low And scurvy fellows who lump all their spleen And call the mess my portrait! But in fact, I am more versatile, more broad, more kind Than they conceive. I venture to believe That I could ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... this Novel actually arrived, we received by every post an immense consignment of paragraphs, notices, and newspaper cuttings, all referring to it in glowing terms. "This" observed the Bi-weekly Boomer, "is, perhaps, the most brilliant effort of the brilliant and versatile Author's genius. Humour and pathos are inextricably blended in it. He sweeps with confident finger over the whole gamut of human emotions, and moves us equally to terror and to pity. Of the style, it is sufficient to say that it is Mr. DEEVENSON's." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... literature, his views respecting both Church and State became modified—at least in private. His entrance into English society had been highly successful, and as he had a due share of vanity, and was by no means free from worldliness, he had enjoyed and pursued his triumphs. But his versatile nature, which required not only constant, but novel excitement, became palled, even with the society of duchesses. There was a monotony in the splendour of aristocratic life which wearied him, and for some time he had persuaded himself that the only people who understood the secret ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... Sir Kenelm Digby's philosophic reputation his name has not become obscure. It stands, vaguely perhaps, but permanently, for something versatile and brilliant and romantic. He remains a perpetual type of the hero of romance, the double hero, in the field of action and the realm of the spirit. Had he lived in an earlier age he would now be a mythological personage; and ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... do for an Admiral's cocked hat; it all depends on whether the amateur actor can swear like an Admiral. A hearth-rug may have to do for a bear's fur; it all depends on whether the wearer is a polished and versatile man of the world and can grunt like a bear. A clergyman's hat (to my own private and certain knowledge) can be punched and thumped into the exact shape of a policeman's helmet; it all depends on the clergyman. I mean it depends ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... for himself were often so much alike from play to play that he called them by the same conventional theatric name of Mascarille or Sganarelle, and played them, doubtless, with the same costume and make-up. Later on, when he became more versatile as an actor, he wrote for himself a wider range of parts and individualised them in name as well as in nature. His growth in depicting the characters of young women is curiously coincident with the growth of his wife as an actress for whom to ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... a new aspect of your versatile nature, Solomon. Must I regard you as a personally emancipated moral influence, not committed to the straight and narrow path yourself, but still close enough to it to keep my feet from ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... Stanhope, who saw clearly this leading character of Byron's mind, has thus justly described it:—"Lord Byron's was a versatile and still a stubborn mind; it wavered, but always returned ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... not suppose that he is always singing comic songs. He is one of those versatile people who can ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... I repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would be a man, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... determined. It followed that master-works of rare and subtle invention were produced, while no one type was fully perfected, nor can we point to any paramount Italian manner. In Italy what was gained in richness and individuality was lost in uniformity and might. Yet we may well wonder at the versatile appreciation of all types of beauty that these monuments evince. How strange, for example, it is to think of the Venetians borrowing the form and structure of their temple from the mosques of Alexandria, decking its facade with the horses of Lysippus, and panelling the sanctuary with ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... wear pigtails—pirates, that is, of the upper crust (the Kidds and Flints and Morgans)—and at first this was a knotty problem. But he obtained a number of old stockings—stockings, of course, beyond the skill of that versatile person who mends the gaps—and he has wound them on wires, curling them upward at the end and tieing them with bits of ribbon. The pirate captain is allowed an extra inch of pigtail to exalt him above his fellows. ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... Les Bastions de l'Est, enjoy immense popularity, and within the last few months have appeared two volumes which fully confirm the views of their forerunners—M. Hallays' impressions of many wayfarings and Aprs quarante ans by M. Jules Claretie, the versatile, brilliant and much respected administrator-general of the ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... magnanimous, modest, noble, not easy to be understood (!), parsimonious, pious (twice), profound in opinion, prone to regret his acts, prudent, rash, religious, reverent, self-confident, sincere, singular in mode of thinking, strong, temperate, unreserved, unsteady, valuable in friendship, variable, versatile, violent, volatile, wily, and worthy.' Zadkiel concludes thus:—'The square of Saturn to the moon will add to the gloomy side of the picture, and give a tinge of melancholy at times to the native's character, and also a disposition ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... there being no other play of so early a date wherein the part is used with so much skill. Before his master, who is the hero, Cacurgus commonly affects the simpleton, but at other times is full of versatile shrewdness and waggish mischief. He is usually called, both by himself and others, Will Summer; as though he were understood to model his action after the celebrated court Fool of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... the school sports on March 27, 1915, when he won the mile flat race, the half-mile, and the steeplechase, and was awarded the silver cup for the best forward in the 1st XV. He tied for the "Victor Ludorum" shield with his friend S. J. Hannaford (a versatile athlete reported missing in France, September, 1917). These successes at the sports were a dazzling finish to Paul's school days. He bore them, like his scholastic triumphs, very modestly, but in his heart he was proud and happy. It was not his nature to plume himself on any achievement. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... presented itself—the Impeachment of Warren Hastings— which, by embodying the cause of a whole country in one individual, and thus combining the extent and grandeur of a national question, with the direct aim and singleness of a personal attack, opened as wide a field for display as the most versatile talents could require, and to Mr. Sheridan, in particular, afforded one of those precious opportunities, of which, if Fortune but rarely offers them to genius, it is genius alone that can fully and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... and with them my anxious wishes for an eclaircissement with Frank. Clifton has too strongly imbibed high but false notions of honour and revenge. His quick, apt, and versatile talents are indubitable. He wants nothing but the power to curb and regulate his passions, to render him all that his generous and excellent sister could desire. But at present his sensibility is too great. He scarcely can brook the slightest tokens of disapprobation. He is rather too firmly ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... not only through the fire of various philosophical systems without fear, but also through the vapours of science and scholarship, while remaining ever true to his highest self. And it was this highest self which exacted from his versatile spirit works as complete as his were, which bade him suffer and learn, that he might accomplish ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the last age of the Republic, Latin prose had reached its full splendour in the hands of the most copious and versatile master of style whom the Graeco-Roman world had yet produced. The claims of Cicero to a place among the first rank of Roman statesmen have been fiercely canvassed by modern critics; and both in oratory and philosophy some excess of veneration once paid to him has been replaced by ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... versatile, and before morning we had cause to change our ideas, and several of us already wished ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... by an artistic society did not spoil their art. When Congreve started on his course of play- writing, Queen Mary kept up, in a measure, the amiable custom of her uncle. He was very fortunate in his casts. There was Betterton, first of all, the versatile, the restrained, and, witness everybody, the incomparable. There was Underhill, 'a correct and natural comedian'—one must quote Cibber pretty often in this connexion—not well suited, one must suppose, to play Setter to Betterton's Heartwell in The Old Bachelor, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... had been swift; the air was already rich with the fumes of high wines, the versatile healer of internal griefs ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... divided into sections, each complete in itself, that the orator was equipped for an address of any length, from fifteen minutes to four hours, by selection or consolidation of these sections. Few of them would trust themselves to extemporaneous speaking. The most versatile and capable of those who could was James G. Blaine. He was always ready, courted interruptions, and was brilliantly effective. In a few sentences he had captured his audience and held them enthralled. ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... that further resistance is useless. After dinner the assistant editor of Der Drau comes around and pilots us about the city and its pleasant environments. The worthy assistant editor is a sprightly, versatile Slav, and, as together we promenade the parks and avenues, the number and extent of which appear to be the chief glory of Eszek, the ceaseless flow of language and wellnigh continuous interchange of gesticulations between himself and Igali are quite wonderful, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... mother's side was Josiah Wedgwood, one of the most versatile of men. He was as fine in spirit as those exquisite designs by Flaxman that you will see today on the Wedgwood pottery. Josiah Wedgwood was a businessman—an organizer, and he was beyond this, an artist, a naturalist, a sociologist and a lover ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... Gurdon, a Ravillac or a Damiens in Germany; but they have been common in France, and the Sovereigns of France cannot be too circumspect in their maintenance of ancient etiquette to command the dignified respect of a frivolous and versatile people.' ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... we fully realize that they were Angevins. To an English schoolboy Henry II. is little more than the murderer of Beket and the friend of Fair Rosamund. Even an English student finds it hard after all the labours of Professor Stubbs to lay hold of either Henry or his sons. In spite of their versatile ability and of the mark which they have left on our judicature, our municipal liberty, our political constitution, the first three Plantagenets are to most of us little more than dim shapes of strange manner and speech, hurrying to their island realm to extort money, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... successful photoplaywright is nothing if not versatile. Unless he is content to have a very limited market, he more than any other type of professional writer must be able ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... that among people who have accommodations for a 'butler' in their house plans, about one in a hundred keeps the genuine article. All the rest keep a waitress or a 'second girl.' Sometimes the cook, waitress, butler, chambermaid, valet and housekeeper are all combined in one tough and versatile handmaiden." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... of Mr. Charles's society was strongly upon him. It was no wonder. More brilliant, more versatile talent I never saw. He turned "from grave to gay, from lively to severe"—appearing in all phases like the gentleman, the scholar, and the man of the world. And neither John nor I had ever met any one of these characters, all so ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the most versatile of men. We saw him here at home with the oar in the open. He was an excellent professor of anatomy, renowned for his insight and readiness in adapting means to ends in the difficult science where his main work lay. Literature was merely his hobby, and he was wit, critic, philosopher, historian, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... ever-fruitful provinces of the South are laid under contribution, and the result is a wasteful show of tropical luxuriance that seems most incongruous under the wintry sky. There are mountains of oranges and dates, brown hillocks of nuts of every kind, store of every product of this versatile soil. The air is filled with nutty and fruity fragrance. Under the ancient arcades are the stalls of the butchers, rich with the mutton of Castile, the hams of Estremadura, and the hero-nourishing bull-beef ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... altered. The ice-floes and the obsolete Church may be alike successful for a time in keeping up the ancient state of things within their own lessening limits, but both are eventually absorbed and disappear. While the more versatile ecclesiastical body, tossed by the cross currents and eddies of novel and uncertain change, loses its true course and makes shipwreck, the rigidly immoveable one, anchored over the worn-out peculiarities of bygone days, is borne ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... satisfied with sour ants, hard beetles, and such other fare as it can easily pick up, and grown nasty in consequence, so that nothing seeks to eat it, has hobbled through life, like a plethoric old gentleman, until the present day, on its original feet. The more versatile and nimble-witted frog, seeking better diet and greater security of life, went back to the element in which it was bred, and, swimming much, became better fitted for swimming. The soft elastic skin between the fingers or toes is just the sort of tissue which responds most readily ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... divines with whom he was subsequently engaged in controversy did not suffer to sink into oblivion. [229] A still more infamous apostate was Joseph Haines, whose name is now almost forgotten, but who was well known in his own time as an adventurer of versatile parts, sharper, coiner, false witness, sham bail, dancing master, buffoon, poet, comedian. Some of his prologues and epilogues were much admired by his contemporaries; and his merit as an actor was universally acknowledged. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is an extraordinary volume—especially welcome as an evidence of female genius and accomplishment—but it is hardly less disappointing than extraordinary. Miss Barrett's genius is of a high order; active, vigorous, and versatile, but unaccompanied by discriminating taste. A thousand strange and beautiful views flit across her mind, but she cannot look on them with steady gaze; her descriptions, therefore, are often shadowy and indistinct, and her language wanting in ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... literature of practical theology in America is sure to expand itself in the immediate future is indicated in the title of a recent work of that versatile and useful writer, Dr. Washington Gladden, "Applied Christianity." The salutary conviction that political economy cannot be relied on by itself to adjust all the intricate relations of men under modern conditions of life, that the ethical questions that arise are not going to solve themselves automatically ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... scholar, the wanderer, and the Priest of Buddha by turns, and sometimes all at once. For Mr. Bellingham was a professed Buddhist and a profound student of Eastern moralities, and he was a thorough scholar in certain branches of the classics. The combination of these qualities, with the tact and versatile fluency of a man of the world, was a rare one, and was a source of unceasing surprise to his intimates. At the present moment he was a diplomatist, since he could not be a diplomat, and to his energetic suggestion and furtherance ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... diminish his own expenses, and at the same time secure an agreeable companion, for the veteran was a sociable soul in his unofficial hours and had all the Hibernian dislike to solitude. The arrangement commended itself to the German, for he had a profound admiration for the other's versatile talents and varied experiences; so he grunted an acquiescence and the thing was done. When the major's luck was good there were brave times in the little fourth floor back. On the other hand, if any slice of good fortune came in the German's way, the major had a fair share of the prosperity. During ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the war were inclining against us—and because the opposition to it was ripening into disorganizing councils. Adams had prepared the way by securing the mediation of Alexander. Then, in that critical period, associated with Russell, Bayard, the learned and versatile Gallatin, and the eloquent and chivalric Clay, he negotiated with firmness, with assiduity, with patience, and with consummate ability, a definitive treaty of peace—a treaty of peace which, although it omitted the causes of the war already obsolete, saved and established and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... says Mr. Bailey, "that is accustomed to pursue a regular and connected train of ideas, becomes in some measure incapacitated for those quick and versatile movements which are learnt in the commerce of the world, and are indispensable to those who act a part in it. Deep thinking and practical talents require indeed habits of mind so essentially dissimilar, that while a man is striving ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... that he might vote; went through the whole performance in less than an hour, absenting himself that he might be called in to be present, presenting himself though absent, voting ballots and signing certificates, showing himself to be as versatile and as agile ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... His genius consisted in the faculty of transforming himself at will into whatever he chose: his originality was the power of seeing every object from the exact point of view in which others would see it. He was the Proteus of human intellect. Genius in ordinary is a more obstinate and less versatile thing. It is sufficiently exclusive and self-willed, quaint and peculiar. It does some one thing by virtue of doing nothing else: it excels in some one pursuit by being blind to all excellence but its ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... a more perfect work and to a truer life. She gave poise and purpose to the "versatile, high-strung, somewhat wayward nature" of her husband, and she "restrained, raised, ennobled, and purified" his life and thought. He stimulated and directed her genius life into its true channel, cared for her business interests with untiring ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... don't know what deductions to draw, I confess myself at fault; and cannot account for the fellow's movements; though I take you'll all acknowledge they were odd. As I've said, M. Dupre, I didn't from the first like your man of versatile talents; and I'm now more than ever distrustful of him. Still I profess myself unable to guess what he was after last night. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Lowell's achievement is impressive, as one reviews his career. His most thoughtful, though not his most eloquent verse, his richest vein of letter-writing, his most influential addresses to the public, came toward the close of his life. Precocious as was his gift for expression, and versatile and brilliant as had been his productiveness in the 1848 era, he was true to his Anglo-Saxon stock in being more effective at seventy than he had been at thirty. He was one of the men who die learning and who therefore are scarcely thought of as ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... these arguments cannot be denied, but there should be no delusion as to the weight which should be attached to them. It has been very truly remarked by a writer, who has dealt with the idiosyncrasies of a singularly versatile nation, whose genius presented in every respect a marked contrast to that of Eastern races, that from the dawn of history Eastern politics have been "stricken with a fatal simplicity."[13] Do not let us for one moment ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... tapping new reservoirs of power as the swift-changing seasons pass. As a preacher and a teacher he has surely surpassed the versatile Stewart. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... is intellectual rather than handsome," answered Miss Kingsley. "Its expression is very striking and versatile. Fine, piercing eyes and waving hair, which he wears long. An intense individuality. But I should scarcely call him beautiful; interesting and highly sympathetic in appearance seems to me ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... hope to support much longer a burden which necessarily increased with the growing range and complexity of public affairs. Hitherto he had been the autocrat of the office, but competing Sunday papers exacted an alertness, a versatile vigour, such as only youth can supply; for there was felt to be a danger that the Weekly Post might lose its prestige in democratic journalism. Thus on the watch, Mr. Runcorn—a wary man of business, who had gone through many trades before he reached ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... W.W. Skeat recommended Tyrwhitt's Vindication, the chapter in Warton's History, and the Cursory Observations as the three contemporary analyses of the poems which a reader should consult.[37] The pamphlet is now offered to twentieth-century readers as an illustration of the mature and versatile critical powers of one ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... John Bethune would have attained a high reputation, both as an interesting poet and an elegant prose-writer. His genius was versatile and brilliant; of human nature, in all its important aspects, he possessed an intuitive perception, and he was practically familiar with the character and habits of the sons of industry. His tales are touching and simple; his verses lofty and contemplative. In sentiment eminently ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... production is, have made but an imperfect acquaintance with the range, the vitality, the vigor of this admirable craftsman who chose a style "smooth, clear, and short," and made it serve every purpose of his versatile and ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... sir: he's the head of the French Intelligence, you know. He's outside now. Shall we have him in? Miss Mackwayte shall tell her story, and you can then hear what Lambelet has to say about this versatile young dancer." ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... without rendering the tribute of my praise and homage to the versatile and gifted Author of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi. Considering that our hero be the same—considering that we had the same materials from which to choose our several stories—I trust I shall be found to have little, if at ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... like a church than a collection of large churches enclosed under one gigantic roof.... One is lost in it. It is a city of columns, sculptures, and mosaics." So says the clever, versatile Willis, in his "Pencillings by the Way," and it would certainly take months to examine minutely all that is worthy of attention in this vast pile. Our time, unfortunately, was limited, and we were only able to notice some of the more celebrated ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... in my dark heart. Yet I look up, I trust singly, to Him from whom it came yesterday; and thither may I look till again the day break. Can I say, in full sincerity, "more than they that watch for the morning"? Alas that I am so versatile! Christian and worldling within a day. Oh for a deeper sense that I am not my own,—that I have no right to disturb the sanctuary of my own spirit when God has made it such,—that there is no other way than whole-hearted ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... which was read by Brackenridge at Commencement, and mark therein that part of the poem composed by Freneau, and included later in Freneau's published works, one might very readily understand that Brackenridge was less the poet, even though in some ways he may have been more versatile as a writer. ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... this first volume are worthy of note, as revealing some phase of the poet's versatile gifts—delicate fancy, simplicity and truth, lucid force, or finished art. The Lily Confidante, is a light, lilting fancy, ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... Valiantly Vaccinated a Vapouring, Verbose Varmit of a Vulgar Villainous Vagabond, who Very Verdantly Ventured on a Versatile, Veteran, Valueless Velocipede to Visit the Viceroy of Venice, instead of Visiting ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... Slidell, polished and versatile Soule, ardent King, fail to withstand that mighty trio, "Webster, Seward, and Clay," the immortal three. The death of the soldier-President Taylor calms the clamor for a time. The struggle shifts to the House. Patriotic Vinton, of Ohio, locks the door on slavery. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... should ever marry a man towards whom her feelings must always have been pretty much the same as they are now. I am morally certain no decent woman could experience anything but aversion towards such a man as Mr. —-. Before I knew, or suspected his character, and when I rather wondered at his versatile talents, I felt it in an uncontrollable degree. I hated to talk with him—hated to look at him; though as I was not certain that there was substantial reason for such a dislike, and thought it absurd to trust to mere instinct, I both concealed ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... in debate, ambitious, adventurous in political diplomacy, a hard worker, incessant in activity for his party, temperate upon the slavery question, whole-souled in every measure or policy calculated to advance nationality, this versatile man may be put down as foremost among the leaders of the Whig Party from its origin till ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... potential, our economic assets are more than equal to the task. Our independent farmers produce an abundance of food and fibre. Our free workers are versatile, intelligent, and hardworking. Our businessmen are imaginative and resourceful. The productivity, the adaptability of the American economy is the solid foundation-stone ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Convention are fluctuating and versatile, as will ever be the case where men are impelled by necessity to act in opposition to their principles. In their eagerness to attribute all the past excesses to Robespierre, they have, unawares, involved themselves in the obligation of not continuing the same system. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... party—strong in its unparalleled antiquity; strong in its reminiscences; strong in its recent persecutions; strong in its Pharaonic relics, regarded by all men with a superstitious or reverent awe—and the free-thinking and versatile Greeks. The occasion was like some others in history, some even in our own times; a small but energetic body of invaders was holding in subjection ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Montaigne and from Du Vair; but, instead of Montaigne's smiling agnosticism, we have a grave and formal indictment of humanity; we miss the genial humour and kindly temper of the master; we miss the amiable egotism and the play of a versatile spirit; we miss the charm of ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... Changeable, versatile, inconstant Eusebius, where is now your burst of philanthropy—where is all your rage? Pretty havoc you would but now have made, had you been armed with thunder—thunder, I say, for yours would have been no silent devastation among the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... man I know. He used to send me the strangest letters when I was abroad, and almost every one presented him under some new phase. No, he is no sceptic. If he has rejected almost every thing, he has also embraced almost every thing; at each point in his career, his versatile faith has found him some system to replace that he had abandoned; and he is now a dogmatist par excellence, for he has adopted a theory of religion which formally abjures intellect and logic, and is as sincerely abjured by them. If the difficulties he has successively encountered ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... this lumbering, sluggish behemoth of the road. Secondly, sitting perched high up in the driving saddle, right under the canopy, he was not easily seen by the casual passer-by. And thirdly, if the pursuit came to close grips, he was still in a strategic position. For this, the most versatile of all land-machines except the military tank, can move across fields, crash through underbrush, and travel in a hundred places that would stall a motor car. He rumbled off down the road somewhat exhilarated. He found the scarlet stole twisted round his neck, and tied it to one of the stanchions ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... handbills describing his firm as "Wholesale Chemists, Druggists and Perfumers," he apparently no longer prospered in the drug trade, for old New York City directories show that he shortly turned his main energies to the practice of law. Versatile as he was, Lucius entered the Union Army as a surgeon during the Civil War, and upon his return he resumed his legal career, continuing to his death in 1876. Aside from his role in the Comstock medicine business, Lucius also rates ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... "O thrice-versatile Chou-hu!" exclaimed Tsae-che, whose eyes had reflected an ever-increasing sparkle of admiration as Yan unfolded the details of his scheme, "how insignificant are the minds of others compared with yours! Assuredly you have been drinking at some magic well in this one's absence, for ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... but not very gracefully; like some well-proportion'd faces, which yet want a pleasant air of countenance. He had a great plainnes in his own nature, and yet he was thought even by his Friends to love too much a versatile man; but his experience had thorowly weaned ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... people, deluded or not, love him not only because he is Kaiser, but also for himself. He is a clever man, who began his career with the enormous capital of being emperor and made the most of his position to amaze the world with a more versatile and also a more inscrutable personality than most people realize. Poseur, perhaps, but an emperor these days may need to be a poseur in order to wear the ermine of Divine Right convincingly ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... versatile writer, born in Selkirk; has distinguished himself in various departments of literary work, as a poet, a folk-lorist, a writer of fancy tales, a biographer, and a critic; has composed "Ballads and Lyrics of Old France," "Ballads in Blue China"; has translated Homer into musical prose, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood |
