"Prodigy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Of the prodigy and crime, When they killed him in his pity, When they killed him in his prime Of clemency and calm— When with yearning he was filled To redeem the evil-willed, And, though conqueror, be kind; But they killed him in his kindness, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... on Rome, and was finding it even more interesting than Paris. The Academy's professor of ancient history began to regard him as a prodigy. Then, somehow or other, Raymond got hold of Gregorovius, with his "City of Rome in the Middle Ages"—though his teacher did not know of this, and would have been sure to consider it an undesirable deviation from the straight and necessary path; and thenceforth the dozens of ordinary ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... there's mystery is evident; but when you hunt, see if such quarry, good Perez, turn not to bay. But new in Seville, I ne'er have encountered this prodigy; if his rank be mere assumption, he must be exposed; yet, Perez, there may be many causes for an incognito. Our Spain is wide and well peopled with those who boast ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... (1756-1791) was not only a musical genius, but was also one of the pre-eminent geniuses of the Western world. He defined in his music a system of musical thought and an entire state of mind that were unlike any previously experienced. A true child prodigy, he began composing at age 5 and rapidly developed his unmistakable style; by 18 he was composing works capable of altering the mind-states of entire civilizations. Indeed, he and his predecessor Bach accomplished the Olympian feat of adding to the human ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... have misunderstood each other. I said that your answering in Latin at so early an age was a prodigy, that is, a thing that is wonderful; that does not ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... as I to interest yourself in. The Atlas of Christianity proposes to establish the boundaries of that great tide of Christianity through all the ages, and for all parts of the globe. An undertaking worthy of the Benedictine learning, worthy of such a prodigy of ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... years and a half ago (June 3, '85), the paper startled the world of London by a prodigy of false, foul, and fulsome details in the shape of articles entitled "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon." The object of the editor, Mr. William T. Stead, a quondam teacher in the London schools and a respectable Methodist strengthened by non- Conformist ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... before named; but that only brother was a second self. Not that he resembled me in any respect, for he was beautiful to a prodigy, and I an ordinary child; he was wholly free from any predilection for learning, being mirthful and volatile in the highest degree; and though he listened when I read to him the mysterious marvels of my favorite nursery books, I doubt whether he ever bestowed an after- thought ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... from doing the same? We see from the foregoing account, with how much ease the French carried on a prodigious trade to the South Seas, at a time when the appearance of an English ship there was esteemed a prodigy. We certainly can send our frigates there, as well as the French can their ships from St Malo; and it might be well worth the while of our merchants to send out ships to the coasts of Chili and Peru, laden with proper goods ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... surgeon, who had walked till he was very warm, took off his wig to cool and refresh himself: a sudden exclamation of one of the Indians, who saw it, drew the attention of the rest, and in a moment every eye was fixed upon the prodigy, and every operation was suspended. The whole assembly stood some time motionless, in silent astonishment, which could not have been more strongly expressed, if they had discovered that our friend's limbs had been screwed on to the trunk. In a short time, however, the young women who ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... relics, which cannot be proved by any human testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles which they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an inveterate ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the holy crown: [53] the prodigy is attested by the most pious and enlightened Christians of France; nor will the fact be easily disproved, except by those who are armed with a general antidote against ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... movements of the body, usages the most indifferent, ceremonies the most frivolous, have become, in the powerful hands of the priests, sublime and divine mysteries. In the Roman religion all is magic, all is prodigy, all is supernatural. In the decisions of our theologians, the side which they espouse is almost always that which is the most abhorrent to reason, the most calculated to confound and overthrow common sense. In consequence, our priests are by far the most rich, powerful, and ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... predatory, predestination, predicament, preemptory, prelate, preliminary, preposterous, prerequisite, prerogative, presentiment, primogeniture, probation, probity, proclivity, procrastinate, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profligate, progenitor, proletarian, prolific, prolix, promiscuous, promissory, propaganda, propensity, prophylactic, propinquity, propitiatory, propitious, proprietary, prorogue, proselyte, prototype, protuberant, provender, proximity, prurient, psychical, psychological, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... and rich, a zealous friend, an eager political partisan, full of activity and vivacity, enjoying life, and anxious that the circle of his enjoyment should be widely extended. George Agar Ellis was the only son of Lord Clifden, and obtained early the reputation of being a prodigy of youthful talent and information. He was quick, lively, and had a very retentive memory, and having entered the world with this reputation, and his great expectations besides, he speedily became one of the most conspicuous youths of the day. Having imbibed a great admiration for Lord Orford ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... the Signor solemnly. "She is, indeed, a prodigy of talent,—one of the wonders of the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... by the suitors, and insists upon their departure from his palace; appealing to the princes, and exciting the people to declare against them. The suitors endeavour to justify their stay, at least till he shall send the queen to the court of Icarius her father; which he refuses. There appears a prodigy of two eagles in the sky, which an augur expounds to the ruin of the suitors. Telemachus the demands a vessel to carry him to Pylos and Sparta, there to inquire of his father's fortunes. Pallas, in ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... his age, a prodigy of learning. For before he had arrived at the 26th year of his life, he had such a large stock of useful knowledge, as to be philologus, philosophus et theologus eximius, and might well have been an ornament to the most famous and flourishing university in Europe. This was the more surprising, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Thomas Jefferson in his Notes on Virginia wrote: "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other.... The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.... I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice can not sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... parts of a science at one view without interruption or confusion. Some of his acquaintance, who were pleased to distinguish between the wit and the scholar, extoll'd him altogether on account of the first of these excellencies; but others, who were more candid, admired him as a prodigy in both. He had acquired reputation in the schools, both as a philosopher and polemic of extensive knowledge, and deep penetration, and went through all the courses with a proper regard to the dignity, and importance ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... his head in his hands, and stood in a sort of rigid torture of thought or prayer, while the other three could only go on staring at this last prodigy of their wild ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... nominated Frederick Douglass of Monroe, then a young coloured man of thirty-eight, for secretary of state, and Lewis Tappan of New York for comptroller. Douglass' life had been full of romance. Neither his white father nor coloured mother appears to have had any idea of the prodigy they brought into the world; but it is certain his Maryland master discovered in the little slave boy the great talents that a hard life in Baltimore could not suppress. Douglass secretly began teaching himself to read and write before he ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of fresh materials. The druid was put into the fresh part, and Patrick's casula about him. Benen, however, was put into the dry part, with the druid's tunic about him. The house was afterwards closed and fastened on the outside, before the multitude, and fire was applied to it. A great prodigy occurred there through Patrick's prayers. The fresh part of the house was burned, as well as the druid under the casula, and not a bit of the casula was destroyed. The dry portion, in which was ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... they ceased not from the leaguer of Constantinople, till, after awhile, news arrived from Baghdad, by one of the Amirs, that the Sultan's wife had given birth to a son and that the princess Nuzhet ez Zeman had named him Kanmakan. Moreover, his sister wrote to him that the boy bid fair to be a prodigy and that she had commanded the priests and preachers to pray for them from the pulpits; also, that they were all well and had been blessed with abundant rains and that his comrade the stoker was in the enjoyment of all ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... hurry, scurry, and scamper to get this second prodigy out. Presently he appeared. Multum in Parvo certainly was all that Buckram described him. A long, low, clean-headed, clean-necked, big-hocked, chestnut, with a long tail, and great, large, flat white legs, without ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... display the same, or at any rate a like, capacity for sustained narrative. Hard Cash displays it; parts of It is Never Too Late to Mend display it. But over much of these two novels lies the trail of that defective taste which makes A Simpleton, for instance, a prodigy ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it seemed as if he already knew everything that was taught him. When he was seven years old, he could not only play several instruments, but he composed fugues and sonatas. When the nobleman invited the magnates of the place to listen to his musicians, Franz, the prodigy, was the centre of interest, and very soon he became the talk of the town. At the age of ten he was an accomplished organ player, and he played with skill on the flute ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... to figure as a sort of prodigy in my family," he said; "we're not bookish. The Jew goes in for French novels, but I don't intend to let Nell touch them, so you may ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... and romance played no part in Doctor Bicknell's interest when he paused in the office to have a parting word with his patient. He, the Doctor, had performed a prodigy in the matter of this man, done what was virtually unprecedented in the annals of surgery. He did not care who or what the man was, and it was highly improbable that he should ever see him again; but, like the artist gazing upon a finished creation, ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... not so vain as to be proud of having it thought that I was ushered into the world with a prodigy or a miracle, and I should never have mentioned this trifling circumstance had it not been for some libels since published by my enemies, wherein they affect to make the said sturgeon a presage of the future commotions in this kingdom, and me the chief ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... love. We'll have him at the wedding. A man quite young In years, but gray in fame. I have not seen him, But Rumor speaks of him as of a prodigy Pre-eminent in arts, and arms, and wealth, And high descent. We'll have him ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... a kind of Prodigy, that in this wicked and censorious Age, the shining Daphne should preserve her Reputation ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... felt a sick longing for Catherine's shelter. Then all the pride in her rushed to the rescue and held that swooning dismay at the heart of her in check. And forthwith she capped Langham's minute account of the scale-method of a famous Berlin pianist by some witty stories of the latest London prodigy, a child-violinist, incredibly gifted, dirty, and greedy, whom she had made friends with in town. The girl's voice rang out sharp and hard under the trees. Where, in fortune's name, were the lights of the rectory? Would this nightmare never ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her commands and submit to her temper; she was not coaxed to the dainties of a luxurious table, nor had costly clothes spread before her to court her choice, nor any foolish friend to repeat all she said, as if she were a prodigy of wit and talent; and all these things, she well remembered, were accorded to her as a kind of inheritance in Barbadoes; but, along with them, she remembered having violent passions, in which she committed excesses, for which she afterwards felt keen remorse, because ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... you will die miserable. The country in which what I foretell must happen, forms a part of Celtic Gaul; and more than once, in the midst of your prosperity, you will regret the happy and peaceful life you led in the colony. At the moment you shall quit it, (but not forever,) a prodigy will appear in the air;—this will be the first harbinger of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... Guy," suddenly snapped little Mrs. Jeffries. "We are wasting the gentleman's time. You are no infant prodigy, and we have no pictures of your calves to show ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... will form a saw. With this saw, as long as a pin, and concealed in a sou, you will cut the bolt of the lock, you will sever bolts, the padlock of your chain, and the bar at your window, and the fetter on your leg. This masterpiece finished, this prodigy accomplished, all these miracles of art, address, skill, and patience executed, what will be your recompense if it becomes known that you are the author? The dungeon. There is your future. What precipices ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... deprived her of her rights. By what process of reasoning could they fix the blame on him for this stock which had been purloined by Blount, was beyond his strictly masculine mind; but women sometimes think by jumps. They skip a few processes, like a mathematical prodigy, and then arrive at some mammoth result. But, even if they exaggerated their grievance—was there anything behind it, any peg on which ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... all difficulties, and is their most complete solution; his gospel; the singularity of his mysterious being; his appearance, his empire, his progress through all centuries and kingdoms,—all this is to me a prodigy, an unfathomable mystery. I defy you to cite another life like that of Christ." It has well been said that "Christ is the God who is man, and the man who ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... "You are certainly a prodigy; you will soon not only surpass the railway, which would not be very difficult in France, but even ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from Gild's root sprung, A prodigy of virtue either; Proud Valborg fair and Axel young Must never, never ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could not understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could talk so fast, and in English, was marvel enough, but that this prodigy should belong to our establishment was a fact to thrill me. I had never seen anything like Mr. Wilner, except a wedding jester; but then he spoke common Yiddish. So proud was I of the talent and good taste displayed at our stand that if my father beckoned to me in the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... all kinds of female literature and accomplishments, and three happy years had passed under protection, when her only son, who was an officer in the Saxon service, obtained permission to come home. I had never seen him before—he was a handsome young man—in my eyes a prodigy; for he talked of love, and promised me marriage. He was the first man who ever spoken to me on such a subject.—His flattery made me vain, and his repeated vows—Don't look at me, dear Frederick!—I can say no more. [Frederick with his eyes cast down, takes her hand, and puts it to his heart.] ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... then, they were not acquainted with the circulation of the blood, the weight of the air, the laws of motions, light, the number of our planets, etc. And a man who maintained a thesis on Aristotle's "Categories," on the universals a parte rei, or such-like nonsense, was looked upon as a prodigy. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... 'Daisy of the Glen,'" was the reply. "She is a prodigy for her age. Her history is a little singular. She was found not far from here in a wild glen, or ravine, when about three years old, and has never been able to tell who or where her parents are. But I will relate the circumstances to ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... How well she looked-buoyant, full of vivacity, running over with joy, asking a dozen questions before he could answer one, testifying her delight, her affection, in a hundred ways. And the boy! He was so eager to see his papa. He could converse now—that is, in his way. And that prodigy, when Jack was dragged into his presence, and also fell down with Edith and worshiped him in his crib, did actually smile, and appear to know that this man belonged to him, was a part of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the lower sash. As the depended slips were brought with their backs to the light, Mr. Sands showed Richard how they were in the nature of stencils, the white light showing through in printed words. Richard was dumb; it was a kind of prodigy. He read the stencils, beginning at the top of the one which Mr. Sands ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... prodigy! You suffer this to burst upon me, Jacques, without notice, without preparation. My nerves are permanently shattered. You tell me, a man; I behold a tower, a mountain, Atlas crowned with clouds! Thousand thunders! what bulk! what sinews! and of my race! Amazing effect ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... when the great prodigy, Blind Tom, came to Memphis, there was a similar stir among the people. Tom was very young then, and he was called the Blind Boy. People came from far and near to hear him. Those coming from the villages and small towns, who could not get passage on the regular trains, came ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... his pupil was great, and he was fain to run off to call his mother to see the performances of their prodigy, but Jan was too impatient to ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... instant when the clergyman's features were disclosed the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of death. A superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, may, on one account or other, be admitted into the class of authors. Queen Catharine Parr translated a book: Lady Jane Gray, considering her age, and her sex, and her station, may be regarded as a prodigy of literature. Sir Thomas Smith was raised from being professor in Cambridge, first to be ambassador to France, then secretary of state. The despatches of those times, and among others those of Burleigh himself, are frequently interlarded with quotations from ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... vitality; that fish eat seeds, and that when the fish are devoured by birds the seeds can germinate, etc. Remember that every year many birds are blown to Madeira and to the Bermudas. Remember that dust is blown 1,000 miles over the Atlantic. Now, bearing all this in mind, would it not be a prodigy if an unstocked island did not in the course of ages receive colonists from coasts whence the currents flow, trees are drifted and birds are driven by gales. The objections to islands being thus stocked ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... head. "Your reasons are not valid, Herr Professor," he said and held up a corpulent forefinger to enforce Grossmann's further attention. "They seemed convincing at the time, I admit, but this new prodigy completely upsets your case." ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... year fresh boughs appear—it waxes huge in size; And, with wild glee, this prodigy Sir Ranulph grim espies. One day, when he, beneath that tree, reclined in joy and pride, A branch was found upon the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Scotchman the likeness meant something quite portentous, beyond English experience, supernatural, and what the French call moyenageux, or mediaeval with a grotesque turn. That Stirling as well as Milnes should regard Swinburne as a prodigy greatly comforted Adams, who lost his balance of mind at first in trying to imagine that Swinburne was a natural product of Oxford, as muffins and pork-pies of London, at once the cause and effect of dyspepsia. The idea that one has actually met a real genius dawns slowly on a Boston mind, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the beginning, more suavely at his ease than he would have believed possible, secure of sympathy and approbation, with Angy's glowing old eyes upon her prodigy, that all the while he had been at the Home, he had never before felt the power to express his gratitude for the welcome which had been accorded him—the welcome which seemed to wear and wear, as if it were all wool and a yard wide, and could never ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... all less than two hundred families. The houses are only ground floors, the walls built of split cane and mud, and the roofs thatched with leaves. These edifices, though extremely slight, are abundantly sufficient for a climate where rain is considered as a prodigy, and is not seen in many years; so that it is said that a small quantity of rain falling in this country in the year 1728, it ruined a great number of buildings, which mouldered away, and, as it were, melted before it. The ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... dated in Milwaukee, and signed by the mayor of that city, two physicians, three clergymen, and an editor, who bore united testimony to the fact that Jacob Menzel—I think that was his name—the bearer, any way,—was a deaf mute, and, considering that fact, a prodigy of learning, being master of no less than five different languages (a pathetic circumstance, considering that he was unable to speak one); moreover, that he was a converted Jew; and, furthermore, a native of Germany, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... woods shipped thence for Egypt had to submit to a toll on behalf of the temple. Did the daily life forced the necessity upon them; it teaches us at the same time how that fabulous chronicle was elaborated, whose remains have been preserved for us by classical writers. Every prodigy, every fact related by Manetho, was taken from some document analogous to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... happened to be one of the textbooks in use at Trinity. When Isaac heard lectures on Sanderson he found he knew the book a deal better than the tutor, a thing the tutor shortly acknowledged before the class. This caused young Mr. Newton to stand out as a prodigy. Usually students have to rap for admittance to the higher classes, but now the teachers came and sought him out. One professor told him he was about to take up Kepler's Optics with some post-graduate students—would ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... was not really as cruel as it sounds, for, sick as he was, little Antanas was the least unfortunate member of that family. He was quite able to bear his sufferings—it was as if he had all these complaints to show what a prodigy of health he was. He was the child of his parents' youth and joy; he grew up like the conjurer's rosebush, and all the world was his oyster. In general, he toddled around the kitchen all day with a lean and hungry look—the portion of the family's allowance that fell ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... friends and the music critics tried to convince the editor that Hofmann's art lay not so deep as Bok imagined; that he had been a child prodigy, and would end where all child prodigies invariably end—opinions which make curious reading now in view of Hofmann's commanding position in the world of music. But while Bok lacked musical knowledge, his instinct led him to adhere to his belief in Hofmann; and for twelve years, ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... that evening was not an imposing habitation. It boasted of only three rooms, and just as many occupants. George, the hero of the occasion, was the son of its humble owner and his wife, and, as will have been gathered, had turned out a prodigy. From his earliest days he had displayed a remarkable aptitude for study. Having once learned to read at the village school, he became insatiable after books, and devoured all ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... inquired the youthful prodigy, climbing to the wagon seat. "Don't forget to keep straight ahead after you turn off the main road. Git dap! So long, fellers!" He leaned over the wheel, as the stage turned, and bestowed a wink upon the delighted "Squealer," who was holding one freckled paw ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... about, neither the rank and file nor the leaders had noticed the gradual progress of the dark semicircle over the sun's disk. The ominous shadow fell upon them, still more awful from its suddenness. A great horror seized the serried hosts. The prodigy in the heavens struck the conscience of each individual; with one consent they hesitated to engage in carnage with so ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... without other exceptions, what shall be done with the following texts from Murray himself? "The flock, and not the fleece, is, or ought to be the object of the shepherd's care."—Ib., ii, 184. "This prodigy of learning, this scholar, critic, and antiquary, was entirely destitute of breeding and civility."—Ib., ii, 217. And, in the following line, what conjunction appears, or what is the difference between "horror" and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Mrs. Ponto. 'Squirtz's favourite pupil—inestimable to have such a creature. Lady Carabas would give her eyes for her! A prodigy of accomplishments! Thank you, Miss Wirt'—and the young ladies gave a heave and a gasp of admiration—a deep-breathing gushing sound, such as you hear at church when the sermon comes to a ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mechanism, even were it as perfect as you pretend, and as I daresay it is—what has it in common with a Being of sovereign intelligence? If it fills you with astonishment, that is perhaps because you are in the habit of treating as a prodigy anything that strikes you as being beyond your own strength. I have been myself so often an object of admiration for you, that I have a poor opinion of what surprises you. I have attracted people from all parts of England, who could not conceive by what means I could work at geometry. Well, you ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... opportunity, let us first examine, before any one else arrives, what can be the nature of the parhelion, or double sun, which was mentioned in the senate. Those that affirm they witnessed this prodigy are neither few nor unworthy of credit, so that there is more ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... combination of colours. In Nature colours are separate; they act and react one on the other, and so create in the eye the illusion of a mixture of various colours-in other words, of a tone. But if the human eye can perform this prodigy when looking on colour as evolved through the spectacle of the world, why should not the eye be able to perform the same prodigy when looking on colour as displayed over the surface of a canvas? Nature does not mix her colours to produce a tone; and the reason of ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... to come Edison will not only be recognized as an intellectual prodigy, but as a prodigy of industry—of hard work. In his field as inventor and man of science he stands as clear-cut and secure as the lighthouse on a rock, and as indifferent to the tumult around. But as the "old man"—and before he was thirty years old he was affectionately ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... has peopled those countries, so trading with them has raised them also to a prodigy of wealth and opulence; and we see now the ordinary planters at Jamaica and Barbadoes rise to immense estates, riding in their coaches and six, especially at Jamaica, with twenty or thirty negroes on foot running before them whenever they please to appear ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... side of Aunt Frances if he scares you so" (by that time Elizabeth Ann was always pretty well scared), "and perhaps we'd better just turn this corner and walk in the other direction." If by any chance the dog went in that direction too, Aunt Frances became a prodigy of valiant protection, putting the shivering little girl behind her, threatening the animal with her umbrella, and saying in a trembling voice, "Go away, sir! ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... the scenic delicacies brought into fashion by Behzad. If the Timourid age is to be dubbed the Persian quattrocento, Mr. Ruck's man will pass muster as the counterpart of some artist older than Raphael, who worked independently of the young prodigy unaffected by his ultimately ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... ago, has found some fortunate zone where his hair and skin keep the same sunny and rosy tints they wore to his mother's eyes in infancy. But I have no means of knowing this, or of telling whether he was the prodigy of intellect that he was declared to be. Naomi could no more be taken in proof of the one assertion than of the other. When she came to us, it was agreed that she should go to school; but she overruled her mother in this as in everything ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... a prodigy in time appear to his own age? Such cataclysmic wars as Ts'in had been waging for the conquest of China take society first, so to say, upon its circumference, smash that to atoms, and then go working inwards. The most conservative and stable elements are the last and least affected. The ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... "This is the prodigy, then, is it? It seems, young man, that you have an absolute talent for mechanics. But, Rondic, he does not look very ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... he answered. "I shall work with my hands if men will have none of my brains. Indeed," he continued, turning towards her with a swift, transfiguring smile, "I am not a village prodigy going to London with a pocketful of manuscripts. Don't think that of me. I am going to London because I have been stifled and choked—I want room to breathe, to see men and women who live. Oh, you don't know the sort of place I have come from—the brain poison of it, the hideous ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... "life." "Christianity is immortal; it has eternal truth, inexhaustible value, a boundless future. But our popular religion at present conceives the birth, ministry, and death of Christ as altogether steeped in prodigy, brimful of miracles—and miracles ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... orisons in silence. When they had concluded, they rose as if to depart, and the patriarch and his attendants advanced to speak to them, but they were no more to be seen. Every one marvelled what could be the meaning of this prodigy. The patriarch carefully noted down the day, and sent to Castile to learn tidings of Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa. He received for reply, that on the very day specified, that worthy knight, with seventy of his followers, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... "He will give me a second life; I have one into the bargain. This will be a prodigy indeed!" and he filled the jug again and put it ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... rock beside the spring, immediately the water changes into vapour, forms itself into great clouds filled with hail; the air becomes thick with shadows, and resonant with the muttering of thunder. Those who have come through curiosity to behold the prodigy wish that they had never done so, so filled are their hearts with terror, and so does fear paralyse their limbs. Incredible as the marvel may seem, yet the proofs of its reality are too abundant to ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... merely a Jewess, and he disliked the breed. But Mabel Aaronsberg was unexpected. She had a statuesque purity of outline and complexion; seemed, indeed, worthy of being a creation of his own. How the tedious old manufacturer could have produced this marmoreal prodigy provided a problem for the sculptor, as he almost silently ate his way through the long ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, can not but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances." Such is the practical operation of a system, which puts men and cattle into the same family and treats them alike. And must we prove, that Jesus Christ is not in favor of a school where ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... caught, And his illustrious son, the weapons thence, 40 Helmet, and bossy shield, and pointed spear, While Pallas from a golden lamp illumed The dusky way before them. At that sight Alarm'd, the Prince his father thus address'd. Whence—whence is this, my father? I behold A prodigy! the walls of the whole house, The arches, fir-tree beams, and pillars tall Shine in my view, as with the blaze of fire! Some Pow'r celestial, doubtless, is within. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... have known sins and evils every day and death we have known; They pass over our world like clouds mocking us with their transient lightning laughter. Suddenly they have stopped, become a prodigy, And men must stand before them saying: "We do not fear you, O Monster! for we have lived every day by conquering you, "And we die with the faith that Peace is true, and Good is true, and true is ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... if ever they acknowledge Services, 'tis always after the Man is dead, that he may not upbraid them with it. An eminent great Man among them, and rich to a Prodigy, had been almost drowned, but was taken up in the Interval by a poor Man; when he came to himself, he gave the poor Man Six-pence, but could never abide the sight of him after: The poor Man afterwards had the Dissaster of being drowned himself, and then the rich Man bewail'd ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... was first seen to multiply in the hands of the Venerable Mother: with only two or three loaves to divide among fifty or sixty persons, it was found that every one had a sufficient share. She perceived the prodigy herself and said quite simply, as she went on dividing the loaves, "I think our good God is multiplying this bread for His poor necessitous creatures." Even before this special demand on her charity, she had arranged that whatever might be their own distress, no Indian should ever ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... any mountain framed; So if he did this 'tis no prodigy; But secretly himself Orlando blamed, Because he was one of his family; And fearing that he might be hurt or maimed, Once more he bade him lay his burden by: "Put down, nor bear him further the desert in." Morgante said, "I'll ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... joy in the hearts of the Natchez. A child is born to them of the race of their Suns. A boy is born with a beard on his chin. The prodigy still works on from generation to generation.' So sang the warriors of my tribe when I sprang from my mother's womb, and the shrill cry of the eagle, in the heavens, was heard in joyful response. Hardly fifteen summers had passed over my head when my beard had grown long ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... same time recalling the prevalent tendency to ignore it, declares: "Detached facts on miscellaneous subjects, as they are taught at a modern school, are like separate letters of endless alphabets. You may load the mechanical memory with them, till it becomes a marvel of retentiveness. Your young prodigy may amaze examiners and delight inspectors. His achievements may be emblazoned in blue books, and furnish matter for flattering reports on the excellence of our educational system. And all this while you have ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... learned divine of his generation in New England, minister of the North Church of Boston, President of Harvard College, and author, inter alia, of that characteristically Puritan book, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences. Cotton Mather himself was a monster of erudition and a prodigy of diligence. He was graduated from Harvard at fifteen. He ordered his daily life and conversation by a system of minute observances. He was a book-worm, whose life was spent between his library and his pulpit, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... man standing some six feet two in height, stately in manner, somewhat sarcastic in speech,—a very prodigy in classical learning, and joint author of the great treatise On the Uses of the Greek Particle. Searchingly he looked from face to face round ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... in the fifth year of her age, and a prodigy of sense and goodness. In her first speech to the senate, which she lisped with inimitable grace, she assured them that her [2] heart was entirely Irish, and that she did not intend any longer to go in leading-strings, as a proof of which she immediately ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... extraordinary man," he said to her, "and you are just as extraordinary as a woman. You and I together would have a still more extraordinary child." Madame de Stael evidently did not care to take part in the manufacture of this prodigy. When George Sand's first novels appeared, the Saint-Simonians were full of hope. This was the woman they had been waiting for, the free woman, who having meditated on the lot of her sisters would formulate the Declaration of the rights and duties of woman. Adolphe Gueroult was sent to her. He ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... the Queen, 'that birds of taste are rare in the Metropolis, and that, on the Embankment especially, a rook would be regarded as a kind of prodigy. Nowhere has the manufacture of permanent scarecrows been conducted with more ingenious success. But tell me, my accomplished fowl, have Britons any other arts? Long ago the men used to paint themselves blue, but, as far as I have remarked, the women are now alone in staining their cheeks ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... mutant; rouser, snorter [U.S.]. individuality, idiosyncrasy, originality, mannerism. aberration; irregularity; variety; singularity; exemption; salvo &c (qualification) 469. nonconformist; nondescript, character, original, nonesuch, nonsuch^, monster, prodigy, wonder, miracle, curiosity, flying fish, black sheep, black swan, lusus naturae [Lat.], rara avis [Lat.], queer fish; mongrel, random breed; half-caste, half-blood, half-breed; metis [Lat.], crossbreed, hybrid, mule, hinny, mulatto; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... verse-learning, the drawing, the botany, or what not, the moment you have reason to think the hour is ripe. The hour may not last long, and while it continues you may safely let all the child's other occupations take a second place. In this way you economize time and deepen skill; for many an infant prodigy, artistic or mathematical, has a flowering epoch of ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... or the man fallen on the pavement) the type of the transition or transgression across a great mystical boundary. Bad cheese symbolises the change from the inorganic to the organic. Bad cheese symbolises the startling prodigy of matter taking on vitality. It symbolises the origin of life itself. And it is only about such solemn matters as the origin of life that the democracy condescends to joke. Thus, for instance, the democracy jokes about ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... whatever manner the money was obtained, Borri spent it in Holland with an unsparing hand, and was looked up to by the people with no little respect and veneration. He performed several able cures, and increased his reputation so much that he was vaunted as a prodigy. He continued diligently the operations of alchymy, and was in daily expectation that he should succeed in turning the inferior metals into gold. This hope never abandoned him, even in the worst extremity of his ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... gone, she's gone, blow high thou North-west wind, And raise the Sea to Mountains, let the Trees That dare oppose thy raging fury, leese Their firm foundation, creep into the Earth, And shake the world, as at the monstrous birth Of some new Prodigy, whilst I constant stand, Holding this trustie Boar-spear in my hand, And falling ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... inexperienced persons that nothing is so frequent as to mistake an ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowment. The mechanism of breathing and that of swallowing are very wonderful, and if one had seen and studied them in his own person only, he might well think himself a prodigy. Everybody knows these and other bodily faculties are common gifts; but nobody except editors and school-teachers and here and there a literary than knows how common is the capacity of rhyming and prattling in readable prose, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... which held that of Gyges was cold, soft, and small; nevertheless those slender fingers clasped it with a bruising force, as the fingers of some statue of brass animated by a prodigy would have done. The rigidity of an inflexible will betrayed itself in that ever-equal pressure as of a vice—a pressure which no hesitation of head or heart came to vary. Gyges, conquered, subjugated, crushed, yielded to that imperious ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... from his chocolate-colored face. What a month he had spent there! The professor was driving away the tedium of the vacation by teaching this young peasant, wishing to initiate him into the beauties of Latin letters with the aid of his eloquence and a strap. He wished to make a prodigy of him by the time he took up his classes again, and the blows grew more frequent. Besides this were the window grilles, which allowed glimpses of nothing but the opposite wall; the barrenness of the city, where not a green leaf ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Alas! no one was found any longer to cut it voluntarily. The new comers seemed to decline the honor. The "old favorites" reappeared one by one like dethroned princes who have been replaced for a brief spell in power. Then, the chosen ones became few, very few. For a month (O, prodigy!) M. Anserre cut open the cake; then he looked as if he were getting tired of it; and one evening Madame Anserre, the beautiful Madame Anserre, was seen cutting it herself. But this appeared to be very wearisome to her, and, next day, she urged one of her guests ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... parted but the shadow with his hand.— What! was it you that would be England's king? Was 't you that revell'd in our Parliament, And made a preachment of your high descent? Where are your mess of sons to back you now? The wanton Edward and the lusty George? And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy, Dicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies? Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland? Look, York; I stain'd this napkin with the blood That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... prodigy was before them, the spectators stirred not; nor was there one brave enough to speak; most of them with their eyes devoured it all, King and throne, birds, men and spirits; though afterwards there ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... are a species that lies midway .... Is it conceivable that a people recently freed of its chains can launch itself into the sphere of liberty without shattering its wings, like Icarus, and plunging into the abyss? Such a prodigy is inconceivable, never beheld." Toward the close of his career he declared: "The majority are mestizos, mulattoes, Indians, and negroes. An ignorant people is a blunt instrument for its own destruction. To it liberty means license, patriotism means disloyalty, ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... Ulysses, who just woke in time to witness, but not soon enough to prevent, their rash and sacrilegious banquet. He had scarce time to ask what great mischief was this which they had done unto him; when behold, a prodigy! the ox-hides which they had stripped began to creep as if they had life; and the roasted flesh bellowed as the ox used to do when he was living. The hair of Ulysses stood up on end with affright at these omens; but his companions, like men whom the gods had infatuated to their ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... there came at last a high dim August dawn when she couldn't sleep and when, creeping restlessly about and breathing at her window the coolness of wooded acres, she found the faint flush of the east march with the perception of that other almost equal prodigy. It rosily coloured her vision that—even such as he was, yes—her husband could on occasion sin by excess of candour. He wouldn't otherwise have given as his reason for going up to Portland Place in the August days that he was arranging books there. He had bought a great many of late, and he ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... that audience may have had of the "Prometheus" of Langhetti need hardly be conjectured. They had heard of it as a novelty. They had heard that the company was the best ever collected at one time, and that the prima donna was a prodigy of genius. That was enough for them. They waited in a state of expectation which was so high-pitched that it would have proved disastrous in the extreme to any piece, or any singer who should have proved to be in the slightest degree inferior. Consummate ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... eloquence. When his Oxford friend, Jenkinson (the future Earl of Liverpool) made a sensational debut in the House on the Tory side, Sheridan remarked that the Whigs would soon provide an antidote in the person of young Canning. Great, then, was their annoyance when the prodigy showed signs of breaking away from the society of the Crewes and Sheridan, in order to ally himself with Pitt. So little is known respecting the youth of Canning that the motives which prompted his breach with Sheridan are involved in uncertainty. It is clear, however, from ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... receiving admonitions on the way. The groomsmen and bridesmaids were as before. Mrs. Hill, who stood by Mrs. Carruthers, wept copiously, when her favourite daughter's turn came, and Hill senior gave her away with a qualm, especially as the parent of Timotheus presented him as the prodigy's son come back from the swine husks. So the last ceremony was over. "Siccan a thing as five waddins in ae day was never heard o' in Flanders before," said the Squire, with a sigh of relief. Of course, the people ought all to have gone away somewhere, according to all ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... sought her correspondence. The Abbe de Pure, who was not friendly to the precieuses and made the first severe attack upon them, thus writes of her: "One may call Mlle. de Scudery the muse of our age and the prodigy of her sex. It is not only her goodness and her sweetness, but her intellect shines with so much modesty, her sentiments are expressed with so much reserve, she speaks with so much discretion, and all that ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... here, seeking the beautiful, Stoop down, thinking to pluck one of these favorites, Take heed! Nymphs may avenge. List to a prodigy;— One moon scarcely has waned since I here ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... knave; I will no more trust him when he winks with one eye, than I will a serpent when he hisses. He will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers set it down for a prodigy: though I long to see Hector, I cannot forbear dogging him. They say he keeps a Trojan drab; and uses Calchas's tent, that fugitive priest of Troy, that canonical rogue of our side. I'll after him; nothing but whoring in this age; ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... prodigy, for he taught himself to read when four years old, and at five he had devoured hundreds of books and was already writing poems and plays. At ten, when he had his first tutor, his knowledge was wide and he had become a passionate lover of natural scenery, as well as no mean artist with ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... thither, and on each succeeding evening she found some new beauty in the bassoon, some new phase in his kaleidoscopic character to wonder at, some new accomplishment to admire. On one occasion—it was at the opera bouffe—this musical prodigy exhibited a playfulness and an exuberance of wit and humor that Aurora had never dreamed of. He ran the gamut of vocal conceit, and the polyglot fertility of his fancy simply astounded his rapt auditor. She was dazed, enchanted, spellbound. ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... to speak, except in their husband's company, even on the most ordinary subjects. So that once when a woman had the confidence to plead her own cause in a court of judicature, the senate, it is said, sent to inquire of the oracle what the prodigy did portend; and, indeed, their general good behavior and submissiveness is justly proved by the record of those that were otherwise; for as the Greek historians record in their annals the names of those who first unsheathed the sword of civil war, or murdered ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... with you in admiring him as a prodigy of genius, though I find the most shocking absurdities in his plays—absurdities which no critic of my nation ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Professor Auer. "The word 'prodigy' when applied to some youthful artist is always used with an accent of reproach. Public and critics are inclined to regard them with suspicion. Why? After all, the important thing is not their youth, but their artistry. Examine the history of music—you will discover that any number of great ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... Tiber now proceeded to occupy a large portion of the City, so that there was an inundation. Most people regarded this also as a prodigy, like the great earthquakes which shook down a portion of the wall, and like the frequent fall of thunderbolts, which made wine leak even from pails that were sound. The emperor, however, thinking that ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... part the carrier fell to whistling with fresh zest; and if (now and again) he glanced at the companion of his drive, it was with mingled feelings of triumph and alarm—triumph because he had succeeded in arresting that prodigy of speech, and alarm lest (by any accident) it should begin again. Even the shower, which presently overtook and passed them, was endured by both in silence; and it was still in silence that they drove at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the intelligence of humanity and the world's Press! The machiavelism of Bismarck was bad enough, with its constant demands on our vigilance, but this new omniscient German Emperor is worse; he reminds one of some infant prodigy, the pride of the family. Yet his ways are anything but kingly; they resemble rather those of a shopkeeper. He literally fills the earth with his circulars on the art of government, spreads before us the wealth of his intentions, and puffs his own magnanimity. ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... are a fighter I never heard of?" Billy queried, striving to get some inkling of the identity of the physical prodigy. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... time, put his affairs in order; and the report being spread, that an unheard of prodigy was to happen after his death, the viziers, emirs, officers of the guard, and, in a word, the whole court, repaired next day to the hall of audience, that they ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... his rival's claims. This year, also, he wrote, although he did not publish, his fine epistle to Jervas, the painter. Pope was passionately fond of the art of painting, and practised it a good deal under Jervas's instructions, although he did not reach great proficiency. The prodigy has yet to be born who combines the characters of a great painter and a ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... want to make a prodigy of her or an image of myself. I don't want to be it procurer for my daughter and educate her exclusively for matrimony, for then if she were left unmarried she might have bitter days. On the other hand, I don't want to influence her toward a career that requires ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... the shape they had seen was a monster of amazing proportions. Both Hartog and the men were equally resolved upon their respective theories; but while they were arguing the matter, and the dawn being now come, all doubts were set at rest by the appearance of a prodigy so incredible that I scarce dare set down, in this plain tale, a description of it. Within fifty yards from the vessel a serpent's head, not unlike those we had seen, but infinitely larger, rose above the surface of the water, and presently a great water-snake began ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... his Diary is the following entry:—"1658, 27 Jan. After six fits of an ague, died my son Richard, five years and three days old onely, but, at that tender age, a prodigy for witt and understanding; for beauty of body, a very angel; for endowment of mind, of incredible and rare hopes. He was all life, all prettinesse. What shall I say of his frequent pathetical ejaculations uttered of himselfe: Sweete Jesus, save me, deliver me, pardon my ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... nine hundred thousand men; and what was most difficult, it was necessary to persuade a mistrustful people, ever ready to cry out "treason!" of the possibility of such a prodigy. For this purpose, the old manufactories were comparatively nothing; several of them, situated on the frontiers, were invaded by the enemy. They were revived every where with an activity till then unexampled. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... difficult matter to be got over. Accordingly the learned Mythologist, Mr. Bryant, has laboured hard to prove, either, that other poets of the fifteenth century have written as smoothly, or, if you will not allow him this, that Rowley was a prodigy, and wrote better than all his contemporaries; and that this is not at all incredible, it happening very frequently. And how, think you, gentle reader, he proves his first point? He produces some verses from Spenser, written ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... all, an astrologer,—nay, a cabalist—is not so monstrous a prodigy in the nineteenth century! In the year 1801, Lackingtou published a quarto, entitled Magus: a Complete System of Occult Philosophy; treating of Alchemy, the Cabalistic Art, Natural and Celestial Magic, &c.—and a very impudent ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... respect miracles are called "virtues." The other thing is the purpose for which miracles are wrought, namely the manifestation of something supernatural, and in this respect they are commonly called "signs": but on account of some excellence they receive the name of "wonder" or "prodigy," as showing something from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... going down, first door in the stair." During Burns's life it was reserved for William Pitt to recognize his place as a great poet; the more cautious critics of the North were satisfied to endorse him as a rustic prodigy, and brought upon themselves a share of his satire. Some of the friendships contracted during this period—as for Lord Glencairn and Mrs Dunlop—are among the most pleasing and permanent in literature; for genuine kindness was never ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... laborious task to restore the sense of corrupt passages, and have sometimes abandoned the attempt in despair. Not a few of the pieces in the last edition of Dodsley come within this category; and we may signalise the unique tragedy of Appius and Virginia, 1575, as a prodigy of negligent and ignorant execution on the part of the original compositor. But to the same cause is due our still remaining uncertainty as to the true reading of numerous ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... at Nadia in 1485 and came under the influence of the Madhva sect. In youth he was a prodigy of learning,[636] but at the age of about seventeen while on a pilgrimage to Gaya began to display that emotional and even hysterical religious feeling which marked all his teaching. He swooned at the mention of Krishna's name and passed his time in dancing ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Western Europe were forced to the conclusion that a change of policy was inevitable. But for the occurrence of the French Revolution, that Anglo-French Alliance which has been regarded as one of the prodigies of our prodigy-creating age would have been anticipated by more than sixty years. By destroying Poland and humiliating Turkey, Catharine forever settled the character of the Russian Empire; and her successors were enabled to solidify her work in consequence of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of the Credit Department hit him on the Back and said he had a Good One. It was all about little Frankie, the Only Child, the Phenom, the 40-pound Prodigy. ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... an enemy more formidable than the assemblies of the clergy of France. Cardinal Richelieu, naturally attracted towards greatness as he was at a later period towards the infant prodigy of the Pascals, had been desirous of attaching St. Cyran to himself. "Gentlemen," said he one day, as he led back the simple priest into the midst of a throng of his courtiers, "here you see the most learned man in Europe." But the Abbot of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Scotch) ever heard, and boasted of being unanswerable in all manner of argument. He wrote some of the most wearisome treatises ever read—among others, a book upon witchcraft, in which he was a devout believer—and thought himself a prodigy of authorship. He thought, and wrote, and said, that a king had a right to make and unmake what laws he pleased, and ought to be accountable to nobody on earth. This is the plain, true character of the personage whom the greatest men about the court praised and flattered to that degree, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... the desire nor the capacity for teaching. It is interesting to see how these students made the best of their bad materials. 'I have given my whole soul to Greek,' wrote Erasmus, 'and as soon as I get any money I shall buy books first, and then some clothes.' Budaeus was known as 'the prodigy of France,' and even Scaliger allowed that his country would never see such a scholar again; and it is rather surprising that Erasmus should have compared his style unfavourably with that of Badius, the ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... admitted, one may hope, that common things are never commonplace. Birth is covered with curtains precisely because it is a staggering and monstrous prodigy. Death and first love, though they happen to everybody, can stop one's heart with the very thought of them. But while this is granted, something further may be claimed. It is not merely true that these universal things are strange; it is moreover ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... these committees. He was then forty years old and one of the most remarkable men in the country. Born on the frontier—his father from the upper middle class, his mother "a Randolph"—he had been trained to an outdoor life; but he was also a prodigy in his studies and entered William and Mary College with advanced standing at the age of eighteen. Many stories are told of his precocity and ability, all of which tend to forecast the later man of catholic tastes, omnivorous interest, ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... night (when a necromantic prodigy did indeed appal me), methinks I was not credulous in any other magic save that of love!' said Glaucus, in a tremulous voice, and fixing ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the republic, their wives and mothers, although distinguished by the name of Augusta were never associated to their personal honors; and a female reign would have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in the eyes of those primitive Romans, who married without love, or loved without delicacy and respect. [64] The haughty Agripina aspired, indeed, to share the honors of the empire which she had conferred on her son; but her mad ambition, detested by every citizen ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... not believe them all himself. A tradition with them was that they were the youngest of all nations, being descended from Targitaus, one of the numerous sons of Jove. The three children of Targitaus for a time ruled the land, but their joint rule was changed by a prodigy. There fell from the skies four implements of gold,—a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a drinking-cup. The oldest brother hastened eagerly to seize this treasure, but it burst into flame at his approach. The second then made the attempt, but was in his turn driven ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... competitors in the strife of political ambition. It was this power of work that astonished Cicero as the most prodigious of Caesar's gifts, as it astonished later observers in Napoleon before it wore him out. How if Caesar were nothing but a Nelson and a Gladstone combined! A prodigy of vitality without any special quality of mind! Nay, with ideas that were worn out before he was born, as Nelson's and Gladstone's were! I have considered that possibility too, and rejected it. I cannot cite all the stories about Caesar which seem to me to show that he was genuinely ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... her expression, half arch, half pleading, and so beautiful! "Oh, lovely and terrible prodigy!" I thought, "draw back; banish those thoughts; or, rather, no longer think at all—for you are on the edge ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Eve, it is generally conceded, were precocious. They entered into the cares and joys of adult life at an earlier age than any later human prodigy. We call them the grand old gardener and his wife, but, in fact, they were the youngest gardeners the world has ever seen, and they really did not give entire satisfaction. How ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... conversion of the Paravas; and in all this time, his two companions, Paul de Camerine, and Francis Mansilla, were not come to his assistance, though they had been arrived at Goa some months since. The number of Christians daily multiplying to a prodigy, and one only priest not being sufficient to cultivate so many new converts in the faith, or advance them in Christian piety, the saint thought it his duty to look out for succour. And besides, having selected some young men, well-natured, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... citizen,—let your acts be your country's and your own;—and whatever the result may be, meet it manfully, that moral courage may strengthen your cause. Now, then, let us set about building a canoe; let us imagine we can do a prodigy and it shall be done!' At this John's spirit ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... their generations to appear and fall and rot unnoticed, like the leaves of the forest? Degraded, superstitious, many of them still are. But they need only to be organized and directed to do untold mischief. More than once already has a similar catastrophe occurred. Some prodigy of skill and genius has seized such enormous forces, given them discipline and coherency and hurled them like a thunderbolt upon Christendom. Sometimes the shock has been frightful, and before it the proudest of empires and the stateliest of institutions ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... supplying the Defaults of Nature by the Industry of Art; he accordingly makes the greatest Provision for their Breeding and Education, which prov'd so effectual in a little Time, that their Progress was a greater Prodigy than themselves. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... van der Moen, the leggy, breasty, platinum-blonde twins—both of whom were Cowper medalists in physics. There was Etienne de Vaux, the mathematical wizard; and Rebecca Eisenstein, the black-haired, flashing-eyed ex-infant-prodigy theoretical astronomer. There was Beverly Bell, who made mathematically impossible chemical syntheses—who swam channels for days on end and computed planetary orbits in ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... been worth talking about? No, Amyas, you must see it; and if you will not see it now, you will see it one day in some sad and fearful prodigy; for she is not one to die tamely. She loves you, Amyas, as ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... a man happy nor respected, yet without wealth I know not how a man in this country can acquire any celebrity in it. With wealth, if a man have but a common share of understanding, he is at once pronounced a wise man, and he is looked up to as a prodigy; when his own native talent alone would not more than fit him for a menial office. Look for instance at our neighbours; there is. Mr. Astley of Everly, who is surrounded by every comfort; he has at his command not only horses, servants, and carriages, but he has a numerous ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... heard much from a cousin at Cologne of Maria Schurman, [Footnote: Anna Maria Schurman, born at Cologne on the 5th Nov. 1607, died at Wiewardin the 5th May 1678, was, according to the unanimous testimony of her contemporaries, a prodigy of learning, and perhaps the most learned woman that ever lived. The Frenchman Naud says of her, "You find in her alone all that the hand can fashion or the mind conceive. No one paints better, no one works better in brass, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... prodigy is reported. A squadron descends from the mountains, led by three white horsemen. A bishop, perhaps himself the inventor of this pious fraud, cries out to the wavering Crusaders: "Behold, heavenly succor has ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... had lived nearly all his life in the United States. He was not the only musical genius that we had among us. There was a little girl at one of the tents who had taught herself to play on the accordion on the way out. She was really quite a prodigy, singing very sweetly, and accompanying herself with ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... a great party. A musical prodigy, in the shape of a child of ten years, had arrived, and the leaders of fashion had agreed upon having a grand entertainment on ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... and sprightly in appearance, the fair Suzanne was well instructed in sciences and languages. Her wit, beauty and erudition made her a prodigy and an object of universal admiration upon the occasion of her visits to her relations in Lausanne. Soon an intimate connection existed between Edward Gibbon and herself; he frequently accompanied her to stay at her mountain home at Grassy, while at Lausanne also ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... monster, prodigy! Or nothing is, or Jove, from thee. Whether various Nature's play, Or she, renversed, thy will obey, And to rebel man declare Famine, plague or wasteful war . . . No evil can from Thee proceed; 'Tis only suffered, not ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... party with whom I had the honour to dine. What other repasts Sir George Thrum may have given, what assemblies of men of mere science he may have invited to give their opinion regarding his prodigy, what other editors of papers he may have pacified or rendered favourable, who knows? On the present occasion, we did not quit the dinner-table until Mr. Slang the manager was considerably excited by wine, and music had been heard for some time in the drawing-room overhead during our ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... scene of a demonstration of popular interest and patriotic feeling amazing in its multitudinous enthusiasm. The Loyal League was out in full force, the parade was a prodigy of display, and the Clover Club gave a brilliant dinner, and the cleverness of the President's speech carried the club by ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... kindness at the hands of the girl's uncle. All this, he thought, he could now repay, for certainly his old patron was poor enough, and he intended honestly to share with his former benefactor the profits he expected to realize with so fair a prodigy as Dada. No harm could come to the girl, and gold—said he to himself—glitters as brightly and is just as serviceable, even when it has been earned for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... see what genius without adequate instruction comes to, let him look at the case of the mathematical prodigy, Arthur Griffith. There is what no one would refuse to call genius. There is originality, spontaneity, insatiable interest, unceasing labor. And the result? A marvelous skill for which society has almost no use, and a knowledge of the science of arithmetic which is two hundred years ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... during which the two kings and their family scarcely found time to breathe after so terrible a shock. D'Artagnan, leaning against the wall, in front of Fouquet, with his hand to his brow, asked himself the cause of such a wonderful prodigy. He could not have said at once why he doubted, but he knew assuredly that he had reason to doubt, and that in this meeting of the two Louis XIV.'s lay all the difficulty which during late days had rendered the conduct of Aramis so suspicious to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas |
