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Apt

adjective
1.
(usually followed by 'to') naturally disposed toward.  Synonyms: disposed, given, minded, tending.  "I am not minded to answer any questions"
2.
At risk of or subject to experiencing something usually unpleasant.  Synonym: liable.  "She is liable to forget"
3.
Mentally quick and resourceful.  Synonym: clever.  "You are a clever man...you reason well and your wit is bold"
4.
Being of striking appropriateness and pertinence.  Synonyms: apposite, pertinent.  "An apt reply"



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"Apt" Quotes from Famous Books



... were added to the Union. In June, 1836, Arkansas, part of the Louisiana Purchase, became a state. It was still rather a wild place where men wore long two-edged knives called after a wild rascal, Captain James Bowie, and they were so apt to use them on the slightest occasions that the state was nicknamed the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... I knew as well as he did, and also his views on public matters, his political opinions, which naturally were different from mine. What ground, then, remained for confidence? I did not know any. We were both of us of a reserved nature, not apt to enter into our religious feelings, for instance. There are many people who think reticence on such subjects a sign of the most reverential way of contemplating them. Of this I am far from being sure; but, at all events, it was the practice most ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... Opera House. It has much to commend it, and might be made a power for artistic good with an operatic establishment on a really public-spirited, artistic, and unselfish basis; as it is, its influence is apt to be pernicious morally, as well as artistically. How seriously Mr. Fry took the proposed educational feature of the institution is indicated by an article on the new opera house, which he published in The Tribune, in the course of ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... eagle alone has seemed to wise men the apt type of royalty: not beautiful, not musical, not fit for food; but carnivorous, greedy, plundering, destroying, combating, solitary, hateful to all, the curse of all, and with its great powers of doing harm, surpassing them in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... Arle—a tiny scattered fishing hamlet on the northwestern English coast—there stood at the door of one of the cottages near the shore a woman leaning against the lintel-post and looking out: a woman who would have been apt to attract a stranger's eye, too—a woman young and handsome. This was what a first glance would have taken in; a second would have been apt to teach more and leave a less pleasant impression. She was young enough to have been girlish, but she was not girlish in the least. Her ...
— One Day At Arle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Susan and Elizabeth Stanton as they addressed a series of conventions in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Press notices were good, a Milwaukee paper describing Susan as "an earnest enthusiastic, fiery woman—ready, apt, witty and what a politician would call sharp ... radical in the strongest sense," making "radical everything she touches."[234] She found woman suffrage sentiment growing by leaps and bounds in the West and western men ready to support ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... did not see despatches till the next morning, for the best of all possible reasons, that Vanslyperken did not take them on shore. He had a long story to tell, and he thought it prudent not to disturb the admiral after dinner, as great men are apt to be very choleric during the progress ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... teach you is—obey. There was a young bear once that was bound to go his own way. The old bear told him it wouldn't do to jump over a precipice, but, somehow, he couldn't believe it and jumped. 'Twas the last thing he ever did. It's often so with the young. Their own way is apt to be rather steep and to end suddenly. There are laws everywhere,—we couldn't live without them,—laws of nature, God, and man. Until we learn the law and how to obey it, we must go carefully and take the advice of older heads. We couldn't run a school without laws ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... close, from which Kitty McQueen had emerged with her short gown in rags; and Lang Tammas was going from door to door. The austere precentor admonished fiery youth to beware of giving way to passion; and it was a proud day for the Auld Lichts to find their leading elder so conversant with apt Scripture texts. They bowed their heads reverently while he thundered forth that those who lived by the sword would perish by the sword; and when he had finished they took him ben to inspect their bludgeons. I have a vivid recollection of going ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... weather, across the Connecticut first, and then up through Vermont, and may be into Canada before the fall." The narrator himself queries by what right he came among these wanderers, and furnishes himself an answer which suggests that side of his nature most apt to appear in these journeys: "The free mind that preferred its own folly to another's wisdom; the open spirit that found companions everywhere; above all, the restless impulse that had so often made me wretched in ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... I own, a great deal of Penetration to hit exactly this Point of Reality: But then it must be confess'd, that as the great difficulty of Characteristic-Writing consists in this, so does the main Beauty and Force of it too: For Objects are apt to affect and move us according to their Presence or Absence; and a Character will naturally strike us more forcibly, the more the Images, which it consists of, are lively and natural; because the Object is then most present to ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally

... and is taken from him and applied by one of the chief members of the family to the wood. The Dom is the only person who can furnish the light for the purpose; and if for any reason no Dom is available, great delay and inconvenience are apt to arise. The Dom exacts his fee for three things, namely, first for the five logs, secondly for the bunch of straw, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... from extreme conscientiousness, sometimes from sheer ignorance of the ways of children. It is the desire to protect them from knowledge which they already possess and with which they, equally conscientious, are apt to "turn and rend" the narrator. I remember once when I was telling the story of the Siege of Troy to very young children, I suddenly felt anxious lest there should be anything in the story of the rape of Helen not altogether suitable for the average age of the class, namely, ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... get rid of her visitor as soon as she could. Even her resolute nerves were beginning to give way, and she knew her own powers well enough to mistrust a protracted trial of endurance. Feminine fortitude is so apt to break down all at once, and Miss Bruce, though a courageous specimen of her sex, was but a woman who had wrought herself up for a ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... we returned to the vicar's, and were sitting round the table with our bread end milk, the conversation turned on the joys and sorrows of the world, I could not resist the temptation to inveigh bitterly against ill-humour. "We are apt," said I, "to complain, but—with very little cause, that our happy days are few, and our evil days many. If our hearts were always disposed to receive the benefits Heaven sends us, we should acquire strength ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... useful, and, indeed, absolutely necessary, as rendering possible the division of labor. If men did not render mutual assistance to each other, no one would have either the skill or the time to provide for his own sustenance and preservation: for all men are not equally apt for all work, and no one would be capable of preparing all that he individually stood in need of. Strength and time, I repeat, would fail, if every one had in person to plow, to sow, to reap, to grind corn, to cook, to weave, to stitch and perform ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... Miss Wardour, was apt to succeed in most things, and it is fair to suppose that her visit to Mapleton, in the character of intercessor for the erring Sybil, was not a fruitless one. Certainly, it was not ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... wolves, or another hunter, could have driven the moose to such a flight. There was no other hunter ranging within twenty miles of him. Therefore, it was wolves. He had no weapon with him but his knife and his light axe, because his rifle was apt to be a useless burden in winter, when he had always traps or pelts to carry. And it was rash for one man, without his gun, to rob a wolf-pack of its kill! But the trapper wanted fresh moose-meat. Hastily and skilfully he began to cut from the carcass the choicest portions of haunch ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... replied that she thought the young Irishman would prove an apt scholar, though she could not understand how, under the circumstances, she could manage to do as ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... set my heart upon it!" said she, "and I tell you I must receive an invitation to this ball. Madame de Fleury positively shall not exclude me. I have already set in motion a number of influential pulleys, and I am not apt to fail when I make an ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... missionaries. He did not do any regular work with the shearers, but pretended to help in the yards, his real aim being to get the grog, which is always more freely circulated at shearing-time: he did not get much, for he was apt to be dangerous when drunk; and very little would make him so: still he did get it occasionally, and if one wanted to get anything out of him, it was the best bribe to offer him. I resolved to question him, and get ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... translation of the passage to which you refer on my own authority, any mistake would be mine, and I should be bound to acknowledge it. As I did not, I have nothing to admit. I have every respect for your and Mr. —'s authority as Hebraists, but I have noticed that Hebrew scholars are apt to hold very divergent views, and before admitting either your or Mr. —'s interpretation, I should like to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... Jellia Jamb, for a time, to know what to do with the animal. The green maiden was much astonished at the sight of so unusual a creature, for horses were unknown in this Land; but those who lived in the Emerald City were apt to be astonished by queer sights, so after inspecting the cab-horse and noting the mild look in his big eyes the girl decided not to ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... Inchiquin, notorious as "Morough of the Burnings," from his manner of making war, and his son, Lord O'Brien, were caught off the Tagus while engaged in one of those foreign services in which royalists were apt to enlist during the troubles at home, and it took the Earl seven or eight months' captivity and 7,500 crowns to obtain his release. In the following century the remnant of the brave Hibernian Regiment, on its way from Italy, was ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... present, or whether he merely showed himself as he was—an unlicked cub—such a man might have determined. But the Colonel held his judgment in suspense, though he leaned to the latter view of the case. He knew that even in England a lad brought up among women was apt to develop a quarrelsome uncouthness, a bearishness, intolerable among men of the world. How much more likely, he reflected, was this to be the case when the youth belonged to a proscribed race, and lived, a ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... grand condition of her father's will. In the sunny years that were past Lucy had taken no notice of this omission. She had not thought much on the subject herself. She had withdrawn from it tacitly, as one is apt to do from a matter which has been productive of pain and disappointment, and had been content to ignore that portion of her responsibilities. Even when Jock forcibly revived the subject it continued without any practical ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... are apt to be in the way. There are too many trees in America. It is not often you can get a broad, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... anywheres on her road; to which he had rejoined that she might go to blazes and welcome for anythin' he had to say agin it, and that bedad a crosser-tempered ould weasel of a wizened-up ould witch wouldn't be apt to land there in a hurry. At last, being very tired, she escaped for a while from these fluctuations of wrath and ruth into a nook of sleep, but the bitter cold routed her out of it soon after sunrise, and she took the road again, cramped and numbed, ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... nothing but verse can do perfect justice to verse; but besides the imperfections which are pardonable, because inevitable, in all such metrical endeavours, the desire to impress a grand and worshipful idea of Dante has been too apt to lead his translators into a tone and manner the reverse of his passionate, practical, and creative style—a style which may be said to write things instead of words; and thus to render every word that is put out of its ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... and controlling it in its great struggle for national existence. Such a vast accumulation of history has been compressed into those years, and such a wonderful panorama of events has passed before us in that comparatively brief time, that we are apt to think of Lincoln as of the long ago, as almost a contemporary of Washington and of the Revolutionary fathers. The immensity of the history which has been crowded into those forty-five years has distorted our mental vision, as ordinary ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... even one of the most backward of the civilized nations. Hence factory life is hard and disagreeable to the worker. Especially to the young girl is it often unendurable. A girl who has been some years in a factory rarely wants her young sister to come into it, too. She herself is apt to shift from one shop to another, from trade to trade, always in the hope that some other work may prove less exhausting and monotonous than that with which she is familiar by trying experience. ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... knowledge. But a knowledge of metals is altogether different. It is wonder enough that one community should have hit on the invention of bronze. The chance would be against its independent discovery in widely separated areas. They would be more apt to chance on the production of some other metal. Thus; tribes in the interior of Africa are said to have passed direct from the Stone to the Iron Age, a knowledge of bronze not having ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... kind of idle gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farm-house, and the addition of a supernumerary [Footnote: Supernumerary: superfluous, unnecessary.] dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... your own actions and dangers. However pleasant it may be to you to enlarge upon the risks you have run, others may not find such pleasure in listening to your adventures. Avoid provoking laughter also: it is a habit from which one easily slides into the ways of the foolish, and apt to diminish the respect which your neighbors feel for you. To border on coarse talk is also dangerous. On such occasions, if a convenient opportunity offer, rebuke the speaker. If not, at least by relapsing into silence, colouring, and looking annoyed, show that you are displeased ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... was eight years old, Benjamin Franklin was sent to a grammar school, where boys were prepared for college. He was a very apt scholar, and in a few months was promoted ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin

... other lands, the "Etruscan Woman," the "Gauls," the "Cretan," "Alexandria"; or descriptions of popular festivals, as the "Compitalia," the "Saturnalia," "Anna Perenna," the "Hot Baths"; or parodies of mythology, as the "Voyage to the Underworld," the "Arvernian Lake." Apt nicknames and short commonplaces which were easily retained and applied were welcome; but every piece of nonsense was of itself privileged; in this preposterous world Bacchus is applied to for water and the fountain-nymph for wine. Isolated examples even of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... curious how in war time really important occurrences are apt to escape one's notice. For example, it was not until we read an article in a contemporary last week on "The Demise of the Slim Skirt" that we realised that Fat Skirts were now ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various

... Watson said she would put you on. You'll have a good place for passing. You know the game from observation. But if I were you, I'd read the rules again and again. If you have them fairly fixed in your mind you are not so apt to make a foul play. Do your best, and you may work up to one of the other teams before long. Erma Thomas may not come back after the first of the year. That will leave one place for a substitute. She plays right guard. She's one of the finest ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... from it.-And I'm sorry to have to say it, old bird, but, if you come bounding in with part of the personnel of the ensemble on your arm and try to dig a father's blessing out of him, he's extremely apt to stab you in ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... one's best efforts, there is reason to dread. Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin—the longer the claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility, which we mistook for genius, is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that, even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings—much harder than to say something fine about them which ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... "I don't think that we shall have any great difficulty about that. But then it would be pleasanter to go in a little larger party. Two people are apt to get tired of each other, when there is nobody else that they can speak a single word to for a whole fortnight. I don't think that I should get tired of you. What I am afraid of is, that you would get tired ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott

... day the Duke was sitting in his tent, brooding, as he was apt to do, over the unjust accusations which had been heaped upon him in regard to the failure of the Armada, when a stranger was announced. His name, he said, was Giacomo Morone, and he was the bearer of a letter from Sir Horace ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... degree, my belief, yet the consciousness that this was the opinion of one who would, probably, be present at our introduction to each other, would excite all that confusion which the passion itself is apt to produce. This would confirm him in his error, and call forth new railleries. His mirth, when exerted upon this topic, was the source of the bitterest vexation. Had he been aware of its influence upon ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... his powers of self-control. 'But the common outcry against murder is apt to be very inconvenient for the person who chooses, as you put it, to end one incarnation and begin another. Has it not struck you, Owen, that inquiries would be made for me, that my death would ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... Gentlemen, among whom I am to speake of one more especially, named Anastasio, descended from the Family of the Honesti, who by the death of his Father, and an Unckle of his, was left extraordinarily abounding in riches, and growing to yeares fitting for marriage, (as young Gallants are easily apt enough to do) he became enamored of a very bountifull Gentlewoman, who was Daughter to Signior Paulo Traversario, one of the most ancient and noble Families in all the Countrey. Nor made he any doubt, but by his meanes ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... I think you are far more apt to succeed in reaching camp than I. I'm satisfied with the second part in the game. Both parts ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... me! Mr. Machin. And naturally in the management of enormous estates such as Lord Woldo's little difficulties are apt to occur.... I'm sorry you've been put in a false position. You have all my sympathies. But of course you understand that in this particular case ... I myself have taken up the lease from the estate. I happen to be interested in a great movement. The plans of my church ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... we not add, purity of childhood. And there appears, at least now in their present state, that there is too universal a use of the brown and other warm colours; Rembrandt invariably inserted among them cool and deep grays, very seldom blue, which, as too active a colour, is apt to destroy repose, the intended effect of deep colouring. Titian uses it for the sake of its activity, as in the Bacchus and Ariadne and how subdued is that blue! but even in such pictures there are the intermediate grays, both warm and cold, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... worthy and eminent women, with several other writers of note, claims that it was she who wrote the treatise entitled "The Whole Duty of Man;" and his reasoning is so much to the point, though quaint, that we simply append what he says of her, with his apt quotations from her writings, as a sufficiently clear delineation of the character and talents of this ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... lived, about six hundred years ago, a young samurai named It[o] Tat['e]waki Norisuk['e], whose ancestors were of the H['e][:i]k['e] clan. It[o] was of handsome person and amiable character, a good scholar and apt at arms. But his family were poor; and he had no patron among the military nobility,—so that his prospects were small. He lived in a very quiet way, devoting himself to the study of literature, and having (says the Japanese story-teller) ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... the other hand, motors sometimes passed them from behind, and if they went along on the right side they were Marjorie's count. Houses were as apt to be on one side as the other, and these added their count of dogs, cats, chickens, and cows, as well as ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... think of those for a girl of fourteen? There's a pupil for you! If she were only a boy! Such dash—such spirit—such a gift of words! Do you notice her adjectives? Exaggerated, no doubt, and over-abundant, but so apt, so true, so strong! That child can write: she has the gift. She ought to turn out an ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... observed it, as did more lately Captain King of the "Adventure." The cause probably is due to the want of shelter, both of trees and hills, so that an insect on the wing with an offshore breeze, would be very apt to be blown out to sea. The most remarkable instance I have known of an insect being caught far from the land, was that of a large grasshopper (Acrydium), which flew on board, when the "Beagle" was to windward of the Cape de Verd Islands, and when the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... this arrangement upon its apparent terms, but none the less did he pierce its transparent motive, and tacitly devote to me his whole soul in acknowledgment of what he considered my delicate generosity. These unfledged souls are apt to throw themselves thus away in exchange for the most trifling pecuniary service, and torment themselves, moreover, that the compensation is so mean. I smiled at Guy's naivete, but none the less turned ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... Mom," writes he, "Is not the life you picked for me. And yet I'm getting fat and strong And learning as I go along That any life a man can find Is apt to grow to be a grind Unless a fellow has the wit To see the brighter side of it. Don't worry for your sailor son; He sleeps well when ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest

... vanish and become a wild waste of sullen turbulence, each dark foreboding sea rising and breaking, then rolling on again. The dash, the sparkle, the silvery light soon vanished with the sun, which became obscured by black clouds that were rolling swiftly in from the west, northwest; apt heralds of ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... way the rich and prosperous treat the poor," soliloquized Martin, feeling that the whole world was in a conspiracy against him. Those who undertake to live without work are very apt to arrive ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr

... thought it more fit to exercise their ignorant pupils chiefly in the mere alphabet and syllables of Christianity. (Acts xv, 28, 29.) The construction of words and sentences would naturally follow. The rudiments of the gospel, if once possessed by them, would be apt to lead them on to greater attainments. Indeed, the love, peace, truth, and other elements of holy living inculcated by the Apostles, would, if turned to all proper account, be fatal to every, even the most gigantic, system of wickedness. Having these elements in their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... Promptly at seven o'clock this same Monday morning they will every one of them have to be in their places at Durham's or Brown's or Jones's, each in his working clothes. If one of them be a minute late, he will be docked an hour's pay, and if he be many minutes late, he will be apt to find his brass check turned to the wall, which will send him out to join the hungry mob that waits every morning at the gates of the packing houses, from six o'clock until nearly half-past eight. There is no exception to this rule, not even little Ona—who ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... subject. Secure in the affection of their slaves, an affection which was afterward abundantly proved during the course of the war, they scarcely saw the ugly side of the question. The worst masters were the smallest ones; the man who owned six slaves was far more apt to extort the utmost possible work from them than the planter who owned three or four hundred. And the worst masters of all were those who, having made a little money in trade or speculation in the towns, purchased a dozen slaves, a small piece ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... pry into your secrets, Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, and we will drop the subject. You may say, however, if the rear-admiral was in good spirits—as an English seaman is apt to be, with the prospect of a great battle ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... streaming through Eastern Europe and Western Asia, so hilarious and good-tempered all the time, so intensely wide-awake, so perfectly at home everywhere, so quick at making friends, so perfectly convinced that the world was made for American travellers, and so apt at proving it by his own example, that his friends who missed him for a while not only were not astonished to find that he had been a Surgeon in the Ottoman Army, during this brief interval, but only wondered he had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... land. In proportion as they were near of kin to the recognised tribal chief, families held lands by a tenure of three generations; but if they managed to acquire abundance of oxen, which they let out to poorer men for rents in kind and labour, they were apt to turn the lands which they held only temporarily, "in possession," into real permanent property. The poorer tribesmen paid rent in labour or "services," also in supplies of ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... Virgin Thoughts are apt to Rove, And few escape that Noble Passion Love, Teach me, Belinda, by thy Arts to Chuse What Suiters to Admit, and ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous

... of him. Too slow. I like efficiency, my boy, efficiency. . . . That's my motto." Sir John complacently performed three steps of his celebrated strut. "Did you know the Hearl?" Though fairly sound on the matter, in moments of excitement he was apt to counterbalance his wife with the ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... reason of the figure being unable to penetrate the water, the other of walnut-tree, without a question, if thrust to the bottom, ought to stay there, as having the same impeding figure, and being less apt to overcome the said resistance of the water. But if we find by experience that not only the thin board, but every other figure of the same walnut-tree, will return to float, as unquestionably we shall, then ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... is difficult craft, and very apt to be took all aback by the wind o' love, as you might say—but Lord! it's only natural arter all. Ah! the rearing o' motherless nieces is a ticklish matter, gentlemen—as to nevvys, I can't say, never 'aving 'ad ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... the tiny flask that a man with a weak heart is apt to carry, he put it into a shaking ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... more work to-night than I've seen him do altogether in the last six months," said Joe. "So we'd better let him rest himself awhile now. He's apt to get ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman

... and was fool enough to be flattered by her caresses. When she would lay her hand on his arm, a thrill of pleasure went through him. And yet he would willingly have seen any decent man take her and marry her, making a bargain that he should never see her again. Young or old, men are apt to become Merlins when they encounter Viviens. On this occasion he left her, disgusted indeed, but not having told her that he was disgusted. "Come again, Frank, to-morrow, won't you?" she said. He made her no promise ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... that same blushing innocence and blooming beauty, to remind me of my sister; and had her hair been a shade or two darker, and her teeth not so ivory white; I believe I should have forgotten I was talking to a stranger. You will pardon my frankness, Squire, I know you will. I am apt to talk right out just as I happen ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... Crewys," he said, "some time since I spoke my mind—a thing I am over-apt to do—of Peter, and to him. The lad has forgiven me; he is a man, you see, with all his faults. But Lady Mary, though she has all the virtues of a woman, is also a mother. A woman often forgives; a mother, never. ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... a little less, and a magazine rack for $5 or $10. The problem of keeping periodicals in easy reach without too much of a "litter'ry" effect has not yet been solved. The open rack is the best compromise between sightliness and utility, because it is more apt to be used than the more ambitious arrangements with doors. In the general treatment of the living room the piano and its case are not to be overlooked, and the presence of a piano also suggests the music cabinet, with its problem similar to that of the magazine rack. As music is ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... dating from the fifteenth century, are preserved in the British Museum. Tyrwhitt, justly enough, says of it that it is indeed, as Chaucer called it in the prologue, "'a moral tale virtuous,' and was probably much esteemed in its time; but, in this age of levity, I doubt some readers will be apt to regret that he did not rather give us the remainder of Sir Thopas." It has been remarked that in the earlier portion of the Tale, as it left the hand of the poet, a number of blank verses were intermixed; though this peculiarity of style, noticeable ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... in the second city of Italy—men who, while at present held down by the skilful plotting of their enemies or the hopelessness of open resistance, were yet waiting, vigilant to seize upon the first promising opportunity to recover the lost ground. On the other hand, innkeepers were apt to be a well-informed class, as to public happenings, and this man told his tale with parrot-like precision. At any rate, there was nothing to do but reach Capua as soon as possible; for, the Carthaginian commander once within the walls, no one could tell what precautions and scrutiny ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... fortunately, these insects are not found quite so large as the one in the drawing, for he is considerably magnified. But when we hear even a very small fellow buzzing around our heads, in the darkness of a summer night, we are very apt to think that he sounds as if he were at least as big as ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... of growing numbers. We ignore the danger to our growing strength when the adventurer comes along, loud in protest of his support—he is always affable and plausible, and is received as a "man of experience"; and in our anxiety for further strength we are apt to admit him without reserve. But we must make sure of our man. We must keep in mind that an alliance with the adventurer is more dangerous than his opposition; and we must remember the general public, typified by the man in the street whom we wish to convince, is quietly studying us, attracted ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... trouble with her chimneys because they smoked; in trouble with her maids who did not obey her; and worst of all in trouble with herself; for she had good sense and good principle, but she had let her temper go too long undisciplined, and it was apt to break forth sometimes against those she loved, and would cause her many bitter tears ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... puerile politics in any school; so much and no more we may understand of the events which surround and menace us with their results. The missions may perhaps have been to blame. Missionaries are perhaps apt to meddle overmuch outside their discipline; it is a fault which should be judged with mercy; the problem is sometimes so insidiously presented that even a moderate and able man is betrayed beyond ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... punishing him as the crime deserved. Therefore when Hyrcanus asked this question, the Pharisees answered that the man deserved stripes and imprisonment, but it did not seem right to punish a slur with death. And indeed the Pharisees ordinarily are not apt to be severe in punishment. At this mild sentence Hyrcanus was very angry and thought that this man reproved him with their approval. It was this Jonathan who influenced him so far that he made him join the Sadducees and leave the party of the Pharisees and abolish ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... those things; thus gall is falsely honey; and tin, false gold. Regarding this, Augustine says (Soliloq. ii, 6): "We call those things false that appear to our apprehension like the true:" and the Philosopher says (Metaph. v, 34): "Things are called false that are naturally apt to appear such as they are not, or what they are not." In this way a man is called false as delighting in false opinions or words, and not because he can invent them; for in this way many wise and learned persons might be called false, as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... descriptions by Mr. Basil Thomson, and other living witnesses, the present writer is unable to imagine. The better, the more closely contemporary the evidence, the more a witness of the abnormal is ready to submit to cross-examination, the more his testimony is apt to be neglected by Folklorists. Of course, the writer is not maintaining that there is anything 'psychical' in fire-walking, or in fire-handling. Put it down as a trick. Then as a trick it is so old, so ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... difficulty. Moreover, the ideas which are usually formed on these points at an early stage are incomplete; and, if the incompleteness of an idea is not realized, operations in which it is implied are apt to be purely formal and mechanical. What are called negative numbers in arithmetic, for instance, are not really negative numbers but negative quantities (S 27 (i.)); and the difficulties incident to the ideas of continuity have already ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... just remark I hope will be constantly held in remembrance by parents, who are in general too apt to indulge their own fond feelings for their children at the expence of their friends. The common custom of introducing them after dinner is highly injudicious. It is agreeable enough that they should appear at any ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... ought to have, little freedom, they are apt to indulge themselves too fully with regard to such freedom as they have; they carry everything to extremes, and they devote themselves to their games with an enthusiasm even greater than that of boys. This is the second difficulty to which I referred. This enthusiasm must be kept ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... him to make peace with his brother. He wondered what he might well ask in return for playing the traitor. His rancour against the Rougons still gnawed at his heart; but he was in one of those moods when, lying on one's back in silence, one is apt to admit stern facts, and scold oneself for neglecting to feather a comfortable nest in which one may wallow in slothful ease, even at the cost of relinquishing one's most cherished animosities. Towards evening Antoine determined to send for his brother ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... the secrets of music, the wonder of love, and the misty, undefined prayers of the soul constitute true religion. When you place a creed in a crucible and afterward study the particles on a slide encased in balsam, you are apt to get a residuum or something—a something that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... little doubt that a great number of the readers of Browning think them beside the mark and adventitious. But it is exceedingly dangerous to say that anything in Browning is irrelevant or unnecessary. We are apt to go on thinking so until some mere trifle puts the matter in a new light, and the detail that seemed meaningless springs up as almost the central pillar of the structure. In the successive monologues of his poem, Browning is endeavouring to depict the ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... true," he said, "that the person I spoke of is a woman, but as she is at least sixty years old, and can only walk with the help of a stick, I do not think that she would be apt to disturb the moral ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... altogether wrong to believe that this empirical defeat of the styles and rules implied their final defeat in philosophy. Even writers who were capable of dispensing with prejudice when judging works of art, once they spoke as philosophers, were apt to reassume their belief in those categories which, empirically, they had discarded. The spectacle of these literary or rhetorical categories, raised by German philosophers to the honours of philosophical deduction, is even more amusing ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... and gesture and word of the sovereigns had its certain value and conveyed its equivalent of joy to the heart of the subject—a matter well worthy the study (says he) of all monarchs, who are too apt to distribute honors with a heedless caprice that renders them ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... everybody was expected to be present; and from that time onward everybody was so fully occupied that it was essential to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Guests who came down for a night or two were often apt to forget how much the regular workers had to do and what a tax it put upon the willing servants to manage a house of which nobody could say ten minutes before a meal how many would sit down to it, nor even until lights out for how many people beds must ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... absolutely necessary, from the nature of things, that that record should be of the most fragmentary and imperfect character. Unfortunately this circumstance has been constantly forgotten. Men of science, like young colts in a fresh pasture, are apt to be exhilarated on being turned into a new field of inquiry, to go off at a hand-gallop, in total disregard of hedges and ditches, losing sight of the real limitation of their inquiries, and to forget the extreme imperfection of what is really known. Geologists ...
— The Past Condition of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley

... is a God above us, I believe it, Anna Sophia. It is not belief, it is certainty. It is not in my nature to be brave; I was not brought up to it, and am therefore without it. I am an apt farmer, but would ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... practising eight, or we shall foul her! Left, as hard as you can! That'll do. The cox was getting as red as a salamander, till he saw it was a lady steering. When coxes catch a man fouling them, their language is apt to be highly unparliamentary.—Yes, I shall try to get away to Calcombe as soon as ever I can manage to leave Oxford. It wouldn't surprise me if I were to run down and spend ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... Queen will be read with great interest, but it is unnecessary to caution the reader to accept it cum grana salis, for Brantome's likes and dislikes are at all times apt to run away with his historical judgment. Says Louis Moland in an introduction to the French edition of the Abbe's works: "The admiration which he professes for these grand princesses whom he has the honour ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... and left him, Mr. Saltonstall told us that this Simon was a bad Indian, who, when in drink, was apt to be saucy and quarrelsome; but that his wife was quite a decent body for a savage, having long maintained herself and children and her lazy, cross husband, by hard labor in the cornfields and at ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... just received the enclosed letter, programme, and newspaper from Prague. If you will write a few lines to Apt, you will please him very much. Also be kind enough to send a copy of your "Nibelungen" to Louis Kohler in Konigsberg (care of Pfitzer and Heimann, music-publishers). He deserves this attention from you, and I promised it him during his stay here, when he cordially joined your banner. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... noise everybody is making, I guess we're there. For goodness' sake, Nan!" she exclaimed as her chum switched her suitcase from one hand to the other, so that it would be between Bess and herself, "don't bump that bag into me—especially right behind the knees. You are apt to make ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... affair of the Jacobites. When you first came to me, you were recommended as a good accountant, and, to a certain degree, a man of business; and, at all events, you proved yourself well acquainted and apt at figures. Do you think that a situation ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... measure, indifferent to us. What affects us, we conclude can never be a chimera; and as our passion is engaged on the one side or the other, we naturally think that the question lies within human comprehension; which, in other cases of this nature, we are apt to entertain some doubt of. Without this advantage I never should have ventured upon a third volume of such abstruse philosophy, in an age, wherein the greatest part of men seem agreed to convert reading into an amusement, and to reject every thing that requires any considerable ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... fire, for no apparent reason, which habit is apt to be startling to a nervous traveller on his first journey. But our youthful driver let fly an answering shot; on inquiring he told us that it was to encourage the horses. Afterwards we never rode or drove any distance ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... of certain persons are better ignored than refuted. We must everywhere take care never to speak or act arrogantly or in a party spirit: this I believe is pleasing to the spirit of Christ. Meanwhile we must preserve our minds from being seduced by anger, hatred or ambition; these feelings are apt to lie in wait for us in the midst ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... Capacity or disposition, especially when it takes the form of preparation, may be either positive or negative. Positive capacity is defined as "that real mode by which a subject, in itself indifferent, becomes apt to receive a new form." Such a capacity or disposition always entails a claim to ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... of the country, use something like trincheras for the cultivation of their little crops. To obtain arable land on the mountain slopes the stones are cleared from a convenient spot and utilised in the construction of a wall below the field thus made. The soil is apt to be washed away by heavy rains, and the wall not only prevents what little earth there is on the place from being carried off, but also catches what may come from above, and in this way secures sufficient ground to yield a small crop. Fields thus made can even be ploughed. On the slopes of ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... and forgot the existence of such a person as Clarence Hervey for three or four years. Unless people can be of some use, or unless they are actually present, let them be ever so agreeable or meritorious, we are very apt to forget them. One grows strangely selfish by living in the world: 'tis a perfect cure for romantic notions of gratitude, and love, and so forth. If I had lived in the country in an old manor-house, Clarence Hervey would ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... be taken off, if a slide of tin, zinc, &c., is used to close the holes, some of the bees are apt to be crushed, others will find themselves minus a head, leg, or abdomen, and all of them be irritable for several days. A little tobacco smoke is preferable, as it keeps all quiet. Just raise the box ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... equal liability to infectious diseases, equal reaction to alcohol or injury. The feeling of vigor which rest gives changes the expression of personality to a marked degree. It is true that we are not apt to think of the tired man as changed in character; yet we must admit on reflection that ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... it did toward the north-east, and Grom reluctantly turned the course of the expedition southward, following up the shore. Swift as was the current, these folk of the Caves might have crossed it by swimming; but Grom knew that such waters were apt to swarm with giant crocodiles of varying type and unvarying ferocity, as well as with ferocious flesh-eating fish that swarmed in wolfish packs, and were able to tear an aurochs or a mastodon in pieces with their razor-edged ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... many, of Bach's more enchaining rules, while Mozart, in his operas at least, had a large amount of Romance worked into his music. On the other hand, by its very nature the Romance style is occasionally apt to slip into what is ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... a riot which frightened a senate that frightened the world. Caesar was adored. A man who could give millions away and sup on dry bread was apt to conquer, not provinces alone, but hearts. Besides, he had begun well and his people had done their best. The House of Julia, to which he belonged, descended, he declared, from Venus. The ancestry was less legendary ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... the Lord," he will "not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil" (2 ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... from fourteen to seventeen, are fond of aping the woman in their dress, and are partial to long shawls, which give the young things a matronly appearance. When they become women in reality, they are rather too apt to go upon the opposite tack, and to assume the dress and airs ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... velvet. Here a man shall be free from noise and the hurryings of this life. All states are full of noise and confusion, only the Valley of Humiliation is that empty and solitary place. Here a man shall not be so hindered in his contemplation, as in other places he is apt to be. This is a valley that nobody walks in but those that love a pilgrim's life; and I must tell you that in former times men have met with angels here, have found pearls here, and here in this place found the words ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... the mass was distinctly and at times boyishly sentimental. But when a young man is honestly in love with his calling, and is fully convinced of its importance to himself and to a restlessly progressive world, single-heartedness becomes his watchword, and what sentiment there is in him will be apt to ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... party which they befriend, but they add enormously to its moral strength, that is, to its confidence and courage. Men have a sort of instinctive respect and fear for constituted authorities of any kind, and, though often willing to plot against them, are still very apt to falter and fall back when the time comes for the actual collision. The feeling that, after all, they are in the wrong in fighting against the government of their country, weakens them extremely, and ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... I lay aside My anger; thou art prudent, and not apt To be thus led astray; but now thy youth Thy judgment hath o'erpow'r'd; seek not henceforth By trick'ry o'er thine elders to prevail. To any other man of all the Greeks I scarce so much had yielded; but for that Thyself hast labour'd much, and much endur'd, Thou, ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... ready to give half of my share, and I invite those among us who have no kith or kin to give up such portion of theirs as they may think fit; being very sure that it would be thus better expended than it will be after the fashion many of us are apt to get rid of our rhino. Those who think with me hold up their hands, and those who don't, keep theirs in ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston

... thorough appreciation of the title which Morehouse had given the boy; he smiled faintly as he remembered Denny as he had stood there in the entrance of the big room, a short while before, and realized how apt the phrase was. Then he began to whistle, a shrill, faint, monotonous measure, the calculating glitter in his eyes growing more ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... A little excess therefore forces down the rate of interest very much. But if that low rate of interest should cause, or should aid in causing, a great growth of trade, the rise is sure to be quick, and is apt to be violent. The figures of trade are reckoned by hundreds of millions, where those of loanable capital count only by millions. A great increase in the borrowing demands of English commerce almost always changes an excess of loanable capital above the demand to a greater deficiency ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... considering themselves as the especial servants of the Lady of Avenel. This distinction sometimes occasioned a slight degree of difference between Dame Elspeth and Tibb; the former being jealous of her own consequence, and the latter apt to lay too much stress upon the rank and family of her mistress. But both were alike desirous to conceal such petty squabbles from the lady, her hostess scarce yielding to her old domestic in respect for her person. Neither did the difference exist in such a degree as to interrupt the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... water wash to dirt! No, Barabas is born to better chance, And fram'd of finer mould than common men, That measure naught but by the present time. A reaching thought will search his deepest wits, And cast with cunning for the time to come; For evils are apt to happen every day. ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe

... a drug, which causes such a dead sleep, that it is easy to dispose of those who have taken it; for that sleep is so profound, that nothing can dispel it for the space of seven or eight hours. I have the more reason to judge so, because naturally I am a very bad sleeper, and apt to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... are more apt to be individual than those of later birth. Be this as it may, "Dodd" had a much more marked individuality than his brothers and sisters. Not to attempt to trace the ways of nature too far, it is perhaps true that in a ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... "raking-down." If Mr. Daws expected York and Scott to shake hands after the sermon, he was disappointed. But he did not relax his purpose. With that quiet fearlessness and determination which had won for him the respect of men who were too apt to regard piety as synonymous with effeminacy, he attacked Scott in his own house. What he said has not been recorded, but it is to be feared that it was part of his sermon. When he had concluded, Scott looked at him, not unkindly, ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... mean, or should merely mean, to convey the idea that he suffered, in order to release us from the punishment due to our sins. It would be well, perhaps, if this could always be borne in mind; for most men are more under the influence and power of words than they are apt to see, or willing to acknowledge. The mere expression, the punishment of the innocent, is apt to awaken associations in the mind which are inconsistent with the dictates of justice; but which the idea of the atonement would never have suggested, if clearly and distinctly viewed in its own clear ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... parties were apt to be anything but lively. One was morally elevated by being able to look on the comely and high-bred face of Mrs. Bodewin Ranger, but that fine old lady had a sort of religious scruple against saying anything in particular in company, a relic of the days of her girlhood, when cleverness ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... there in philosophy. Philosophy deals not with individuals but with species, not with Bucephalus or Alexander, but with horse, man. It is nothing to philosophy that of a thousand seeds there germinate perhaps not ten. Enough that one seed ever germinates, and that all normal specimens are apt to do the like, meeting with proper environment. That alone shows that seed is not an idle product in this or that class ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... brute strength and a blood-thirsty disposition; as witness Dunn there. I was positively horrified last International. There he was, our own quiet, domestic, gentle Dunn, raging through that howling mob of savages like a bloody Bengal tiger.—Rather apt, that!—A ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... known that the meeting of contrasts is apt to have a powerful influence on one side or the other; unless indeed the opposing forces are, what rarely happens, of equal weight. What met Wych Hazel as she looked at him was power—not of physical strength; the power of high breeding, which is imposing as well as graceful; and also the power ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... points out some of the evils to which a well-educated boy, on first going to service, is exposed from the profligacy of his fellow-servants; "The Mimic," the drawback of vulgar acquaintances; "Barring Out," the errors to which a high spirit and the love of party are apt to lead, and so forth. In the final paragraph stress is laid upon what every fresh reader must at once recognise as the supreme merit of the stories, namely, their dramatic faculty, or (in the actual words of the "Preface"), their art of "keeping alive hope and fear and curiosity, by some degree ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... be given every day when the temperature of the room will not be too greatly lowered thereby. Avoid direct drafts, as sudden chills are apt to produce bad results. Even on very cold days, fresh air may be let in indirectly, through a window open in an adjoining room or through a hall. It is better, when possible, to give a little ventilation during an hour or two, than to rush too sudden a lowering of the temperature ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... going to have a storm, sir?" I asked of the captain. "I have read that storms are apt to come on after weather such ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... matter, for in a region where coffee and tea are almost unknown luxuries, and the evening meal consists of such thirst-provoking articles as broiled venison, corn-dodgers, and sorghum, one is apt to feel the need of some liquid milder than "apple-jack," and more toothsome than water, wherewith to ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... apt, Boys, to overlook the admirable lessons which such stories as these inculcate. They should teach us kindness to each other—kindness, indeed, not only to those of our own species, but kindness to all created creatures. If the lower animals love each other so warmly and affectionately, ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... tried that, and had given it up. Philology was the subject—the science of literature and languages. Caesar could talk literature as well as Cicero, and turned the conversation in that direction. Cicero was apt, and took the desired part, and so the afternoon passed pleasantly, but still with a little feeling that he was glad when his ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... into the mouth of Alphius, a miserly money-lender. No one yearns so keenly for the country and its imagined peace as the overworked city man, when his pulse is low and his spirits weary with bad air and the reaction of over-excitement; no one, as a rule, is more apt to tire of the homely and uneventful life which the country offers, or to find that, for him at least, its quietude does not bring peace. It is not, therefore, at all out of keeping, although critics have taken exception to the poem on this ground, that Horace makes Alphius rhapsodise on ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... forbear. The temper has to be held in subjection to the judgment; and the little demons of ill-humor, petulance, and sarcasm, kept resolutely at a distance. If once they find an entrance to the mind, they are apt to return, and to establish for themselves ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... allows himself to be carried away too much by appearances. He has become an amateur detective for the sake of popularity, just like an author; and, as he is vainer than a peacock, he is apt to lose his temper and be very obstinate. As soon as he finds himself in the presence of a crime, like this one, for example, he pretends he can explain everything on the instant. And he manages to invent a story that will correspond exactly with the situation. He professes, with ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... lower. But Burlingham could not have taken that way. He was the adventurer born, was a hardy seasoned campaigner who had never looked on life in the snob's way, had never felt the impulse to apologize for his defeats or to grow haughty over his successes. Susan was an apt pupil; and for the career that lay before her his instructions were invaluable. He was teaching her how to keep the craft afloat and shipshape through the worst weather that can sweep the sea ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... good teller of borrowed stories would make; but as a rule condensation has been applied only in the case of long works which otherwise could not have been included. The notes which precede the condensations supply explanations, and answer questions which experience has shown boys and girls are apt to ask about the ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... course of his life, his thoughts, his time, to be associated or shackled in any way by the pursuits of others, he preferred the society of ladies, as less apt to force him into subsequent relations. He willingly spent whole evenings in playing blind man's buff with the young people, telling them little stories to make them break into the silvery laughs of youth, sweeter ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... could eat except black beans and boiled cucumbers. The room was dark, dirty, vile, noisy, and poisoned by sewage odours, as rooms unfortunately are very apt to be. At the end of the rice planting there is a holiday for two days, when many offerings are made to Inari, the god of rice farmers; and the holiday-makers kept up their revel all night, and drums, stationary and peripatetic, were constantly beaten ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... entrance to the bayou very narrow?" asked Tom. "For if it is, the houseboat would be apt to strike the ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield

... is the symbol for 'house.' It should be placed under the wall symbol, but the Egyptians were very apt to fill up spaces instead of continuing their vertical columns. Now, beneath, we ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers

... should have considered the simile apt enough, but since then I had visited a world incomparably more affluent than this, in which money was unknown and without conceivable use. I had learned that it had a use in the world around me only because the work of producing the nation's livelihood, ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... with her ladies riding forth to see the hunt. This was the daily life of the Court: we read the dry history of what happened but we forget the scenery in which it happened—the crowds of nobles, bishops, abbots, knights, men-at-arms, serving men, among whom all these things took place. We are apt to forget, as well, the extraordinary brightness, the colour, the glitter and gleam that belonged to those times when every man went dressed in some gay livery wearing the colours and the crest of his lord. Who rides there, ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... the Minister reaches Marseilles, and I imagine him stopping at this city some-what dumbfounded. Not that he is in any way astonished at widespread murders; undoubtedly he has had received information of them from Aix, Aubagne, Apt, Brignolles, and Eyguieres, while there are a series of them at Marseilles, one in July, two in August, and two in September;[3297] but this he must be used to. What disturbs him here is to see the national bond dissolving; he sees departments ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine



Words linked to "Apt" :   inclined, apposite, likely, apropos, intelligent



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