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Apt   Listen
verb
Apt  v. t.  To fit; to suit; to adapt. (Obs.) " To apt their places." "That our speech be apted to edification."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Apt" Quotes from Famous Books



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

... Harry shiver and turn a little pale. He was a plucky boy enough, but the roar of a lion heard for the first time in the solemn bush veldt at night is apt to shake the nerves of ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard

... detestable fellow. He was the son of a carpenter, and set out in life in the very lowest line of the law. Dyer knew him well at one time, and the Bishop heard him give a character of Hawkins once that painted him in the blackest colours; though Dyer was by no means apt to deal in such portraits. Dyer said he was a man of the most mischievous, uncharitable, and malignant disposition. Sir Joshua Reynolds observed to me that Hawkins, though he assumed great outward sanctity, was not only mean and grovelling in dispostion, but absolutely dishonest. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... had gone down to the Valley of Humiliation, and there, to his surprise, he found "that the air was pleasant, and that here a man shall be free from the noise and hurryings of this life, and shall not be let and hindered in his contemplation, as in other places he is apt to be." His laborious simple life suited him, and no entreaties or promises of Mrs. Bolton could recall ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton

... inclined to keep on livin' on cat's hairs indefinitely. She says 't Mr. Craig says 't she can easy fish the tail up with the well-bucket, but fishin' for suthin' 's you can't see ain't so funny as a woman's husband 's apt to make out. 'S far 's my observation 's 'xtended, a man always gives his wife to understand that what'd be a bother or mebbe impossible for him to do 'll be jus' a pleasant afternoon for her. I took it on myself to ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner

... It is therefore apt to be a barren criticism which studies the works of creative geniuses in order to ascertain what theory lies beneath them. How many systems of philosophy, how many subtle speculations, have we not seen fathered upon Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Goethe! Yet their ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... The use of the word "standardizing" is very apt to lead one into trouble, for it implies a certain freezing of design and method and usually works out so that the manufacturer selects whatever article he can the most easily make and sell at the highest profit. The public is ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... warrant," said my uncle. "He that cannot bring himself to write a letter in the course of seven years to his friends, will not be apt to trouble his head about their foolish commissions, when he is ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... expeditions we usually maintained this arrangement, where it was necessary. Peterkin was assigned the post of honour, because he was the best shot; Jack, being next best, came second; and I came last, not because our guide was a better shot than I, but because he was apt to get excited and to act rashly, so that he required looking after. I was at all times ready to lay hold of him by the hair of his woolly head, which, as he was nearly naked, was the only part of him that one could grasp with any ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... grating of nutmeg on the top." The doctor says this with real feeling, and his eye glistens with the pure love of his profession. But if, on the other hand, the doctor has spent the night before at a little gathering of medical friends, he is very apt to forbid the patient to touch alcohol in any shape, and to dismiss the subject ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... seemed to me, that neither of them would bear criticism, and I think that this idea, rather than any motive of sincere jealousy, induced him to keep them out of sight. The rooms of the harem reminded me of an English nursery rather than of a Mahometan paradise. One is apt to judge of a woman before one sees her by the air of elegance or coarseness with which she surrounds her home; I judged Osman’s wives by this test, and condemned them both. But the strangest feature in Osman’s character was his inextinguishable nationality. In vain they had brought him ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... residence on the poor-farm. There was a sharp-faced, hard-worked young widow with seven children, who was an exception to the general level of society, because she deplored the change in her fortunes. The older women regarded her with suspicion, and were apt to talk about her in moments like this, when they happened to ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... Mr. Jack, who had already heard about the "Orchestra of Life," smiled a bit sadly. "That's just it, my boy. And if we're handed another instrument to play on than the one we WANT to play on, we're apt to—to let fly a discord. Anyhow, I am. But"—he went on more lightly—"now, in your case, David, little as I know about the violin, I know enough to understand that you ought to be where you can take up your study of it again; ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter

... to talk it over with Jennie, Dr. Argure and Deacon Goodsole called. I suspect the deacon's conscience had been quickened even more than mine respecting my duty to that mission class by Mr. Minging's address. For I have noticed that our consciences are apt to be quickened by sermons and addresses more respecting our neighbors' duties ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... could not bark nor preach at all, yet could administer the sacraments by the old service-book. But the apostles, as Cartwright[76] observes, allowed no such ministers, will have every bishop or preaching elder to be both "apt to teach, and able to convince," 1 Tim. iii. 2; Tit. i. 9. So that it was far from Paul to countenance a non-preaching or seldom-preaching ministry, by allowing any honor at all, much less a double honor, to such. Sure, preaching is one part, yea, a most principal part or duty ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... impossible to take offence, and Miss Deborah, raising her little, twinkling eyes to her sister's face, replied, "Ah! Judith, I need you to look after me still.—I have a sad tongue, my dear (to Nellie), and am apt to chatter when I ought to be silent; come, let me take you to your room now," and off trotted Aunt Debby with an ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... secure for her the premium awarded for special diligence, and a judicious official learns on occasion to be conveniently deaf to the feigned voice of the manoek faloer. If the chivalrous zeal of the brown lover is apt to overleap frontiers, and to fill the baskets of one plantation with the produce of the other, the ethics of Banda demonstrate the identity of human nature when swayed by the passion which, according to ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... his work in his mother's garden, and was all ready for a little amusement. So the two went up together, and enjoyed themselves highly for a long time. But at last arose one of those trifling disputes, in which little boys are so apt to indulge. Pretty soon there were angry words, then (Oh, how sorry I am to say it!), Tom's wicked passions got the mastery of him, and he beat little Dick severely. Tiger, who must have been ashamed of his master, pulled hard at his coat, and whined piteously, but all in vain. At ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... laborious services of Newton, Pearce, the Wartons, Todd, Mitford, and other compilers. But these heaped-up citations of parallel passages somewhat tend to hide from us the secret of Miltonic language. We are apt to think that the magical effect of Milton's words has been produced by painfully inlaying tesserae of borrowed metaphor—a mosaic of bits culled from extensive reading, carried along by a retentive memory, and pieced together so as to produce a new whole, with the exquisite ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... staring into the fire, thinking matters over. She was very apt to take things to herself, and she was trying to assure herself that she never did think herself better than others—not better even than Millie Higgins. But she was not very well satisfied ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... hanging loosely. Indeed, it was just because Satan was so little less than human, I suppose, that old Satan began to be afraid he might have a soul. So the wicked old namesake with the Hoofs and Horns laid a trap for little Satan, and, as he is apt to do, he began laying it ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... directing her to beat at least the little girl, I went to the office and there reproved Will, who told me that he went thither by my wife's order, she having commanded him to come thither on Monday morning. Now God forgive me! how apt I am to be jealous of her as to this fellow, and that she must needs take this time, when she knows I must be gone out to the Duke, though methinks had she that mind she would never think it discretion to tell me this story of him, to let me know that he was there, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Druidical, a possibility, at all events, must be shown that Celts, in the true sense of the word, could ever have inhabited the Dekhan. Till that is done, it is better to leave them anonymous, or to call them by their native names, than to give to them a name which is apt to mislead the public at large, and to encourage theories which exceed the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... management. The Chinese is not dead to new ideas; he is an efficient worker; makes a good soldier, and is wealthy in the essential materials of a machine age. Under a capable management he will go far. The Japanese is prepared and fit to undertake this management. Not only has he proved himself an apt imitator of Western material progress, a sturdy worker, and a capable organizer, but he is far more fit to manage the Chinese than are we. The baffling enigma of the Chinese character is no baffling enigma to him. He understands as we could never school ourselves ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... commonwealth to reform or to govern, certainly it should not be the Devil's regiments of the line that I would first of all concentrate my attention on! With them I should be apt so make rather brief work; to them one would apply the besom, try to sweep them, with some rapidity into the dust-bin, and well out of one's road, I should rather say. Fill your thrashing-floor with docks, ragweeds, mugworths, and ply your flail upon ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... the brains of engaged young ladies are apt to have a solid foundation of flesh and blood. I think much could be learned concerning Mr. Hall's straying fancy. But tell me again about his attitude toward Miss Lloyd, in the successive developments of the ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... life. Unlike in birth, environment, education and all that is summed up in the magic word personality, their reaction to life, as a scientist would say, was so opposite that a reader naturally drawn to one, is quite apt to be repelled by (or at least, cold to) the other. If you make a wide canvass among booklovers, it will be found that this is just what happens. Rarely does a stanch supporter of Dickens show a more than Laodicean temper towards Thackeray; ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... House had been apt, he had sadly underrated the furniture. There were FOUR chairs, all "up" to my weight, while two of them were up to the Maluka's. The cane was all gone, certainly, but had been replaced with green-hide ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... alternately a little broader and narrower, due to the radicles having alternately pressed with greater and less force on the plates. Occasionally little bridges of soot were left across the tracks, showing that the apex had at these spots been lifted up. This latter fact was especially apt to occur * 'Ueber das Wachsthum der Wurzeln: Arbeiten des bot. Instituts in Wrzburg,' Heft iii. 1873, p. 460. This memoir, besides its intrinsic and great interest, deserves to be studied as a model ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... the sea hurls from its abysses, along with other debris, under the fury of the wind—this so precious substance, whether it be the excrement or vomit of whales, or a reaba which the sea produces in its depths. But in Jolo it is apt to be more often found, because those islands are scattered and their coasts prolonged for many leguas opposite many currents and channel-mouths. And for this reason some amber is usually found in Capul, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... who was sitting behind me, touched her on the shoulder, bidding her be quiet; for the poor woman, being then doited, when left to the freedom of her own will, was apt to expatiate without ceasing on whatsoever she happened to discourse anent; and Nahum Chapelrig ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... we are taught that whoever fills himself up with the belief that he is wise and clever, will be apt, like Marten, to fall into some sort of trouble, which he did not look forward to. All the wisdom of man lies in knowing that unless he is guided in all his actions by his heavenly Father, he is sure to ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood

... in its true light, and am appalled by its enormity. And yet—God help me!—I thought at the time I was saving my country. Gentlemen, you, who have faced no such responsibility as then confronted me, will be apt to judge me without mercy. I know not if I can persuade you that my remorse is honest. But consider—Here am I at William's right hand, already rich and powerful, and possessing limitless prospects of increased power ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... that cluster of bog-heather bells, for instance, Line-study 1. You might think at first there were no lines in it worth study; but look at it more carefully. There are twelve bells in the {68} cluster. There may be fewer, or more; but the bog-heath is apt to run into something near that number. They all grow together as close as they can, and on one side of the supporting branch only. The natural effect would be to bend the branch down; but the branch won't have that, and so leans back to carry them. Now you see the use of drawing the profile ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... was no amusement but shooting woodcocks at the risk of rheumatism. When the rains poured down and the roads were broken up there was no society, not even a newspaper, nothing to be done but to eat coarse food and sleep in bad beds. If there was a laird in the neighbourhood he was apt to be some 'Bumper John' whose first act of hospitality was to make you drunk. "I wonder how long a man moderately inclined that way would require in a place like this to wear out his love for arms and soften his martial spirit. I believe the passion would be something diminished ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... no reply. Gradually he resumed his teaching, though he still betrayed his melancholy now and again during the lessons, and was apt to be absentminded and unconscious of the behaviour of his scholars, who took pitiless ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... as multiplying them by the number of times that they are added; as three times 3 means 3 added three times. Here one of the figures represents a quantity, the other does not represent a quantity, it denotes nothing but the times, or frequency of repetition. Young people, as they advance, are apt to confound these signs, and to imagine, for instance, in the rule of three, &c. that the sums which they multiply together, mean quantities; that 40 yards of linen may be multiplied by three and six-pence, &c.—an idea from which the ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... Thence she proceeded to the northward, spending some time in the Indian Ocean, and skirting the Asiatic coast, until she reached Behrings Straits. Here she lay in wait for returning whalers, who in that season were apt to congregate in Behrings Sea in great numbers, ready for the long voyage around Cape Horn to their home ports on the New England coast. Capt. Waddell was not disappointed in his expectations, for he reached the straits just as the returning whalers were coming out in a body. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... Gold and Ivory Coasts we find much fuller than those on the Grain Coast. Wherever commerce or mechanical enterprise imparts a quickening touch, we find the vocabulary of the African amplified. Susceptible, apt, and cunning, the coast tribes, on account of their intercourse with the outside world, have been greatly changed. We are sorry that the change has not always been for the better. Uncivilized sailors, and brainless and heartless speculators, have sown the rankest seeds ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... though bearing different names, and classed by the world in different families, are generally much more alike than those of brothers; they are apt to have more habits, tastes, and feelings in common. And the reason is evident; it is usually the mother who controls the internal family policy, who gives the colouring to what may be called the family ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... not be apt to refuse such an offer as that, Mr. Pettigrew, but are you sure you prefer me to Mr. ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger

... and St. Paul says, 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' But the theory of your religion is not more unscriptural than its application is unwholesome. Yours is a gloomy faith, my dear Storm, and what did Luther say of a gloomy faith?—that the devil was very apt to be lurking behind it. As for himself he married, you may remember; he had children, he played chess, he loved to see young ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... so familiar that we are apt to overlook the strangeness of them in the history of religious evolution. The cult of ancestral spirits begins in the lowest barbarism, just above the level of the Australian tribes, who, among the Dieri, show some traces of the practice, at least, of ghost feeding. [Footnote: ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... business, and make them feel that they have a stake in its success and that the organization has an interest in the welfare of its men. The boss to whom his employees turn in any serious perplexity or private difficulty for advice and aid is pretty apt to receive more than the contract minimum of effort every day and is sure of devoted service ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... lose confidence in a God who had been vanquished by Mohammed. The people also found that commerce made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals. The discovered that those who loved the gods most were apt to love men least; that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was amazing; that the most malicious had the effrontery to pray for their enemies, and that humility and tyranny were the fruit of the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... once been comely enough, but she was aged and worn, as sailors' wives are apt to be, by many sorrows. Many a sad day had she had already; for although John Hawkins, port-admiral of Plymouth, and patriarch of British shipbuilders, was a faithful husband enough, and as ready to ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... because in future years, when my charming friend shall have become a distant shadow, it will be pleasant, in turning over these pages, to find written testimony to a number of points which I shall be apt to charge solely upon my imagination. I wonder whether Miss Blunt, in days to come, referring to the tables of her memory for some trivial matter-of-fact, some prosaic date or half-buried landmark, will also encounter this little secret of ours, as I may call it,—will decipher ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... not an infrequent cause of death during ordinary labor, and is more apt to occur in these cardiac patients. If signs of acute dilatation of the heart occur, with associated pulmonary edema, venesection (especially if there has not been much uterine hemorrhage), with the coincident intramuscular injection of one or two syringefuls of aseptic ergot, ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... up, men not so easily beguiled to the pure good, you say? Woman quite as apt to make mistakes out of Paradise as in? That only returns us to the primal need and opportunity. Get the man to listen to you before his mind is made up—before his manhood is made up; while it is in the making. That is just the power and place that belong to you, and you must seize ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... with its aching hearts and its smiling faces, and very often, when a year has revolved, the world finds out there was no sufficient cause for the sorrows or the smiles. There is too much unnecessary anxiety in the world, which is apt too hastily to calculate the consequences of any unforeseen event, quite forgetting that, acute as it is in observation, the world, where the future is concerned, is generally wrong. The duchess would have liked to have buried ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... nodded once in 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 and ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... undertake actively to lead in this direction, and they are governments which are making enormous progress. Germany, a country regarding which Mr. White has just spoken in such apt and appropriate terms, leads, and to a considerable extent in various directions, it requires the combination of her manufacturers, her producers, and her commercial concerns. Japan practically does also. There is solidarity brought about by the wonderful organization ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... taken in the melancholy situation. He is already as grave and anxious as a man. He fulfils his task valiantly, though it does not interest him, and he is apt to fall asleep in the orchestra in the evenings, because it is late and he is tired. The theater no longer rouses in him the emotion it used to do when he was little. When he was little—four years ago—his greatest ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... exaggerated susceptibility with regard to his wife's faults, which may be best typified by the state of bodily irritation that is produced by the constant recurrence of any particular noise: those who are brought within hearing of it, are apt to be always on the watch for the repetition, if they are once made to notice it, and are in an ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... home to a comfortable meal, and it is right that he should get it! We women are above such considerations, but trifling discomforts are more trying to a man's temper than more serious offences, and they are apt to ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... spirits. The air is a kind of food that nourishes the animal, and by means of which he renews himself every moment of his life. Nor is digestion less necessary to prepare sensible aliments towards their being changed into blood, which is a liquor apt to penetrate everywhere, and to thicken into flesh in the extreme parts, in order to repair in all the members what they lose continually both by transpiration and the waste of spirits. The lungs are like great covers, which being spongy, easily dilate and contract themselves, and as they incessantly ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... buried, upon the number and thickness of the overlying strata of civilization and refinement. In the recognized hoodlum the obnoxious element is quite at the surface; in the best of us it is only too apt to break forth,—no man can be considered an absolutely ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... upon the address were neither remarkable for judgment nor eloquence. Lord Stanley, in the lords, was, as usual, apt, ready, and ingenious, but dealt in platitudes unworthy of his reputation. Lord Brougham was bitter against his former friends, allowing his personal spleen to interfere with his patriotism and the public welfare. He did not succeed either in embarrassing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... if one may say it, a little too conscientious in the execution of his duties, and rather apt to be fussy and a trifle overbearing in his manner. He posted copies of the rules on each of the four walls of the room, and insisted on decorous behaviour and perfect silence. The consequence was that he soon became the butt of innumerable jokes: fellows said they weren't ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... an independent element in politics. She has no allegiance to any party. When a ticket is presented to her, she asks, "Are these good men?" A man is apt to say, "Well, this is a bad ticket, but I must stand by my party." He wants to keep his party record straight. She votes for the best man on the ticket. That element is bound to result in good ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... the bank, too, which seems an unlikely place for tender tryst; but George's proceedings were apt to be less direct than the simplicity of his looks and speech would have led a stranger to suppose. When he reached home, the windmiller and his family were going to bed, for the night was still, and the mill idle. George ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... whenever one finds a true Civaite devotee, that is, a man that will not worship Vishnu but holds fast to Civa as the only manifestation of the supreme divinity, he will notice that such an one quickly becomes obscene, brutal, prone to bloodshed, apt for any disgusting practice, intellectually void, and morally beneath contempt. If the Civaite be an ascetic his asceticism will be the result either of his lack of intelligence (as in the case of the sects to be described ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... of distress in her companion's eye. His seat faced toward the door, and she guessed that he had been perturbed by the approach of an acquaintance; a fact confirmed by the turning of heads and general sense of commotion which her own entrance into a railway-carriage was apt ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... needing plenty of cash, as she was going abroad to join her nephew, for whom she would in future keep house. I warned her about being sufficiently careful with so large a sum, and parting from it injudiciously, as women of her class are very apt to do. She laughingly declared that not only was she careful of it in the present, but meant to be so for the far-off future, for she intended to go that very day to a lawyer's office and ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... Pantagruel for a while very calm and quiet, for he was not able so easily to break those chains, especially having no room in the cradle to give a swing with his arms. But see what happened once upon a great holiday that his father Gargantua made a sumptuous banquet to all the princes of his court. I am apt to believe that the menial officers of the house were so embusied in waiting each on his proper service at the feast, that nobody took care of poor Pantagruel, who was left a reculorum, behindhand, all alone, and as forsaken. What did he? Hark what he did, good people. He strove and essayed ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... struggle for college honors, in which renown, not learning for the sake of learning, is the aim. The seeming proficiency achieved through the influence of such motives—knowledge acquired for the nonce, not assimilated—is often delusive, and is apt to vanish when the stimulus is withdrawn. The students themselves have recorded their judgment of the value of this sort of learning in the word "cramming," a phrase which originated in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... person of His suffering children, that gives the glow of enthusiasm to philanthropic work of a definitely Christian character. But may we not go a step further and try to see Christ, in a measure, in all suffering, even that of the animals? He came to redeem the world, and we in our little view are apt to narrow down the purposes, and limit the possibilities within very ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter

... looked pretty when we drew near to it in connexion with its situation, different from any place I had ever seen, yet exceedingly like what I imaged to myself from representations in raree-shows, or pictures of foreign places—Venice, for example—painted on the scene of a play-house, which one is apt to fancy are as cleanly and gay as they look through the magnifying-glass of the raree-show or in the candle-light dazzle of a theatre. At the door of the inn, though certainly the buildings had not ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... don't spin it out too long, Lumley," said I; "you know when men set their hearts on some magnificent plan or scheme they are apt to become prosy. I suppose you'll also take the writing class, ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... mansion standing in grotesque contrast to the "great drabness of prosperity which overspreads the world." He is a great scene-painter of wildernesses and lawless places, indeed. He is a Bohemian, a lover of adventures in wild and sunny lands, and even the men and women are apt to become features in the strange scenery of his pilgrimages rather than dominating portraits. In his descriptions he uses a splendid rhetoric such as no other living writer of English commands. He has revived rhetoric as a literary instrument. Aubrey Beardsley ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... the fleet up the river, from the point at which it had been so long delayed, had been slow, and greatly impeded by the determined hostility of the settlers along the banks. The sailors at their work were apt to be startled by the whiz of a bullet; and an inquiry as to the cause would have probably discovered some crouching sharp-shooter, his long rifle in his hand, hidden in a clump of bushes along the shore. Bands of armed men followed the fleet up the stream, keeping pace with the vessels, and occasionally ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... lost the reserve and timidity which solitude and study are apt to impress upon the most courtly genius; was able to enter a crowded room with airy civility; to meet the glances of a hundred eyes without perturbation; and address those whom he never saw before with ease and confidence. In less than a month ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... of the sensitive appetite may either be venial sins in themselves, or incline the soul to mortal sin. And since the sensitive appetite has a bodily organ, it follows that on account of some bodily transmutation a man becomes apt to commit some particular sin. Hence it may happen that certain sins may become more insistent, through certain bodily transmutations occurring at certain fixed times. Now all bodily effects, of themselves, dispose ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... just laughed kind o' soft like, and said that that was the very rason why he did not believe you was with the thray. He remarked that Lone Wolf was a mighty sharp old spalpeen. He knowed that Soot would be coming on his trail, and he divided up his party so as to bother him. Anybody would be apt to think just the same as I did—that the boy would be sent to the Injun town in charge of the little party, while the others went on to hatch up some deviltry. Lone Wolf knowed enough to do that, and he had therefore kept the laddy ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... Grammatica does certainly mean sometimes grammar; but it is also the best Latin word for literature. A grammaticus is what the French express by the word litterateur. We unfortunately have no corresponding term in English: a man of letters is our awkward periphrasis in the singular, (too apt, as our jest books remind us, to suggest the postman;) whilst in the plural we resort to the Latin word literati. The school which professes to teach grammatica, professes, therefore, the culture of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... "Brevity is the soul of wit, and a part of Lincoln's reputation for wit lies in his ability to condense a great deal into a few words. He was epigrammatic. His Gettysburg speech is the world's model in eloquence, elegance, and condensation. He was apt in illustration—no one more so. A simple story or simile drawn from every-day life flashed before his hearers the argument that he wanted to present. He made frequent use of Bible language, and of illustrations drawn from Holy Writ. It is said that when he was preparing ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... I hoped to accomplish by such a move, yet helpful circumstances are apt to develop when one attempts boldly to do his own part the best he may. It was in blind faith I crept forward through the dry grass, drawing ever closer toward that beckoning light. It was a long journey and a slow one, as the tribe would guard vigilantly ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... witnessed more strange sights than he could remember. He was tough, and sturdy, and grizzled, and broad, and square, and massive—a first-rate specimen of a John Bull, and according to himself, "always kept his weather-eye open." This remark of his was apt to create confusion in the minds of his hearers; for John meant the expression to be understood figuratively, while, in point of fact, he almost always kept one of his literal eyes open and the other partially closed, but as he reversed the order of arrangement frequently, he might have been ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... have rights of any description whatsoever. Even the factory act and the various attempts to legislate in behalf of women and child workers strikes the average employer as a gross interference with his constitutional rights. Where he can he evades. Where he cannot he is apt to grow purple over the impertinence of meddling reformers ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... not yet a monarch, had in Waldemar Fitzurse all the inconveniences of a favourite minister, who, in serving his sovereign, must always do so in his own way. The Prince acquiesced, however, although his disposition was precisely of that kind which is apt to be obstinate upon trifles, and, assuming his throne, and being surrounded by his followers, gave signal to the heralds to proclaim the laws of the tournament, which ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... presents no parallel tale to that we have told. It was an instance of insanity placed in power, of lunacy ruling over ignorance and fanaticism; and the doings of John of Leyden in Muenster may be presented as an example alike of the mad extremes to which unquestioned power is apt to lead, and the vast capabilities of faith and trust which exist ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... apt to sink too much under unreasonable fears, so we are too soon inclined to be raised by groundless hopes (according to the nature of all consumptive bodies like ours) thus, it hath been given about for several days ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... voice and long fair hair. Especially fine was his energetic, characteristic mouth, and his earnest, deep gaze. His constitution was thoroughly healthy; the most strenuous mental exercise hardly fatigued him and he could go to sleep at any hour of the day he pleased. He was apt to be full of pranks, too. At the piano he dominated by his characteristic, powerful, and when necessary, extraordinarily tender playing." Schumann, whom he now came to know in Duesseldorf, called him the "young eagle—one of the elect." In fact Schumann, in his musical journal, ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... dust could not be transformed, even in imagination, into snow, nor heat into frost, any more easily than we could turn dried apples into roast beef and plum-pudding. Excellent food as dried fruit is, yet it is apt to become monotonous when it must do duty for breakfast, dinner, and tea! Such was our scanty fare; nevertheless we managed to keen up the appearance of being quite festive ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... like this, to men like Vladimir, are apt to breed bloodshed. Hot with revengeful fury, he marched against Polotsk, killed in battle Rogvolod and his two sons, and forced the disdainful princess to accept his hand still ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... mosquitoes; but against this one, senores, tumblers of raw brandy had no more effect than so much water. He took to railing and storming at me about my strong man. And from our impatience to end this inglorious campaign I am afraid that all we young officers became reckless and apt to ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... Nestorians. It is very difficult for us, in this land, to realize the force of such habits; but it required much grace to break over them; and even now, when the Christian heart grows cold, it is apt to return to the old ways. One day, in 1845, the whole school were going to attend a funeral. When the time came, one of the pupils requested to be excused. "Why? are you sick?" "No." "Why not go, then?" ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... rose, or began to flow, among a range of hills at some miles distance; and when you are older, you will understand how it is that rivers that rise among hills or mountains are apt to overflow when there is much rain. It happened one day, when all the family, except the children, had gone out on a visit, that it rained from morning till night, and when night came it still rained heavily. In the ...
— Adventure of a Kite • Harriet Myrtle

... is a kind of maxim, or rule in life, never to begin a thing without having an eye towards the conclusion; certainly this rule was never better observed than in your last letter, in which indeed I am apt to think you kept the conclusion rather too much in view, or perhaps you forgot the beginning altogether, which is not unfrequently the case with you; but you do these things with so little compunction, that I shall very soon cease to forgive you, and answer you in the same ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... Treasury presented his first report on public credit. Shortly after the Convention of 1787, Hamilton had expressed his belief that one of the great dangers which threatened American society was "the depredations which the democratic spirit is apt to make on property." Distrusting the political capacity of the people, whom in private he called "a great beast," he believed that the new Government would succeed or fail in just the proportion that it enlisted the support of the influential and wealthy classes. He set himself deliberately ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... was very angry, but he dare not say much, for he knew in his heart that what the knight said was true, and, moreover, he did not want to quarrel with him, for he liked to be able to go to market, where people were apt to think of him still as the castle steward, and boast about "my friend, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... and Werper's heart sank; but Werper did not know Achmet Zek, who was quite apt to scowl where another would smile, and smile ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... literature on the Irish problem has been increasing during the past few years, and there is room for a book which aims at focussing attention upon some aspects of it which the mere politician is apt to pass lightly over or to ignore altogether. Like most of Mr Kettle's work, the book bears the impress of his individuality, and, to many of his readers, this will constitute much of its charm and merit. At the same time, in order to prevent misunderstanding, it is necessary for me ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... 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 on ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... into the world to earn your own living. Boys of your age are apt to think it an easy thing. I have seen more of life, and I am sure you will find it more difficult than you suppose. You may find yourself in difficulty, possibly in want. In that case, promise to let me know, and I will come ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... some civic pride in an otherwise stagnant community is its well-kept cemetery. The condition of the cemetery is a good index of community spirit. When people neglect the resting place of their dead they are not apt to do much for the living. But once arouse a feeling of shame for such neglect and the effort to clean up and beautify the cemetery has often brought all elements of the community into a common loyalty as nothing else could ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... in favour of Arthur is perceptible, there was some fear of civil strife, perhaps only of that disorder which was apt to break out on the death of the king, as it did indeed in this case, and many castles were put in order for defence. What disorder there was soon put down by the representatives of the king, whom John had appointed, and who ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... keeping peacocks, especially if you have shaven lawns and terraces and sundials, though sundials, I imagine, are rather a nuisance now-a-days, because of the trouble of having them reset for summer and winter time. Peacocks at any rate are beautiful, and, if their voices are apt in England to become a little hoarse, that is only because they screech when the weather is going ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various

... History is apt to repeat itself, and therefore it is of interest to note here that about a century and a half later (March 1849) Exeter College was again stirred to the burning point, and that in connection with a ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... not contain much furniture. When Caius sat down, and the lady had resumed her seat, he found, as is apt to be the way in empty rooms, that the chairs were near the wall, and that he, sitting facing her, had left nearly the room's width between them. The sewing maidens looked at them with large eyes, and listened to everything that was said; and although they were silent, except for the sound of ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... he said, and his voice took on an unusual friendliness. "We have not far to go. It was brave of you to have come, and I am very grateful. We ask much of the Englishwomen in India, and because they never fail us, we are apt to ask too much. I asked too much of you." Violet responded to the flick at her national pride. She drew herself up and straightened ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... daughter's maid servants playing upon the beach, and your daughter among them looking like a goddess. I besought her aid, and she proved to be of an excellent disposition, much more so than could be expected from so young a person—for young people are apt to be thoughtless. She gave me plenty of bread and wine, and when she had had me washed in the river she also gave me the clothes in which you see me. Now, therefore, though it has pained me to do so, I have told you the ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... consequence of which, a greater number of new congregations were formed than it was possible to supply with regularly-educated ministers. To remedy this evil, it was resolved to license men to preach who were apt to teach, and sound in the faith, though they had not gone through any course of classical study. This took place at the Transylvania presbyter; but, as many of its members were dissatisfied with the proposed innovation, an appeal ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... "when a man is smitten in a certain organ, commonly called the heart, he is apt to give utterance to that absurdity which the world denominates ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... Lancaster is struck by the peculiar force of character which the Yorkshiremen display. This makes them interesting as a race; while, at the same time, as individuals, the remarkable degree of self-sufficiency they possess gives them an air of independence rather apt to repel a stranger. I use this expression "self-sufficiency" in the largest sense. Conscious of the strong sagacity and the dogged power of will which seem almost the birthright of the natives of the West Riding, each man relies upon himself, and seeks no help at the hands ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... and perchance for the dauphiness. She considers me her enemy, and will treat me as such. But hatred is a two-edged sword which is as apt to wound the one who holds it as the one for whom it is unsheathed. Oh, your majesty, warn the dauphiness! She stands upon the brow of a precipice, and if she do not recede, her enemies will thrust her headlong into the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... straightforward. They had to know if the race who built this ship could do so because they were psychologically sound (and therefore capable of reasoning out the building process, among many, many other things) or whether we were merely mechanically apt. To find this out, they tested us. They tested us the way we test steel—to find out its breaking point. And while they were playing a game for our sanity, I played a game for our lives. I could not share it with any of you ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn

... faithfully, if not always contentedly, in the tannery; and in time, old Mr. Fletcher finding him worthy of the highest trust, John came to be manager of the business, and to live in the house of his master. In knowledge, too, he had grown, for Phineas had proved a good tutor, and John so apt a pupil that before long Phineas confessed that John ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... not, Mary, if I could help it,' said James, 'but through the whole course of my life I have never seen a token that his lordship is worthy of his son. If he were an ordinary, practical, common-place block, apt to support his dignity, he might value him, but all the grace, peculiarity, and conventionality is a mere burthen ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sure he would," said Miss Whalley. "But I think it was unfortunate that so much secrecy was observed. People are so apt to talk uncharitably. It was ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... in a state of inner commotion which left him, for once, insensible to the ordered beauty of his surroundings. Propinquity had not been lacking: he had known Miss Frisbee since his college days. In unsophisticated circles, one family is apt to quote another; and the Durham ladies had always quoted the Frisbees. The Frisbees were bold, experienced, enterprising: they had what the novelists of the day called "dash." The beautiful Fanny was especially dashing; she had the showiest national attributes, tempered only ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton

... summit of the lowest hill in the neighbourhood is said to be 4000 feet above the level of the sea. I own I have strong doubts about this. It is with the heights of mountains, as with the numbers of books in a great library,—we are apt to over-rate each. However, those mountains, which seem to be covered with perennial snow, must be doubtless 8000 feet above the same level.[89] To obtain a complete view of them, you must ascend some of the nether hills. This we intended to do—but the rain of yesterday has disappointed ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... fortunate than I expected to be!" His pleasure shone in his brightening face. "My friend, Mr. Wilson, stops in Chicago and I have been rather dreading the boredom of the rest of the trip. I don't read much on the cars, as I have to be careful of my eyes, and the time is apt to hang heavily on my hands. I have enjoyed our talks so much that I shall be very grateful if you will let me pay you an occasional visit during the rest ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... the Pharaoh with deserting to his enemies if succour was not forth-coming immediately, and at the same time he appealed to Amon-apt and Khayapa, the Egyptian commissioners who had been sent to inquire into the condition of affairs in Canaan. The appeal was so far successful that troops were despatched to Zemar. But it was too late: along with Arka ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... fault in the 'People's Charter' was that it did not go nearly far enough." And so the writer turns away, as do most of his brethren, leaving probably some such impression as this on the minds of most of their readers—"Young men of power and genius are apt to start with wild notions. He was no exception. Parson Lot's sayings and doings may well be pardoned for what Charles Kingsley said and did in after years; so let us drop a decent curtain over them, and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... gracious!' Such phrases are apt to induce profanity, and are no addition whatever to ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... wit, Oglethorpe was apt to introduce piquant illustrations and comparisons into his narratives, and sometimes with the view of their giving force to his statements; but, though they might serve to enliven conversation, they were not dignified enough for a speech in so august ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... desire of walking with me (though I was diverted from going) to Guy's Cliff by Warwick, when I was printing that most rare book called, Joannis Rossi Antiquarii Warwicensis Historia Regum Angliae. And I am apt to think that he would have shewed as hearty an inclination of going to Stening in Sussex, that being the place (according to Asser's Life of Aelfred the Great) where K. Ethelwulph (father of K. Alfred) was buried, though others say it was at Winchester," ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... of response.—Again, in a stale retina, owing to molecular modification the response is apt to undergo reversal (Waller). That is to say, it now becomes negative. In working with the same sensitive cell on different days I have found it occasionally exhibiting this ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... of intense mental struggle. Her struggle was one with which the modern world has perhaps but scant sympathy. Instinctively we feel such things out of place in our easy indifferent generation. We think them more than half unreal. We are so apt to take it for granted that the world has outgrown the religious thirst for sanctification, for a perfect moral consistency, as it has outgrown so many of the older complications of the sentiment of honour. And meanwhile half the tragedy of our time lies in this perpetual clashing of two estimates ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... apt to finish a feeble heart," replied Stone. "Three capsules, if inhaled deeply would certainly kill ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... asks impossible things of life, one is apt to be disappointed, I fear," he said serenely. "Ask for the possible and natural harvest of a woman's career, and see ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... the fact that the rich widowed countess respecting whom such strange tales were told, had come on a visit to these parts. Innkeepers like such visitors. The more venomous are the stories told against them, the more money are they apt to spend, and the less likely are they to examine their hills. A rich woman altogether without a character is a mine of wealth to an innkeeper. In the present case no such godsend had come in the way—but there was supposed to be a something a little odd, and the visitor ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... act only through and for the good of each being, yet characters and structures, which we are apt to consider as of very trifling importance, may thus be acted on. When we see leaf-eating insects green, and bark-feeders mottled gray; the Alpine ptarmigan white in winter, the red grouse the color of heather,—we must believe ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... that, George. I know it is of consequence; you are not apt to have such a long face for nothing. Come, tell me what it is that troubles you. Have I not a right to share your griefs ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... 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.

... it is for a philosopher. Yet, let me tell you, sir, it is not every dev—I mean it is not every gentleman who knows how to choose a philosopher. Long ones are not good; and the best, if not carefully shelled, are apt to be a little rancid ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... boy! I was just feeling the want of your friendly arm. My limbs are apt to grow tired of walking before my eyes are satiated with gazing or my mind with reflecting on the beauty of the summer evening," said Mr. Middleton, slipping his ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... girl who deliberately bit through her tongue that she might not utter a syllable that would jeopardize the interests or safety of her father. The word analyzed is a dead thing; the word in use is a living thing. The word merely analyzed is apt to be ephemeral; the word in use is abiding and increasingly significant. As the child puts more and more content into the word, he, himself, expands at the same rate in the scope and power of his thinking. Words ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... yet we are assured none of them ever equalled him in persuasive arguments, removing of difficulties, and silencing of doubts; for he indeed differs in practice from most of the counsellors we ever heard of: for, as these are apt to puzzle and perplex their clients by their answers, and make intricate what was plain before, on the contrary, the gentleman we are speaking of had a wonderful faculty of making the greatest difficulties plain and easy, and always answered every objection and scruple to the entire satisfaction ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... position of power, above the skies, he will make it decidedly warm for his persecutors when they come up to the desk with their grip sacks and register and ask for a room with a bath, and a fire escape. He will be apt to look up at the key rack and tell them everything is full, but they can find pretty fair accommodations at the other house, down at the Hot Springs, on the European plan, by Mr. Devil, ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... by the last remark.] That nearly all the blockheads with whom I have at any time had the pleasure of conversing upon the subject of style (and pardon me for saying that men of the most sense are apt, upon two subjects, viz., poetry and style, to talk most like blockheads), have invariably regarded Swift's style not as if relatively good [i.e. given a proper subject], but as if absolutely good—good unconditionally, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him"; for he has demonstrated his utter unfitness to possess and use aright. This part of the parable, while of general application, must have appealed to the apostles as particularly apt; for each of them had received in trust an equal endowment through ordination, and each would be required to account for ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... Miss Salisbury was saying. "Well would it have been for me if the conditions had been less easy. But I must hasten. I have told you that I did not pause to think; that was my trouble in those days: I acted on impulse often, as schoolgirls are apt perhaps to do, and so I was not ready to stand this sudden temptation. I tied on my bonnet, gathered up my little purse tightly in my hand; and although the day was cold, the sun was shining brightly, and my heart was so full of hope and anticipation that ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... his feeble grandson. Enormous taxes unjustly levied to pay for past glories, do not improve the temper of a people. A shifting of the burden from one class to another arrayed all in antagonisms against each other, and finally, when the burden fell upon the lowest order, as it is apt to do, they rose in fierce rebellion under the leadership of Wat ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... running, open boil. It is not painful but leaves ugly scars. The natives all carry somewhere on their face, neck, hands, arms or feet the scars of these boils which they have had as children. European children born in the country are apt to be seriously disfigured, as in their case the boils almost invariably appear on the face, and whereas native children have as a rule but one boil, those born of European parents will have several. Adult foreigners visiting the country are also liable to be attacked, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... Master Ebo-Nee," said Uncle Dick; "since you are so apt at learning, you may as well go on and pick up our words, for I ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... old chap, one would be apt to imagine that you were deeply smitten were they now to get ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... they are the easiest prey imaginable. Undoubtedly a man like Zaluski, with his easy nonchalance, his knowledge of the world, his genuine good-nature, and the background of sterling qualities which came upon you as a surprise because he loved to make himself seem a mere idler, was apt to eclipse an ordinary mortal like James Blackthorne. The curate perceived this and did not like to be eclipsed—as a matter of fact, nobody does. It seemed to him a little unfair that he, who had hitherto been made ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... day, if very fat; and fifteen, if moderately so. When the journey is long and the beasts get faint from travel, they should have corn to support them. In frosty weather, when the roads become very hard, they are apt to become shoulder-shaken, an effect of founder; and if sleet falls during the day, and becomes frozen upon them at night, they may become so chilled as to refuse food, and shrink rapidly away. Cattle should, if possible, arrive the day before in the neighborhood of a distant market, and ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... art which qualifies us to speak and write correctly" (R. 74 a). In the introduction to an improved Latin grammar, [3] published about 1119, grammar is defined as "The doorkeeper of all the other sciences, the apt expurgatrix of the stammering tongue, the servant of logic, the mistress of rhetoric, the interpreter of theology, the relief of medicine, and the praiseworthy foundation of the whole quadrivium." Figure 45, from one ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... writer. I mean no more than that I partly owe to you my existence during great part of the time which I have employed in composing it: another matter which it may be necessary to remind you of; since there are certain actions of which you are apt to be extremely forgetful; but of these I hope I shall always have ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... species, M. officinalis, suaveolens, parviflora, alba, infesta, dentata, gracilis, sulcata, elegans, coerulea, petitpierreana, macrorrhiza, Italica, secundiflora, and Taurica, sleep in nearly the same manner as just described; but the bending to one side of the terminal leaflet is apt to fail unless the plants are growing vigorously. With M. petitpierreana and secundiflora the terminal leaflet was rarely seen to bend to one side. In young plants of M. Italica it bent in the usual manner, but with old plants in full flower, growing in the ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... herself a stroll round by moonlight presently. Meanwhile she lay back in a low wicker chair, comfortably upholstered, sipping her coffee, and giving herself up to the sense of dreamy content which, in a healthy body, is apt to follow vigorous exertion. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... overlooked some suggestions in Jackson's work: the enormous number of useless conjectures in that publication rendering it so tedious and unprofitable to consider them attentively, the student is apt to think his time better engaged in investigating other sources of information. I think, therefore, little of MR. COLLIER overlooking the few coincident suggestions in Jackson, which are smaller in number than I had anticipated; the real cause for wonder consisting ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various

... 'notions' he called them; Jim Bently laid claim to none—he ran by sight, not scent, like a kangaroo-dog. Andy Page—by the way, great admirer and faithful retainer of Dave Regan—was simple and trusting, but, on critical occasions, he was apt to be obstinately, uncomfortably, exasperatingly truthful, honest, and he ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... they go with me to prison." Now Cattivanza had a way of putting his neighbours to the push, not caring to hazard his own person. So, finding there around him several young fellows of the highest daring, more eager than apt for so serious an enterprise, he bade them catch up Captain Cisti and get the money from him, and if the guard resisted, overpower the men, provided they had pluck enough ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... make it from a sense of danger. The right honourable Baronet has given the Irish a lesson which will bear fruit. It is a lesson which rulers ought to be slow to teach; for it is one which nations are but too apt to learn. We have repeatedly been told by acts—we are now told almost in express words—that agitation and intimidation are the means which ought to be employed by those who wish for redress of grievances from the party now in power. Such indeed has too long been the policy of England towards ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to exploit their official career for journalistic purposes they are very apt to be misled into putting into mouths of foreign statesmen utterances which either are the creation of an ample imagination or are based on faulty memory. Discussion of political opinions is bound ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... shining lights and its gay exterior, a large public-house called the "Spotted Leopard." Now the "Spotted Leopard" was by no means a nice place to pass at night. Men considerably the worse for drink were apt to linger about the doors. Gossiping and idle fellows would congregate just by this special corner, ready to take up any bit of fun or nonsense which might be coming, meaning no special mischief, but being decidedly disagreeable to meet ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... stating hours of work, and requesting that all applications be made by letter. This disposes rapidly of the illiterate, and in the majority of cases, a woman who writes a good, legible, and accurate hand, is more apt to be efficient in her work than one who sends in a dirty, careless, ill-expressed and badly spelled application. Through advertising one comes into touch with many women it would be impossible to reach otherwise. It is also the most advantageous way of bringing ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker

... now take an instance of a character that is apt to vary in both ways, for this is obviously the best way of making clear what is meant by a negative ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... attain such an end, or rather, by a happy shifting of lights with which practice had familiarized Miss Bart, the cause shrank to a pin-point in the general brightness of the effect. But brilliant young ladies, a little blinded by their own effulgence, are apt to forget that the modest satellite drowned in their light is still performing its own revolutions and generating heat at its own rate. If Lily's poetic enjoyment of the moment was undisturbed by the base thought ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... here comes a champion Shall end the difference between you both; Your son, the Prince Giovanni. See, my lords, What hopes you store in him; this is a casket For both your crowns, and should be held like dear. Now is he apt for knowledge; therefore know It is a more direct and even way, To train to virtue those of princely blood, By examples than by precepts: if by examples, Whom should he rather strive to imitate Than his own father? be his pattern then, Leave him for a stock of virtue that may last, Should ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... better sort, use Net-work, knotted at the four corners in lieu of Beds, which the Inhabitants of the Island of Hispaniola, in their own proper Idiom, term Hammacks. The Men are pregnant and docible. The natives tractable, and capable of Morality or Goodness, very apt to receive the instill'd principles of Catholick Religion; nor are they averse to Civility and good Manners, being not so much discompos'd by variety of Obstructions, as the rest of Mankind; insomuch, that having suckt in (if I may so express my ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... these and all other barometers are apt to leak, from the contraction of the box-wood plug through which the tube passes into the cistern. This must, in portable barometers, in very dry weather, be kept moist with a sponge. A small iron bottle of pure mercury to supply leakage should ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... small things as well as in great. Men have to bear as well as to 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

... impression of her was that of a 'Yankee Corinna;' and such is not unlikely to be the last impression of ordinary readers, ourselves among the number. In a letter, dated 1841, we find her saying: 'I feel all Italy glowing beneath the Saxon crust'—an apt illustration of her mental structure and tone of sentiment, compounded of New Worldedness, as represented by Margaret Fuller, and of the feelings of Southern Europe, as embodied in the Marchesa Ossoli. Without at this time pausing to review her literary position, and her influence ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various



Words linked to "Apt" :   tending, likely, disposed, apposite, pertinent, intelligent, aptness



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