"Talent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hindrance to his preferment. The patronage of literature was thus in great part political in its character. It represents the first scheme by which the new class of parliamentary statesmen recruited their party from the rising talent, or rewarded men for active or effective service. The speedy decay of the system followed for obvious reasons. As party government became organised, the patronage was used in a different spirit. Offices had to be given to gratify members of parliament and their constituents, ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... had reason to appreciate the talent of her counsellor. His predictions, made with a cynicism that always caused the pious lady to blush, had been ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... diseases; but my learned brother refused and was encouraged in his resistance by M. Galpin: I do not know upon what ground. Then I asked that the Countess Claudieuse should be sent for, as she has a talent of making him talk. M. Galpin would not ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... that one, his father's trousers. As soon as the music stops, these little tots know by memory the piece that has been played; they whistle and hum it with great delight, showing at this early age their musical talent. ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... the Constitution seem to have taken pains to signalize their talent of misrepresentation. Calculating upon the aversion of the people to monarchy, they have endeavored to enlist all their jealousies and apprehensions in opposition to the intended President of the United States; not merely as the embryo, but as the full-grown ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... do not undertake, therefore, to deny artists the right to probe the wounds of society and lay them bare before our eyes; but is there nothing better to be done to-day than to depict the terrifying and the threatening? In this literature of mysteries of iniquity, which talent and imagination have made fashionable, we prefer the mild, attractive figures to the villains for dramatic effect. The former may undertake and effect conversions, the others cause fear, and fear does not cure egoism, but ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... stunts, and she's decided to use their new east terrace for an outdoor stage and the big drawin'-room it opens off from as an auditorium. You know, Mrs. Robert used to give violin recitals and do concert work herself, so she ain't satisfied with amateur talent. Besides, she ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... and shipped that ton of second-hand rubbish, old boots and pantaloons and what not through the mails as registered matter! It was an ingenious thing and it had a genuine touch of humor about it, too. I think there is more real: talent among our public men of to-day than there was among those of old times—a far more fertile fancy, a much happier ingenuity. Now, Colonel, can you picture Jefferson, or Washington or John Adams franking their wardrobes through ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... restore wit to its pristine glory, to the position it had occupied before it was tied to mirth and ridicule, when Atterbury could thus define it: "Wit, indeed, as it implies, a certain uncommon Reach and Vivacity of Thought, is an Excellent Talent; very fit to be employ'd in the Search of Truth...." So the anonymous author of A Satyr upon a Late Pamphlet Entitled, A Satyr ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... Miss Edgeworth, she was complimented by Madame de Stael herself. She had, indeed, won for herself a position which can hardly be paralleled among the women of the eighteenth century—a position of independence and honour, based upon talent, and upon talent alone. In 1796 she published Nature and Art, and ten years later appeared her last work—a series of biographical and critical notices prefixed to a large collection of acting plays. During the greater part of the intervening period she lived in lodgings in Leicester Square—or ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... and willing to undertake this great work was found in the person of the late Robert Stevenson of Edinburgh, whose perseverance and talent shall be commemorated by the grandest and most useful monument ever raised by man, as long as the Bell Rock lighthouse ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sidonian poet. Most of them are epideictic; a good many are on works of art and literature; there are some very beautiful epitaphs. There is in his work a tendency towards diffuseness which goes with his talent in improvisation ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... the fifty-five-dollar suit that I. Bernstein had wished on him with near-tears of regret at parting from it. The cowpuncher dramatized the situation with some native talent for mimicry. His arms gestured like the lifted wings of a startled cockerel. "A man gets a chance at a garment like that only once in a while occasionally. Which you can take it from me that when I. Bernstein sells a suit of clothes it is shust like he is dealing with his own brother. Qvality, my ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... construct weapons for executing their schemes of vengeance. They also devote themselves to eccentric and useless occupations, like the training of animals, such as mice, marmosets, birds, and even fleas (Lattes). This morbid and misguided activity, which frequently shows gleams of talent, might well be utilised for increasing the scope ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... floored by her productions. As far as he could judge from what she showed him, she was hopelessly without talent, and he could only wonder which of these remarkably bad studies had won for her the ...
— Different Girls • Various
... gets difficult to handle the problem of a man who has a real talent that you need badly—and he cannot use it ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz
... hearts full of false tenderness, for those women with the laudable and fine talent of knowing how to smother their husbands with caresses in order to make them oblivious ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... father should offer my services? I had a shock of pale yellow hair, I was small enough to be put into the property mustard-pot, and the Glasgow stage manager would easily assume that I had inherited talent. My father had acted with Macready in the stock seasons both at Edinburgh and Glasgow, and bore a very high reputation with Scottish audiences. But the stage manager and father alike reckoned without their actress! When they tried to put me into the mustard-pot, I yelled lustily and showed more lung-power ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... inclinations, and to make whatever use of their natural abilities they desire. If that definition is near the heart of the matter, it is evident that in a society in which there is considerable inequality of wealth it will not be possible to secure equality of opportunity. As Mr. Tawney has remarked, "Talent and energy can create opportunity. But property need only wait for it." Under almost all circumstances there is a tendency for the distribution of opportunity to conform to the distribution of wealth. Still it is not to be concluded that this tendency is unconditional. ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... sir; he is perfectly sincere. I am sure of it, from what I have seen of him myself. And look at him, sir! he is a boy of talent; and if you wish to reward him, you could not do so in a more effectual way than by giving him ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in his clothing, and in some of his expressions and behaviour; and yet was a very loving tender hearted man; of a deep natural judgment; and very learned, especially in Hebrew. He often wished that most part of books were burnt, except the bible, and some short notes thereon. He had a peculiar talent for comforting the dejected. He used a very familiar but pressing manner of preaching. He was also an eminent wrestler with God, and had more than ordinary power and familiarity with him, as ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... endeavoured to reach the Court, it still required time for them to do so;[44] and meanwhile the other great nobles were anxious to shake off the control to which they had been subjected during the previous reign. Individual hatred came to the assistance of personal ambition, and those whose talent enabled them to acquire influence at Court began to exercise it no less zealously in the ruin of others than ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... of the Monmouth tenement house as Mr. Merton Ware, a young writer of plays. Now I don't think," Mr. Dane went on, leaning a little further over the table, "that the Mr. Douglas Romilly who has disappeared was ever capable of writing a play. I don't think he was a man of talent at all. I don't think he could have written, for instance, 'The House of Shams.' Let us, however, leave the subject of Douglas Romilly for a moment. Let us go a little further back—to Detton Magna, let us say. Curiously enough, there ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have had some inventive talent and some idea of naval tactics. His ship was called the "Iron Beard," because her bows bristled with sharpened spikes of iron. She was to be herself a weapon, not merely a means of bringing fighting men to ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... after his nutrition, his clothing, his personal comfort, and, consequently, his health. These do not come without thought and labor. The domestic administration of the household and the care of its members require as much talent, intelligence, and discipline as any of the ordinary occupations of men. Throughout the civilized world, this responsibility and the labor necessary for its fulfilment absorb a large portion of the mental and physical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... Rob Roy's progress in his occupation is thus described by a gentleman of sense and talent, who resided within the circle of his predatory wars, had probably felt their effects, and speaks of them, as might be expected, with little of the forbearance with which, from their peculiar and romantic character, they are ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... fairies had been invited to his birth; that all came, and that each gave him some talent, so that he had them all. But, unfortunately, an old fairy, who had disappeared so many years ago that she was no longer remembered, had been omitted from the invitation lists. Piqued at this neglect, she came supported upon her little ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... he married a wife — a real jewel, from that "gem of the sea" so dear to poor old England — and accompanied his regiment to Van Dieman's Land, en route to India. He was well known and liked by the officers, having a peculiar talent for blarney; and nothing pleased him so much as a little conversation ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... talk of democracy in Australia, we are far from realizing a truly democratic ideal. A State in a pure democracy draws no nice and invidious distinctions between man and man. She disclaims the right of favouring either property, education, talent, or virtue. She conceives that all alike have an interest in good government, and that all who form the community, of full age and untainted by crime, should have a right to their share in the representation. She allows education to exert its legitimate power through ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... suit. But this point was disposed of by a decision of the judge that it was not reasonable, in view of the low salary received by the plaintiff, to deprive him of the right to the creations of his own talent. He did not, however, apply this principle of legal interpretation to the case of the defendant, and not only found for the plaintiff, but awarded damages based on the supposed value of the work, including, if I understand ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... me on this matter, she said "Professions are all very well for those who have connection and interest as well as capital, but otherwise they are white elephants. How many men do not you and I know who have talent, assiduity, excellent good sense, straightforwardness, every quality in fact which should command success, and who yet go on from year to year waiting and hoping against hope for the work which never comes? How, indeed, is it likely to come unless to those who either are born with interest, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... appreciates your learning and talent, and that it uses you more gently than that horse of yours," ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... spoke, it was to express her fear lest Miss Fennimore should refuse to remain, since the position would be uncomfortable. Her talent was thrown away on poor Maria, and Bertha had been very vexing and provoking of late. Phoebe greatly dreaded a change, both from her love for her governess, and alarm lest a new duenna might be yet more unwelcome to Mervyn, and she was disappointed ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a famine was imminent. The Adelantado ordered a caravel to be sent round to Xaragua to be freighted with cotton and bread, and returned himself to Isabella after taking a cordial farewell of his native friends. He had shown extraordinary talent in his government of the native population, and his rule had been a complete success. Always moderate in victory, he had suppressed the insurrections without bloodshed, and had conciliated the people by his moderation. He had made long and difficult marches, had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the case under the Victorian peace may, again, be taken in illustration of the point; although under the presumably more effectual control to be looked for in the pacific future the margin might reasonably be expected to run somewhat narrower, so that this virtual suppression of cultural talent among the common men should ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... of talent must be wrangling among themselves: each man does his best to make himself intolerable to his colleagues: and yet, as Christophe said, the world was large enough for all of them to be able to work in peace: ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... you study law, you will rise, inevitably. And in this profession, there is a much broader field of action for a man of talent, than there is in any ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... friends and acquaintances as carefully as she selected her dresses, jewels, and flowers. She refused to know "bores" and "nobodies"; her lady friends must be pretty, piquant, or fashionable, any gentleman admitted into her charmed circle must have genius, wit, or talent to recommend him. Though grave matrons shook their heads and looked prudish when the Countess Rosali was mentioned, yet to belong to her set was to receive the "stamp of fashion." No day passed without some amusement at the villa—picnic, excursion, soiree, dance, or, what its fair mistress ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... only on the staves of office that the men of the Stone age exercised their talent. Many and varied are the subjects which have been found engraved on plaques of ivory or on stone, and incised on bears' teeth or on stag horn. We represent one forming the hilt of a dagger (Fig. 36), and another representing a bear with ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... the one into the hands of the other. He will be better educated by a father who is judicious, even though of moderate attainments, than by the most skilful master in the world. For zeal will supplement talent better than talent can supply what ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... would have been brought against it, and to what attacks the Government would have exposed itself. The old Tory Ministry, which was voted out for incapacity by the House of Commons, was the strongest and longest that we have seen for many years, though opposed by all the talent and power of an Opposition more formidable than this can be. To be sure it must always be remembered that they floated through their difficulties on the tide of the Duke of Wellington's victories. Of all the party who would have ranged themselves under Huskisson, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... one half of the absentees should be friends to the cause of the people; what would become of us then? There remains indeed the obvious method of purchasing votes, and it might be supposed that your lordship's talent of insinuation might do you knight's service in this business. But no, my lord, many of these country gentlemen are at bottom no better than boors. A mechlin cravat and a smirking countenance, upon which your lordship builds so much, would be absolutely unnoticed by them. ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... of which his mother, Madame Chardon, is the last survivor, and it is added that Mme. la Comtesse du Chatelet was the first to think of this eminently politic idea. The revival of an ancient and almost extinct family by young talent and newly won fame is another proof that the immortal author of the Charter still cherishes the desire expressed by ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... not doubt for an instant but that these two fair girls before him were his nieces, and the younger, a mere playful child, was no doubt the little Mime or Mimi, as she was endearingly called, for the rare talent she evinced in mimicking or laughing at the eccentricities of ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... university, with its wild under-life,—some debts, some follies; and the frequent fond letters from home to which he might have replied so much oftener;—Paris, where talent is mediocrity; Paris, with its thunders and its splendors and its seething of passion;—Paris, supreme focus of human endeavor, with its madnesses of art, its frenzied striving to express the Inexpressible, its spasmodic strainings ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... populous nation of Sumatra. These people, according to Sir Stamford Raffles, have a regular government, and deliberative assemblies; they possess a peculiar language and written character, can generally write, and have a talent for eloquence; they acknowledge a God, are fair and honourable in their dealings, and crimes amongst them are few; their country is highly cultivated. Yet this people, so far advanced in civilization, are cannibals ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... continually appearing from the press deserve no remembrance, and fortunately have no permanence. They are addressed to a special class of readers,—a class generally neither of highly cultivated taste, nor of acute critical perception. Their writers are rarely men of sufficient talent to win for themselves recognition out of their own narrow set. What in the slang of the day are called "sensation" sermons are no exception to the common rule. Their momentary effect, depending upon exaggeration and extravagance, is no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... Reginald, "it will be safer to hoist her up, though to do so we must first unship her outriggers. Her builder is on board, and as soon as he has completed his task I should wish to introduce him to you, as he is a young man of talent to whom ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... poor stuff, unworthy of the talent of many of its interpreters and of the trouble that Miss EDITH CRAIG had spent over its scenic effects. Perhaps the audience had been led to expect too much, for "The Daisy," far from being the "wee, modest" flower of ROBERT BURNS, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... you, Prothero; the Doctor is as good a fellow as ever stepped. There is no doubt about his talent in his profession; and there are a good many of us who owed our lives to him when we were down with cholera, in that bad attack three years ago. He is good all round; he is just as keen a shikari as he was when he joined the regiment, twenty ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... many strange legends of the old house; for Tammy was shrewd and imaginative; his "want" exhibited itself in no outrageous manner, but rather in a kind of low cunning and feebleness of will. It was Tammy's talent for story-telling, and his skill as a player of the violin, which drew Yaspard to him. Also the lad felt a kind of pity for the creature, and tried, in his plain boy-fashion, to instruct him, and make him "a little more like ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... so, but I may as well begin by telling you that in my case it is a question not of drachmae but of Attic talents."—[ The Attic talent was worth about L200, or $1000 dollars ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a silent affair. They touched briefly and formally on Querida and his ripening talent prematurely annihilated; they spoke of men they knew who were to come after him—a long, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... events he did not wish to be the judge to decide whether more should be shed or not. But his own life was sacrificed at the hands of an assassin before the ex-president of the Confederacy was a prisoner in the hands of the government which he had lent all his talent and all his energies ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... rest. Is it a matter of action, running, jumping, or shifting things, raising weights or estimating distance, inventing games, carrying off prizes; you might say, "Nature obeys his word," so easily does he bend all things to his will. He is made to lead, to rule his fellows; talent and experience take the place of right and authority. In any garb, under any name, he will still be first; everywhere he will rule the rest, they will always feel his superiority, he will be master without knowing it, and they will ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... of the most wicked men in that wicked age. He possessed in a high degree the qualities which are required in the leader of a band of ruined and desperate men—the faculty of enjoying all pleasures and of bearing all privations, courage, military talent, knowledge of men, indomitable energy.' —M. ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent; and men blasphemed God, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... day I became acquainted with a respectable tradesman of the name of Almeida, a man of talent, though rather rough in his manners. He expressed great abhorrence of the papal system, which had so long spread a darkness like that of death over his unfortunate country, and I had no sooner informed him that I had brought ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... in persons of her race. In pressing her claim, she grew wonderfully eloquent, and would have elicited the admiration of an educated audience. Had there been a school in that vicinity for the development of histrionic talent in the negro race, I would have given that woman a recommendation to ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... comments on Amiel's loaded pathos and his muddled meditation are therefore invaluable. Nor is he less happy or less just in the praise which, though not the first, he was one of the first to give to by far the strongest side of Amiel's talent, his really remarkable ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... thin, had liberal opinions in place of talent, and his only revenue was the meagre profits of his office. In Provins lawyers plead their own cases. The court was unfavorable to Vinet on account of his opinions; consequently, even the farmers who were Liberals, when it ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... honestly, general, that, while I fully realize the great service you have done me and mine; while I cannot but admire the tact, talent, and noble characteristics that have so quickly elevated you to a niche in the temple of fame, still I am a very practical man, and look well to worldly matters and immediate interests. This has been my policy through life, and I have ever found that it ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... not incompatible with a certain superficial boldness, nor even with an appearance of truculence. But what lies beneath the boldness is not really an independent spirit, but merely a talent for crying with the pack. When the American is most dashingly assertive it is a sure sign that he feels the pack behind him, and hears its comforting baying, and is well aware that his doctrine is approved. He is not a joiner for nothing. He joins something, ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... manners—but what am I to do? I must have persons to assist me; and Mrs. Crabbe makes the most beautiful jellies and the most delicious Charlotte-Russe I ever tasted. She has a natural talent for all sorts of nice cookery, and with my little experience in it, she will be of the greatest service to me. It saves a great deal to make every thing except the confectionary at home; and I shall go at once and ask Mrs. Crabbe ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... of the sixteenth century was Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, familiarly known as "Bess of Hardwicke," where she was born, and who managed to outlive four husbands, thus showing what success is in store for a woman of tact and business talent. She was a penniless bride at fourteen, when she married an opulent gentleman of Derbyshire named Barley, who left her at fifteen a wealthy widow. At the age of thirty she married another rich husband, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... might be the fate of any man, even after an entire and perfect devotion of all one's time and talent, for want of the proper means. In military matters these things are never considered. Success is the only criterion—a good rule, upon the whole, though in many instances it works great injustice. Good and deserving men fall, and accidental heroes rise in the ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... friendship. These men fail and cease by means of death. The fathers, where are they? And the teachers, do they live forever? The visitations of death are often mysterious to us. Sometimes the most brilliant in intellect and the most useful in talent, also the most pious and useful in the church, are cut down, while mere ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... now I think of it, if one barber can become a pacha, I do not see why another would not make a vizier. But then what am I to do for a barber? No, no, Mustapha; a good vizier is easy to be found, but a good barber, you know as well as I do, requires some talent." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fact, a faint mew perfectly imitated seemed to issue from the dish. It was Coupeau who did that with his throat, without opening his lips; a talent which at all parties, met with decided success, so much so that he never ordered a dinner abroad without having a rabbit ragout. After that he purred. The ladies pressed their napkins to their mouths to try and stop their laughter. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... such depth that they failed to reach the bottom with their spears. In the midst of their perplexities, a Rhodian came up with a proposal, as follows: "I am ready, sirs to carry you across, four thousand heavy infantry at a time; if you will furnish me with what I need and give me a talent into the bargain for my pains." When asked, "What shall you need?" he replied: "Two thousand wine-skins. I see there are plenty of sheep and goats and asses. They have only to be flayed, and their skins inflated, and they will readily give us a passage. ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... of whatever might arise in any quarter, and be able to take immediate steps for the safety of the commonweal. He seems to have carried with him even from his earliest youth, wherever he went, a peculiar talent of exciting confidence in every one. Whether in the field of battle, or the chamber of council,—whether as the young Prince, just initiated in affairs of war and government, or as the experienced captain and statesman,—his contemporaries looked to him as a kind of guardian spirit, to protect ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... all such! But were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires, Blest with each talent, and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease. Should such ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... swelled and scratched face, a discoloured eye, a damaged nose, and a head swathed in bandages—it is no wonder that Mrs Moss failed to recognise in John Barret the violent young man with the talent for ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Vulcani, whom I had known at Dresden, and who suddenly presented her husband to me. He threw his arms round my neck. He was Baletti, brother of my faithless one, a young man of great talent of whom I was ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a year of serious study; with your decided talent, I should think you couldn't hesitate. You are a ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... was an Englishman, born about 1520, and at an early age was a boy chorister at St. Paul's. After his voice changed, he played the organ at Waltham Abbey, and some time later was chosen organist royal to Queen Elizabeth. His pecuniary returns for his talent did not make him rich, though he bore the title after 1542 of Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, for his stipend was sevenpence a day. Some gain may possibly have come to him, however, from his publication, late in life, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... out of a bus into the sunshine down by the outer gate. She was nineteen with yellow hair and eyes that people were tactful enough not to call green. When men of talent saw her in a street-car they often furtively produced little stub-pencils and backs of envelopes and tried to sum up that profile or the thing that the eyebrows did to her eyes. Later they looked at their results and usually tore ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... creation. "No theory," says Lyell, "could be so far-fetched or fantastical as not to attract some followers, provided it fell in with the popular notion." "Some of the most extravagant systems were invented or controverted by men of acknowledged talent." A more amusing exhibition of philosophical absurdity can not be found than those chapters which he devotes to "The Historical Progress of Geology,"[372] unless perhaps the scientific discussions of the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... ladies of the court, officers of the Guard, Cossack soldiers, young commercial men, musicians, street-singers, actors and actresses, scientific men, clergymen and statesmen, used to meet here. Beauty and talent were alone qualifications for entry into the Society, the members of which were selected by Jelagin. Every one addressed the other as "thee" and "thou," and they only made use of Christian names such as Anne, Alexandra. Katharine, Olga, Peter, Alexis, and Ivan. And for what purpose did they ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... acts were acts of submission. They were perhaps intended to tranquillize the suspicions with which the first movements of a young prince are certain to be regarded by a jealous superior; and this purpose they effectually served. Without courage or talent for war, his powerful and subtle mind sought to accomplish its objects by intellectual superiority and by craft, rather than by force. Warned by the errors of his predecessors, he did not dispute the right of the Tartars to the tribute, but evaded its payment; and yet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... unhappily for their peace, Irene met about this time, and became attached to, a lady of fine intellectual attainments and fascinating manners, who was an extremist in opinion on the subject of sexual equality. She was married, but to a man greatly her inferior, though possessing some literary talent, which he managed to turn to better account than she did her finer powers. He had been attracted by her brilliant qualities, and in approaching her scorched his wings, and ever after lay at her feet. She had no very high respect for him, but found a husband on many accounts ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... in 1842, and at the age of twelve became a pupil of Bezit at the Conservatoire, was rejected by Bezit for want of talent, and afterward studied with Reber and Thomas, and won the Prix de Rome in 1863. Upon his return, in 1866, he wrote a number of small orchestral works, including two suites and several sacred dramas, ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... afforded great entertainment. The costumes were magnificent, "with golden and pearl embroidery," the dances were very merry and artistic, and the musicians, who formed a part of the company, exhibited remarkable talent. These "mummeries" had been brought by William of Orange from the Netherlands, at the express request of the Elector, on the ground that such matters were much better understood in the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... feel was to touch (if I may so put it); quite instinctively she stretched out her arms to draw him home; the good fool would have kissed his tears away if he had had any, giving him for comfort what he had screamed upon as a torment. But that was a talent denied to Grifone: he could not cry. All the same, she was at the point to kiss him, when he once more prevented ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... doubt," replied the Signor solemnly. "She is, indeed, a prodigy of talent,—one of the wonders of the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... of talent and education. He had entered on board the —- in a fit of desperation, to obtain the bounty for a present support, and his pay as a future provision for his wife, and an only child, the fruit of ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... The talent of Audran, not content with figures alone, was lavishly expended on those ingenious decorative designs which formed the frame and setting of the figures, the airy world in which they lived and in the borders ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... and renown. Montenegro had gained a European reputation from this war, and the Porte, bowing to force of circumstances, finally recognised her independence. For five weary centuries had this struggle continued, and it is owing to the talent of their present ruler that the consummation of their hopes has been brought about. Free they always have been, but an acknowledgment of their freedom has ever been set aside. At last they have attained their object. The Turk no longer regards them as an insubordinate province, and ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... more homely, though not less plentiful and savoury; and the bill of fare in one house would not be so like that in another as it is now, for family receipts were held in high estimation. A grandmother of culinary talent could bequeath to her descendant fame for some particular dish, and might influence the family ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... victims to the Cheveleigh iron foundries and the Northwold baths. The close of the war brought a commercial crisis that their companies could not stand; and Mr. Dynevor's death spared him from the sight of the crash, which his talent and sagacity might possibly have averted. He had shown no misgivings, but, no sooner was he removed from the helm, than the vessel was found on the brink of destruction. Enormous sums had been sunk without tangible return, and the liabilities ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Almerique began the study of the Chinese language, in his zeal to aid in the conversion of the many Chinese who came to Manila and whom we in the Filipinas call Sangleys. He effected several conversions, in particular, that of a young man of much talent who had studied their learning, and made more than ordinary progress, and was about to be graduated in his own country. This young man, abandoning his studies and ambitions for our holy faith, was solemnly baptized in our church at Manila by the hand of the bishop, and took the name of Paul, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... species of orchid, showing the most remarkable diversity in their sexual condition. It seems to me a grievous loss that such a man should have all his work cut short. Please remember that I know nothing of him excepting from his letters: these show remarkable talent, astonishing perseverance, much modesty, and what I admire, determined difference from me on ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... it was Emerson—once said, "Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call." It is no small thing, in this grim world, to make people smile, to be absurd for their alleviation, to render all things "sympathetically ridiculous" for a time, to bear in a chalice of mirth the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... noted name, who failed to observe that his poem ended a stanza sooner than he did. In a periodical devoted to short stories, or abandoned to them, there were two good pieces, one of them delicately yet distinctly reproducing certain poetic aspects of New York, and giving the sense of a fresh talent. Where the critic would hardly have looked for them, in a magazine of professed fashion and avowed smartness, he came upon three pieces, one sweet and fine, one wise and good, one fresh and well turned. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... really bad shearers, and can be discharged without loss to the commonwealth, or who can shear fairly and can be coached up to a decent average. One division, slow, and good only when slow, have to be watched lest they emulate "the talent," and so come to grief. Then "the talent" has to be mildly admonished from time to time lest they force the pace, set a bad example, and lure the other men on to "racing." This last leads to slovenly shearing, ill-usage of the sheep, and ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... they came back they had a lot of lingo about the art atmosphere and all that; home was a misfit and impossible, so they went to live in a swell studio with two maids and a Jap butler in costume, and do really give bang-up musicals, with paid talent of course. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Switzerland, and over the Simplon, the work of the great Napoleon. By jove, sir, think of the Turks before Vienna, and Sobieski clearing eighty thousand of 'em off the face of the earth! How my boy will rejoice in the picture galleries there, and in Prince Eugene's prints! The boy's talent for drawing is wonderful, sir, wonderful. He sent me a picture of our old school. The very actual thing, sir; the cloisters, the school, the head gown boy going in with the rods, and the doctor himself. It would ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Gray that he had no talent whatever for plotting, Captain Wopper went off with a deprecatory expression of countenance to reveal himself to Mrs Roby. Great was his anxiety. He entered her presence like a guilty thing. If, however, his anxiety was great, his surprise and consternation were greater when she received his revelation ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... brought no outward and tangible good. More scientific studies were pursued,—those which could be applied to purposes of utility and material gains; even as in our day geology, chemistry, mechanics, engineering, having reference to the practical wants of men, command talent, and lead to certain reward. In Athens, rhetoric, mathematics, and natural history supplanted rhapsodies and speculations on God and Providence. Renown and wealth could be secured only by readiness and felicity of speech, and that was most valued which brought immediate ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... of political power was really on the side of the Whigs. Not only were they the natural representatives of the principles of the Revolution, and the supporters of the war, but they stood far above their opponents in parliamentary and administrative talent. At their head stood a group of statesmen whose close union in thought and action gained them the name of the Junto. Russell, as yet the most prominent of these, was the victor of La Hogue; John Somers was an advocate who had sprung into fame by his defence ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... point of elevation which "flattered his pride not a little." At this time he appeared in the eye of the world most amiable and commendable, outwardly moral, unwearied in application, and exhibited marks of no ordinary talent. One exception to this statement is to be found in an irritability of temper arising perhaps from the treatment he had received at school. On one occasion in sudden anger, he threw a knife at the head of another boy, which providentially missed him and was left trembling in the wall; but it was ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... life he remained nearly two years longer at the University, giving proofs of talent in occasional translations from the classics, for one of which he received a premium, awarded only to those who are the first in literary merit. Still he never made much figure at college, his natural disinclination to study being increased by the harsh treatment he ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... an idea of the great and beautiful, by which men should exalt the hackneyed and the trite of life. Now Glyndon felt the sober prudence of Mervale's reasonings; he recoiled from the probable picture placed before him, in his devotion to the one master-talent he possessed, and the one master-passion that, rightly directed, might purify his whole being as a ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and when he found they would fit him, the dancing and singing were resumed. I should judge from the history his sisters gave of him, and from his high forehead, that he had been a man of more than ordinary talent. These sisters, too, had been made widows and childless by slavery's cruel hand. This I found to be the hard lot of all these old people. They told me of many cruel over- seers, that would take the life of a slave, to get their names up as "boss overseers." I told ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... mechanical, is the highest and hardest effort of the mind. It is an operation so absorbing that it often weakens those pettier talents which make what we call the clever man. Therefore the inventor should ally himself with some person of talent and energy, but no invention. Thus supported, he can have his fits of abstraction, his headaches, his heartaches, his exultations, his depressions, and no harm done; his dogged associate will plow steadily on all the time. So, after all, your requiring capital is ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the folds of envy, nor hide them in the closet of an avaricious heart; but all pride of heart being repelled, let him with a cheerful mind give with simplicity to all who ask of him, and let him fear the judgment of the Gospel upon that merchant, who, failing to return to his lord a talent with accumulated interest, deprived of all reward, merited the censure from the mouth of his judge of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... days' preparation, did not commence his scathing impeachment of Warren Hastings with more confidence that was displayed by Mr. Webster when he stood up, in the pride of his manhood, and began to address the interested mass of talent, intelligence, and beauty around him. A man of commanding presence, with a well-knit, sturdy frame, swarthy features, a broad, thoughtful forehead, courageous eyes gleaming from beneath shaggy eyebrows, a quadrangular breadth ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... change your coat, What do you rowing in this boat? Why have you left the town? I say You're wrong to stroll about this way: Preferment, which your talent crowns, Believe me, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... getting away from the gardens of Armida and doing something to enliven the deadly void of the morning hours; for the hours between breakfast and dinner belonged to the mistress of the house, who knew very well how to make them pass quickly. To keep, as Madame de Montcornet did, a man of talent in the country without ever seeing on his face the false smile of satiety, or detecting the yawn of a weariness that cannot be concealed, is a great triumph for a woman. The affection which is equal to such a test certainly ought to be eternal. It is to be wondered ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... mistaken, look upon a speaker and a comet with the same astonishment and admiration, taking them both for preternatural phenomena. This error discourages many young men from attempting that character; and good speakers are willing to have their talent considered as something very extraordinary, if not a peculiar gift of God to his elect. But, let you and I analyze and simplify this good speaker; let us strip him of those adventitious plumes with which his own pride and the ignorance of others have decked him; and we shall find ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... elegant, attractive, and genteel (how they loved those dreadful adjectives 'elegant' and 'genteel'!) you will not find them among the snobbish clique, who, with nothing but money, attempt to rule New York." The words are of the clerical visitor before quoted. "Talent, taste, and refinement do not dwell with these. But high life has no passport except money. If a man has this, though destitute of character and brains, he is made welcome. One may come from Botany Bay or St. James; with a ticket-of-leave from ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... 7th December 1784. Of his ancestry, some account has been given in the memoir of his elder brother Thomas.[6] He was the fourth son of his parents, and from both of them inherited shrewdness and strong talent.[7] Receiving an ordinary elementary education at a school, taught by an enthusiastic Cameronian, he was apprenticed in his eleventh year to his eldest brother James as a stone-mason. His hours of leisure were applied to mental improvement; he read diligently the considerable collection of books ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... travel with you. Take me with you, and have pity on a blind, insane individual, who has only to-day had his eyes opened to his real calling. I have groped about in the darkness for a long time, and have very nearly committed suicide, that is, let my talent perish. You discovered talent in my pictures, but instead of devoting myself solely to my brush I have dabbled in music, in literature—have dissipated my energies. I meant to write a novel, and neither you nor anybody else prevented me and told me that I am a sculptor, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... is too commonly bandied about. As a matter of fact, there is not so very much genius in the world; and a great deal of more than fair performance is attainable and attained by more or less decent allowances or exhibitions of talent. In prose, more especially, it is possible to gain a very high place, and to deserve it, without any genius at all: though it is difficult, if not impossible, to do so in verse. But what Balzac felt (whether ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... what he admired most was that of reading and writing, and he long deliberated with himself whether it was a natural or an acquired talent. In order to determine this, he desired one of the soldiers, who guarded him, to write the name of God on the nail of his thumb. This he showed successively to several Spaniards, asking its meaning, and to his amazement, they ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... them for getting drink for her. She was clever, good-natured, more constant to her home and her man than you, a living fountain of innocent pleasure as a dancer, singer, and actress; and here she lies, after mischievously spending her talent in a series of entertainments too dull for hell and too debased for any better place, dead of a preventable disease, chiefly because most of the people she came in contact with had a direct pecuniary interest in depraving and poisoning her. Aye, look at her! with the cross on ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... boyish playmates into an amateur minstrel band; and when in early manhood he began to confide his most intimate thoughts to a notebook, he wrote, "The prime inclination—that is, natural bent (which I have checked, though)—of my nature is to music, and for that I have the greatest talent; indeed, not boasting, for God gave it me, I have an extraordinary musical talent, and feel it within me plainly that I could rise as high as ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... periods in the history of nations, some eminent individual comes forward, as if designated for the especial office of a national guide. Such an individual was the Marquis of Pombal, the virtual sovereign of Portugal for twenty-seven years—a man of talent, intrepidity, and virtue. His services were the crush of faction and the birth of public spirit, the fall of the Jesuits and the peace of his country. His inscription should be, "The Restorer of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... praised and recorded, and as a consequence—perhaps as a result of imitation—there were many heroes. In our times a good or brave deed is squeezed into an obscure paragraph,—while intellect and brilliant talent receive scarcely any acknowledgment—the silly doings of 'society' and the Court are the chief matter,—hence, possibly, the preponderance of dunces and flunkeys, again produced by sheer 'imitativeness.' Is it pleasant for a man with starvation at his door, to read that a king ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... of subsistence. He was always about among the poor, he said, and talking to people of all descriptions, and hearing and seeing things well worth being told in print, but he was without the special kind of talent and style of writing necessary to give literary form to such matter. His tastes lay in other directions, and the only writing he could do was of a very different kind. Then I gladly consented, and Merton was pleased also, and promised to help; but—poor fellow—he has not had the strength ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... if she had a talent for it; Duke d'Aiguillon too, Maupeou and the Parlement Maupeou: these, as they sit in their high places, with France harnessed under their feet, know well on what basis they continue there. Look to it, D'Aiguillon; sharply as thou didst, from the Mill of St. Cast, on Quiberon ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... that was a despatch rider, I think. Anyway, he's wise to motorcycles. He's had several consulting engineers on the job—Belgian, French, and British talent—but nothin' doing. He's gradually losing ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... savage, and I love your music. If you come out into the world, I am going to take you among my friends. We all have some musical education, but you have musical talent." ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... wanted to spend it. My hobby was modelling. My father had no sympathy with this hobby. To him it was a waste of time better spent in study or such sports as would fit me for study. But he had never absolutely forbidden me to exercise my talent this way, and when on the day I mention I had a few hours of freedom, I decided to begin a piece of work of which I had long dreamed. This was the remodelling in clay of an exquisite statue which had ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... for it but to drop into some nice government nest, where, as I have told you, there would be plenty to get and nothing to do. Any place with much to do would not suit him, or he it; he was too empty-headed for work requiring talent; you may have remarked that a man given to Sir ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood |
