"Ability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a little table just inside the entrance, leisurely consuming coffee and beef sandwiches. He glanced at the two men as if he had never seen them in his life, and they, preserving equally stolid expressions with credit if not with the detective's ready and trained ability, passed further on—only to recognize Levendale and Stephen Purvis, who had found accommodation in a quiet corner half-way down the room. They, too, showed no signs of recognition, and Purdie, passing by them, steered ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... makes bust, dreads to start out, 677; orthodox not careful about feelings of liberals, pre-natal influence, joy at birth of Mrs. Avery's daughter, mother's gratitude, 678; attends nephew's wedding, reaches S. Dak., lets. begging her to come, homesick for Washington, but duty first, 679; ability to raise money, 680; sends $300 for prelim. work, offers Miss Shaw's services, com. does not answer, makes out her routes, writes for plan of campn, refuses to put natl. funds into State treasury, can be used only for suff. work, 681; ready to co-operate, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of persons brew their own beer. Some improvements here may yet be looked for, since at present the grain is malted very badly in the colony, which I attribute more to the want of proper utensils than any deficiency of ability. In a short time also they will be enabled to grow a sufficiency of hops in the settlement for every purpose, without being compelled, as at present, to have recourse to the mother country for this ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... said aloud, "is a nightmare from which I must awaken or lose all my power of action and my ability to help my country ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... closed and Lena wondered in terror what of her small store of finery she ought to put on, and when she ought to go down stairs. She solved the first question to the best of her ability and sat down on the edge of a very clean beflowered chair in despair about the other, when there came voices in the hall, and Madeline tapped ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... as it now stands, if it has any sense, is this: What the inability of duty cannot perform, regardful generosity receives as an act of ability, though not of merit. The contrary is rather true: What dutifulness tries to perform without ability, regardful generosity receives as having the merit, though not the power, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... on the Throne held learning and propriety in high esteem, His Majesty called together and singled out talent and ability, upon which he deigned to display exceptional grace and favour. Besides the number called forth from private life and chosen as Imperial secondary wives, the daughters of families of hereditary official status and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... hunters—and the old bridge over which Maggie bore her astonished master when all hell was in pursuit, are first-rate objects of inspection and inquiry in the "Land of Burns." "In the inimitable tale of Tam o' Shanter," says Scott "Burns has left us sufficient evidence of his ability to combine the ludicrous with the awful, and even the horrible. No poet, with the exception of Shakspeare, ever possessed the power of exciting the most varied and discordant emotions with such ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... extent of their freedom, are responsible for the depravation and enfeeblement of morals and religion. This is the seal of the absolute and sublime destiny of man—that he knows what is good and what is evil; that his destiny is his very ability to will either good or evil—in one word, that he is the subject of moral imputation, imputation not only of evil, but of good, and not only concerning this or that particular matter, and all that happens ab extra, but also the good and evil attaching to his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... was because Pon had known the Scarecrow such a short time that he lacked confidence in the straw man's wisdom. It was easy to say: "We will conquer King Krewl," but when Pon drew near to the great castle he began to doubt the ability of a straw-stuffed man, a girl, a grasshopper and a frozen-hearted Princess to do it. As for himself, he had never thought of defying the ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... he lacked himself. I am telling you a great deal. It is difficult for my husband to go among men in that way—in the way he did. And yet he firmly believes that the Kingdom of God can only be brought to men by the ministers of God going among them and being of them. He envied Mr. Copple his ability to do that, to know his people as one of them, to take part in their—their sports and all that. You don't know how he envied him and admired him. And his admiration was my admiration. He brought ...
— Different Girls • Various
... published a historical work on the Reign of Louis XVI. The writer, an old man almost sinking into the grave, enjoys the advantage of having himself witnessed and even shared in a part of the events he describes. He was intimate with Malasherbes, and personally devoted to the unfortunate Louis. Of his ability as a writer, a former work on the Reign of Louis XV. furnished proofs which are repeated in the present volume. Of course he does full justice to the amiable personal qualities of Marie Antoinette and her husband, without doing injustice ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... with the charged guns, and he had led them into a long gallery with targets, where the lady astounded the man by her ability and knowledge of what a gun ought ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... there are two kinds of reporters. One is the kind with a nose for news and without any particular ability to write. The other is the kind that can write without being able to get the news for themselves. When you get the two in one, a man who can write and get the news himself, you've got a star, but they ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... 'If, indeed, ye have not the ability to bear half of my might, then, endued with half of your united energy, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... myself never a whit the better. Indeed, I was so much exhausted by these evacuations, and my constitution so much impaired by fatigue and perturbation of mind, that I had no other hope of recovering but that of reaching England, and putting myself under the direction of a physician on whose ability ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... answer to the riddle of the soul; so the real and solid men and women of the Spirit—eating, drinking, working, suffering, loving, each in the circumstances of their own time—are the earnests of our own latent destiny and powers, the ability of the Christian to "grow taller in Christ."[42] These powers—that ability—are factually present in the race, and are totally independent of the specific religious system which may best awaken, nourish, and ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... woman?" Cosmopolitan as the Frenchman was, the independence and ability for doing of the Yankee women were a perpetual wonder to ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... pupils should draw the plan upon paper while the teacher draws it upon the blackboard. Infinite care should be exercised to invest every line with its full meaning. Upon the proper interpretation of this first plan will depend much of the pupil's future ability to correctly read a map as the representation of ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... conjugial can only exist with one wife, consequently neither can friendship, confidence, ability truly conjugial, and such a conjunction of minds that two may be one flesh, n. 333, 334. Thus celestial blessedness, spiritual satisfactions, and natural delights, which from the beginning were provided for those who are in ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... that was all. He had a talent for being lucky. But nobody would ever believe that. A record like his was spectacular, even in the annals of the FBI, and Burris himself believed that the record showed some kind of superior ability. ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... this because of his peculiar type of mind and character. That he was unusual, no one will deny; that he was the originator of many of China's greatest reform measures, is equally true; but that he lacked the power to execute what he conceived, and the ability to select great statesmen to assist him, seems to have ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... as personal beauty; and with both, Dexter was charmed even to fascination. Superficial, vain of his person, and self-satisfied from his position, he had not been much troubled by doubts touching his ability to secure the hand of Miss Loring, and by his very boldness and ardor, won his suit ere she had sufficient warning of his purpose to throw a mail-clad ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... and they call him pet names. However, from the day he got down out of the saddle, in an emergency, and consented to act in the capacity of "Ma,"—which was a joke,—he was in continual demand as cook, with increasing popularity. Though he still claimed the ability to ride and rope and hog-tie with the best of them, he was thenceforth a cook with all the cook's perquisites and autocratic say-so. There is nowhere, we might observe, so deep an indication of the true power of Woman as this respect that is paid to her position, even when ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... her surprise Veronica had shown an irresistible desire to learn also, and had insisted upon being properly taught by the fencing-master. The young girl had soon shown that she had far more natural ability and aptitude for the skilled exercise than Bianca had possessed when she had first begun. Her lean young figure, long arms, and unusual quickness gave her every advantage with a foil, and her extraordinary tenacity ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... recommendation to such as may care to understand one of the most striking and dramatic episodes of modern history, and to gain an acquaintance with events which throw great illustration on the present condition and hopes of Italy. In this respect, as well as in the ability with which it is written, it may fairly be classed with the novels of Ruffini,—"Lorenzo Benoni" and "Doctor Antonio." To those who have read these two books it need not be said that this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... prime minister was a member of a great house which had become illustrious by its profession of Protestant principles, and even by its sufferings in a cause which England had once looked on as sacred. The prime minister, a man of distinguished ability, not devoid even of genius, was also a wily politician, and of almost unrivalled experience in the management of political parties. The ministry was weak and nearly worn out, and its chief, influenced partly by noble and historical sentiments, partly by a conviction that he had a fine occasion ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... the principal of the Academy Squadron, was in the main cabin, though he had been fully informed in regard to the events which had transpired on deck. The young commander despaired of his own ability to extort an explanation from the waif, and he concluded to refer the matter to ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... remarked to me that a large number of ladies who hunt, fail in ability to make their horses gallop, which is a pace never taught by riding masters. The gallop is not only necessary to acquire, especially by a lady who intends to hunt, but it improves the strength of seat more than any other gait. Besides, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... a delicious sense of humour, and her way of describing people and things is most refreshing. With her sympathy, her realism, her wit and ability, it would seem that Miss Benson's possibilities ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... inevitable that I must sooner or later come to the front. So when the captain informed me that he should appoint me Corporal, I told him that I thanked him, and through him, the Nation, and would try and perform the duties of the exacting and important position to the best of my ability, and hoped that I might not do anything that would bring discredit upon our distracted country. He said that would be all right, that he had no doubt the country would pull through. That evening at dress parade the appointment was read, and I felt elated. I thought it singular ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... make the king the sovereign not merely of one race or class, but of all. During the next few years the executive departments of the Government and the judiciary were organized by a group of men of remarkably high character and ability. ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... that is a great and a heavenly consideration, that longing for ability to do good," said he—and, as he said so, I could not help remarking a certain derisive exultation of expression which I could not comprehend; and indeed I have noted this very often in my illustrious friend, and sometimes mentioned it civilly ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... they are those of our common nature; intractability, impetuosity, lofty pride, superstition, even bigotry, an impatience of wrongs, furious and implacable—all these, the faults of Maria Theresa, may be forgiven, may at least be understood. But Frederick had no merits save courage and ability; these, great as they are, cannot reconcile us to a character with which we can have no sympathy—of which the beginning, the middle, and the end, the foundation and the essence, were entire, unceasing, inextinguishable, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... shrink from any. 'Tis not that I do not wish you to risk your life in war,—I am a daughter of my race, and for centuries they have been soldiers, and what God sends soldiers upon the field, that I can abide,—but that you should go now, with all your prospects, your ability, the opportunity presented you, and engage yourself in this fatal cause, in this unholy attack upon the king's majesty, connect yourself with this beggarly rabble who have been whipped and beaten every time they have come in contact with the royal ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... and good-natured when not angered, and had quite sense and ability enough to have been a very good king, if he had not been lazy, selfish, and full of vices. He actually set out to conquer France, and then let himself be persuaded over and paid off by the cunning King of France, and went home again, a laughing-stock to everybody. ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... simply abstaining from food throughout the dinner; though the lady of the house might think this impolite. Menu-betting is in any case an agreeable pastime for both sexes. It promotes digestion; and any woman of moderate ability may make money ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... intimately interconnected [Footnote: Roger Bacon, as we saw, had a glimpse of this principle.]; not forming a number of isolated domains, as hitherto, but constituting a system in which the advance of one will contribute to the advance of the others. He exposed with masterly ability the reciprocal relations of physics and mathematics. No man of his day had a more comprehensive view of all the sciences, though he made no original contributions to any. His curiosity was universal, and as Secretary of the Academy ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Mr. Faucitt, the old dear, would say all sorts of delightful things about her, and she had mistrusted her ability to make a fitting reply. And it was imperative that a fitting reply should proceed from someone. She knew Mr. Faucitt so well. He looked on these occasions rather in the light of scenes from some play; and, sustaining his own part in them with such polished ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... choice: whereas the young women who, amongst aristocratic nations, furtively elope from the authority of their parents to throw themselves of their own accord into the arms of men whom they have had neither time to know, nor ability to judge of, are totally without those securities. It is not surprising that they make a bad use of their freedom of action the first time they avail themselves of it; nor that they fall into such cruel mistakes, when, not having received a democratic education, they choose ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... another matter. Attendance at school and the continuous reading of romance were partly responsible for that; physical development clinched the affair, I was in all respects mature at thirteen, though my courage (to use the word in Chaucer's sense) was not equal to my ability. I had more than usual diffidence against me, more than usual reserve; and self-consciousness, from which I have only lately escaped, grew upon me hand ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... matter; but shortly after he led his bride into the plains of Kentucky, under the pretence of paying certain customary visits to sundry members of the family of Hover. While there, he took occasion to have the marriage properly solemnised, by a justice of the peace of his acquaintance, in whose ability to forge the nuptial chain he had much more faith than in that of all the gownsmen within the pale of Rome. Ellen, who appeared conscious that some extraordinary preventives might prove necessary ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... no simplicity in his character. He was as thoroughly imbued with worldly subtlety and cunning as if he had lived amid the grille of a city all his life; and Mr. Merrick was by no means sure of his own ability to unmask the man and force him ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Allan Pinkerton were judgment as to facts, knowledge of men, the ability to concentrate his faculties on one subject, and the persistent power of will. A mysterious problem of crime, against which his life was devoted, presented to his thought, was solved almost in an instant, and seemingly by his intuitions. With half-closed ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... appears in "We and the World," where Dennis, the rollicking Irish hero, unintentionally raises himself in the estimation of his sober-minded Scotch companion Alister, by betraying that he "can speak with other tongues," from his ability to converse with a squaw in French on the subject of the bunch of Arums he had gathered, and ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... opinion, derived from much experience; but I put it before my readers with the utmost diffidence and with profound modesty, knowing that it may possibly jar with their feelings of confidence in their own ability to know and judge as to what is best and fittest in reference to their own affairs. But, to return from this digression, for which I ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... first word was beyond Abel's powers, though he might possibly have satisfied George's curiosity on one essential point, by deciphering a name or two farther on. But the clever George concluded that he had boasted beyond his ability, so he put the letter away. Abel tried hard at the one word which George exhibited, and gazed silently at it for some time with a puzzled face. "Spell it, mun, spell it!" cried the miller's man, impatiently. It was a process which he had seen to succeed, when a long word had puzzled ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... statesmanship which require close and arduous study for their solution. The wonder is in these conditions that they do their work so well, and maintain undiminished the reputation of English public men for integrity and ability. ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... for the diggings by the middle of April. This party, in which were already included two women, Dora resolved to join. Once let her reach that indefinite region denominated "the mines," and she felt the most unquestioning faith in her ability to find ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... serious robberies, as we may rightly term them, are committed in comparatively rapid succession, and our police and detective force, in spite of their vaunted ability, prove themselves unable to effect a single arrest, what, we have a right to ask, is amiss with our police, or with ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... Living a secluded life in her palace of Malines, and taking no part in the festivities so dear to the heart of the people, she governed the Netherlands without sympathy, but with enough wisdom for her ability to be recognized, on several occasions, both by the ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... men; rather was it the mistaken idea of drawing attention to it, as something better and apart. By this very means there was often a serious and hurtful comparison, since many women with undoubted ability would not thus place their exhibits. It implied that in the special group, where exhibit was made, woman's mind differed from that of man's to the extent that there was also ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... and cobwebs you swept and mopped out or how much old furniture you polished until it reflected your face, it was all perfectly futile unless the bed-sunning ceremony had been first observed? Just how were the ability to speak French in the most exclusive circles of Parisian society and a cultivated knowledge of every picture-gallery in the world going to keep me from making a blunder that would put me down in Mrs. Pennie Addcock's mind ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... possibly men who would have spurned the enchantress. But an array of figures and ability to enumerate would not be sorely taxed in finding the number. I was among those at that period who saw the inutility of depending on physical force to extract justice and lawful methods from an unwilling constituency; that the reaction from a forced compulsion ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... spent five years ranching in the West and traveling abroad. Upon his father's death he had returned to Chicago and, to the astonishment of all his friends, had taken up the business—without any demonstration of enthusiasm, but with quiet perseverance, marked ability, and amazing industry. Why or how a self-sufficient, rather ascetic man of thirty, indifferent in manner, wholly negative in all other personal relations, should have doggedly wooed and finally married Flavia Malcolm was a problem that had vexed older ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... lectures, by Henry James, George W. Curtis, Parke Godwin, and Mr. Huntington, was delivered before the artists of New-York, at the hall of the Academy of Fine Arts, in January and February. The ability displayed in the lectures, and the interest they excited, will induce measures for another course of the same kind ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... must needs have had a visit from some fairy godmother, the touch of whose enchanted wand left him with a new gift. This was a wonderfully developed power of analysis which he found pleasure in exercising in every possible way. To quote his own words, "As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as bring his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... contract to compel the man and woman at all times to own and acknowledge each other; obliging the man to abstain from all other women, to engage in no other contract while these subsist; and on all occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly for them and their children; and to oblige the women to the same, on like conditions, mutatis ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... playing the part of Eve in flounced blue muslin, to an Adam in a flannel suit, in a particularly well-mown Garden of Eden. She could therefore be happy in her mind concerning those who were left behind, and she had never yet doubted her own ability to take care of herself. She smoothed the wrinkles on her long suede gloves, flicked the dust off the ridiculous points of her "high shoes," and sighed impatiently. She and her baggage were safely aboard. Why couldn't that old engine ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... have the anniversaries of our victories celebrated, nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and prayer; but I would like to see truthful history written. Such history will do full credit to the courage, endurance and soldierly ability of the American citizen, no matter what section of the country he hailed from, or in what ranks he fought. The justice of the cause which in the end prevailed, will, I doubt not, come to be acknowledged by every citizen of the land, in ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... bottle, and left the speeches to others, proposed that instead of mayor, which after all was no great affair of an office, he immediately set on foot a project for making the major President of the United States. The major, he said, had surely evinced ability enough. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Providence for so fortunate an escape. Had Diaway but entered the scrub not two yards from where I was released, I could not have existed more than a minute. The following day Mr. Tietkens was getting everything ready to go with me to the south-west ridges, though I had great doubts of my ability to ride, when we became aware of the presence of a whole host of natives immediately below the camp. All the morning the little dog had been strangely perturbed, and we knew by the natives' fires that they were in our ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... the second French Revolution, which overthrew the ascendency of the Duke's policy in Europe, and had no small influence in overthrowing the ascendency of his party in England. It appears that the Duke was as much impressed with the "honesty" of Talleyrand, as he was with the "ability" of Polignac. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... champion, nor a great cause one whom it may render great. Failure is in itself no sign of lack of spirit and ability, and when a vast reform is the product of a mean personality, the individual becomes glorified by identification with his work. From this point of view it mattered little who undertook the task of the economic regeneration of the Roman world. Any senator of ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... Magazine,' and I was well pleased to make his acquaintance, which rapidly grew into intimate friendship, as it could not fail to do with a man of a nature so manly and genial, and so full of spontaneous humour, as well as of marked literary ability. His fancy had been caught by some of the things I had written in this and other papers under the name of Bon Gaultier, and when I proposed to go on with articles in a similar vein, he fell readily into the plan and agreed to assist in it. Thus a kind of Beaumont and Fletcher ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... morally, even in pacific employments, and this also supplies vacancies. Besides, in default of deaths, wounds and violent elimination, there is another elimination, not less efficacious, operating in this direction, and for a long time, in favor of men of ability, preparing places for them and accelerating their advancement. Napoleon accepts none but competent candidates; now, in 1800, there is a dearth of acceptable candidates for places in the civil service and not, as in 1789, or at the present time, a superabundance and even too great a crowd.—In ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... But of your creature comforts. My house is open to your chief enemy. It must be so. You must be hidden—not concealed, but disguised. You know my weakness for people of charm and people of ability. My house is full of them. The master of this place is indulgent; he permits me to add to my collection whatever pleases me in the way of society. Therefore, you are come as a student of this wonderful drama to be enacted in Jerusalem presently. ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... unfortunate dicta of men of eminent ability this seems one of the most unhappy, when we think of what the application of the methods and the data of physics and chemistry has done towards bringing physiology into its present state. It is not too much to say that one-half of a modern text-book of physiology ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... expired before the boy returned from the strange land, a full-grown, noble youth. When Veile had her son with her again a smile played about her mouth, and for a moment it seemed as if her former beauty had enjoyed a second spring. The extraordinary ability of her son already made him famous. Wheresoever he went people were delighted with his beauty, and admired the modesty of his ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... great many ejaculatory passages, such as 'Well, did I ever!'—and 'Lor, Emily, dear!' ma takes up the subject, and gravely states, that she must say she does not think Mr. Fairfax by any means a horror, but rather takes him to be a young man of very great ability; 'and I am quite sure,' adds the worthy lady, 'he always means a great ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... between Louisville and Chicago. [Footnote: Id., pp. 717, 719.] A small body of militia had assembled here, and made a creditable stand, but were outflanked and forced to retreat after inflicting on him a score of casualties. The evidences Morgan here saw of the ability of the Northern States to overwhelm him by the militia, satisfied him that further progress inland was not desirable, and turning at right angles to the road he had followed, he made for Madison on the Ohio. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... necessary duty there, I returned and was again put in charge of the orderly, who carried me to the hospital. There I was subjected to a rigid physical examination, which I "stood" with the greatest ease. I was given a certificate of ability by the surgeon, and by him sent again to the adjutant, who in turn sent me to the treasurer. From him I returned ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... complexions, commandeered some of the buttermilk which was sent daily from the farm, and dabbed it plentifully over their faces before retiring to bed, following the application with massage to the best of their ability. They were emulated in these toilet rites by Agatha James, Mary Payne and Olave Parry, who also studied the beauty hints columns, and liked to try experiments. One day Agatha found an entirely new suggestion in a copy of "The Ladies' ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... pleasant; but to be command- ed to do what was disagreeable by her mistress, BECAUSE it was disagreeable, was trying. Quickly looking about, she took the plate, called Fido to wash it, which he did to the best of his ability; then, wiping her knife and fork on the cloth, she proceeded to ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... and in a moment I held her in my arms, smiling, ardent, submissive to my desires, and only entreating me to spare her. I did my best, and though she helped me to the best of her ability, the first assault was a labour of Hercules. The others were pleasanter, for it is only the first step that is painful, and when the field had been stained with the blood of three successive battles, we abandoned ourselves to repose. At five o'clock in the morning Clairmont ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... evident to him than ever that something must be done, and he applied himself to his task of reform to the best of his ability. But he exhausted his repertory of sonorous phrases in vain. His grave exhortations only called forth fresh tears, and a new element of resentment; and, to crown all, his visit terminated with a discouragement of which ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... country. But before I begin my relation, I shall say something of the island Hispaniola, which lies towards the western part of America; as also give my reader a brief description thereof, according to my slender ability and experience. ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... his license to carry masses of metal under rocket power through the space lanes and into planetary atmospheres. He was sure he could manage the ship if its mechanism were in good order, though he was uncertain of his ability to make ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... man had bought, with all the money he had in the world, Consolidated Tractions. He had bought it solely because of his admiration for your ability, his faith in your name. It was inconceivable to him that a man of your standing, a public benefactor, a supporter of church and charities, would permit your name to be connected with any enterprise that was not sound and just. Thousands like Garvin ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in, or by how clownish a messenger, so the money is good. All that we want to be pleased with flattery, is to believe that the man is sincere who gives it us. It is by this one accident that absurd creatures often outrun the most skilful in this art. Their want of ability is here an advantage, and their bluntness, as it is the seeming effect of sincerity, is the best cover ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... to measure the different degrees of power of the human intellect, or to distinguish between them where the power of thought and reason exists," but the question to be determined is whether or not he possesses sufficient ability to understand in a reasonable manner the nature and effect of his acts, or the business he is transacting. "Although the mind of an individual may be to some extent impaired by age or disease, still, if he is capable of transacting his ordinary business, if he understands the nature ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... tending children a tedious task, and forsook it. At sixteen, she went to London, and became a lady's maid there. Her leisure time was spent in reading novels and plays, which inspired a love for the drama. She early developed a rare ability for pantomimic representation; and this became a favorite form of entertainment in drawing-rooms and studios. Her duties as a domestic agreed not with the drama, so her next position was as barmaid in a tavern much frequented by actors and artists. She formed ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... personally every officer of the first rank in the United States Army. His judgment of these men and their ability as commanders was marvelous in its accuracy. His genius as an army administrator undoubtedly gave to the South her first advantage in ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... natural either by his character or by his position. The advantages a man draws from that peculiar structure of his brain which renders him, for instance, a ready speaker or an ingenious mathematician, are by common consent regarded as legitimate advantages. The public will use and reward such ability without jealousy and with positive delight. In an unsophisticated age the same feeling prevails in regard to those advantages which a man may draw from more external circumstances. If a traveller, having been shipwrecked in some expedition, should learn the secrets ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Court-House, with large, commodious and well-furnished jury-rooms, so arranged that a comfortable privacy was secured to the jury-women. I did my best to have the same improvement adopted here, but, alas! I have not the ability of Selina Whiston in such matters, and there is nothing to this day but the one vile, miserable room, properly furnished in ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... over her eyes. If she had any wrongs, if she had suffered any pain, the fear that obsessed her obliterated all. In spite of her disillusionment, in spite of her newly acquired ability to see him as he was, enough love remained to scatter, when summoned, her pride ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... intelligence. He had been an ardent reader from his childhood up, and had taken of late years the most intense interest in politics and held very positive opinions, which he defended in conversation with great earnestness and ability. ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... wrong done to our common nature, and affects great questions, relating to the final triumph of the principles of justice and humanity. The race is one great brotherhood, and every man is under obligation, as far as he has the ability, to defend those principles which will permanently promote the welfare of the human family. * * * * The questions of right and wrong know no geographical limits; are bounded by no conventional lines; are circumscribed by the windings of no river or stream, and ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... stock in trade was small, her principal virtues being devotion to children and ability to gain their love, and a power of evolving a schoolroom order so natural, cheery, serene, and peaceful that it gave the beholder a certain sense of being in a district heaven. She was poor in arithmetic and weak in geometry, but if you gave her a rose, a bit of ribbon, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to reproduce here the portrait given of him by one of his contemporaries who observed him closely and knew him well. "Never a man of his time," says William Gruet, "loved justice more than he, or took more pains to do it according to his ability. Never was prince more humble, more charitable, more compassionate, more liberal, less avaricious, or more open-handed in a good fashion and without prodigality. He was a proper man, chaste and brave as prince can be; and there was none of his time of better conduct than lie in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Dresden, while the chapters on Carriage and Wagon Building, Painting, Varnishing are by Charles F. Adams, one of the most successful builders in Wisconsin. The language employed is so simple that any young man of average ability can, in a short time become proficient in all of these useful and profitable occupations. Each chapter is fully illustrated, there being more than ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... exception of the Catholic—you find that he, too, is leaving his heterodoxy to the clergy and the women. A few years ago it was almost impossible to gain entrance to a metropolitan church in the United States, where the preacher happened to be a man of ability or fame. Try it to-day! Though church music has been improved almost to the excellence of oratorios or grand opera, unless it be a festal service like Easter or Christmas, the pews are only sparsely filled. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say this ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... be war?" A young man said to the girl sitting in the seat next to him. "Those Martians won't dare fight, not with our weapons and ability to produce. We could take care of Mars in a ...
— The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick
... somewhat of his own way of thinking, and he was a naturally large-minded man who could appreciate skill higher than his own without jealousy. Indeed, he and his master held a private consultation on the mode of establishing a connection with Michael and profiting by his ability. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... siding altogether with the party of disorder, who were resolved to maintain affairs as they were in the "good old times," knowing that when the reign of law and order should be established their day and their power and ability to aggrandize and enrich themselves at the expense of the aborigines and the common people would come to an end. There is no doubt that Mr. BROOKE himself considered it would be for the good of the country that MUDA HASSIM ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... anticipate any pleasure or profit from continuing the acquaintance, there was yet a certain attraction in his simplicity of manner and in his naive faith in the value of my influence on his fortunes. Before we parted he expressed again his ability to get me something to do, but I did not credit his statement enough to correct the impression that I was in need of employment. At his earnest solicitation I gave him my address, concealing, as well as I could, my reluctance to encourage ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... usually received comrades coming over here. More useful than important. Man of no ideas. Years ago he used to speak at meetings—in France, I believe. Not very well, though. He was trusted by such men as Latorre, Moser and all that old lot. The only talent he showed really was his ability to elude the attentions of the police somehow. Here, for instance, he did not seem to be looked after very closely. He was regularly married, you know. I suppose it's with her money that he started that shop. Seemed to make ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... it mattered nothing to him that his previous preparations were to a great extent rendered useless by this news that had come with such paralyzing effect. In the sweeping consciousness of his own ability, he found added joy in the freedom it opened up. He ceased to consider that by fate he was a Conservative, bound by traditional conventionalities: in that great moment he knew himself sufficiently a man to exercise whatever individuality instinct prompted. He forgot ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... have sent for me. With a family like his almost anything might happen. Perhaps Aunt Elizabeth—I never could feel any confidence in a red-haired female who habitually dressed in pink. Or perhaps Charles Edward—if that young man's artistic ability had been equal to his sense of it there would have been less danger in taking him into the factory. Or probably Maria, with her great head for business—oh, Maria, I grant you, is like what the French critic said of the prophet Habakkuk, "capable ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... finery as I never wish to see again; all of which, however, became him marvellously, though I think he had looked well in anything. I hope I may be forgiven the perjury I did that day. I wondered greatly that such a foible should crop out in a man of otherwise sound sense and plain ability. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... object of this work is not the development of expert gymnasts, but the development of physically sound men by means of a system in which the chances of bodily injury are reduced to a minimum. When individuals show a special aptitude for gymnastics they may be encouraged, within limits, to improve this ability, but never at ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... he himself goes, and within his own palace, O tiger among men! He should employ as spies men looking like idiots or like those that are blind and deaf. Those should all be persons who have been thoroughly examined (in respect of their ability), who are possessed of wisdom, and who are able to endure hunger and thirst. With proper attention, the king should set his spies upon all his counsellors and friends and sons, in his city and the provinces, and in dominions of the chiefs under him. His spies should be so employed that they may ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... time done much to advance his Parliamentary position. But during the preceding session he had been more regular in his attendance at the House, and had made a considerable impression there—as a man of eccentric, but possibly great ability. On the whole, he had been a loyal supporter of Ferrier's; but in two or three recent speeches there had been signs of ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... self-control to get through a trying day in a busy office without striking sparks somewhere. If there is a secret of success, and some of the advertisements seem trying to persuade us that it is all secret, it is the ability to work efficiently and pleasantly with other people. The business man never works alone. He is caught in the clutches of civilization and there is no escape. He is like a man climbing a mountain tied to a lot of other men climbing the same mountain. What each one does affects ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... is admirable, worthy of the brain that conceived it. What a wonderful man he is, considering his age? Such a devout and fervent spirit, and withal such a marvel of executive ability. Ah! happy the woman who can command his wise guardianship, and renew her aspirations after holiness, in his spiritual society. I honor, even more ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... in California. Moreover, there never was a more likable youth. His illness interested all the matrons and maids of the Presidio in his fate; when he recovered, his good dancing and unselfishness gave him a permanent place in the regard of the women, while his entire absence of beauty, and his ability to hold his own in the mess room, established ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Stevens students who crowded the Stuffer House had duly impressed the present proprietor with their ability to overcome every obstacle in life's path with special machinery to ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... like that," said Mr. Heard. "They give you the truth to the best of their ability. It is rather dry reading sometimes. I would like to borrow your Perrelli for a day or two, if you ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... injustice to Captain Maconochie if we were to judge of him only by the instances we have given of his powers of general reasoning. The perusal of his pamphlets has left in our mind a strong impression of the manly character and practical ability of their writer. If his abstract reasonings are sometimes perverse, we are convinced that his practical good sense is such, that in the management of any enterprise, he would in reality so order his proceedings, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... but often from causes wholly unknown to us. Audubon has given several remarkable cases of differences in the nests of the same species in the northern and southern United States. Why, it has been asked, if instinct be variable, has it not granted to the bee "the ability to use some other material when wax was deficient?" But what other natural material could bees use? They will work, as I have seen, with wax hardened with vermilion or softened with lard. Andrew Knight ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... of debauchery, also became the source of a severe code of morals. The Semitic tribes were haunted with the fear of the tabu. A multitude of things were either impure or sacred because, in the original confusion, those two notions {121} had not been clearly differentiated. Man's ability to use the products of nature to satisfy his needs, was thus limited by a number of prohibitions, restrictions and conditions. He who touched a forbidden object was soiled and corrupted, his fellows did not associate with him and he could no longer participate ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... and efficient, but worldly, and vindictive toward those who opposed him in any way. To keep his good will needed much tact. He was not long in deciding that the great navigator had neither tact nor business ability; so he snubbed him accordingly, and made his path a ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... after another that he set me to do. On the square, I had no head for business. I made a mess of everything. The governor got sore. He kept ramming the harpoon into me till I just couldn't stand it. What little ability I possessed deserted me when I got my back up, and there you are. Dad and I had a rather uncomfortable half hour. When I quit—when I told him straight out that I was going West to fare for myself, why, it wouldn't have been so tough if he hadn't laughed at me. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... modesty, and craftily to try to make others believe in greater virtues than are imputed to us. On my part I am content not to be considered better-looking than I am, nor of a better temper than I describe, nor more witty and clever than I am. Once more, I have ability, but a mind spoilt by melancholy, for though I know my own language tolerably well, and have a good memory, a mode of thought not particularly confused, I yet have so great a mixture of discontent that I often say what I have ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... his hands in his pockets, towards the house, while the admiral was half choked with rage, and could only glare after him, without the ability to say a word. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... History of the Reformation; Michelet's Life of Luther; Audin's Life of Luther, a Catholic work, written with great spirit, but not much liberality; Stebbing's History of the Reformation; a Life of Luther, by Rev. Dr. Sears, a new work, written with great correctness and ability; Guizot's Lectures on Civilization; Plank's Essay on the Consequences of ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... the art itself, but from our desire for good health,—and as the skill of the pilot, who has the knowledge how to navigate a vessel well, is praised with reference to its utility, and not to his ability,—so wisdom, which should be considered the art of living, would not be sought after if it effected nothing; but at present it is sought after because it is, as it were, the efficient cause of pleasure, which is a legitimate object of desire and acquisition. And now you understand ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... the place of Attorney-General with a dignity and an ability which has been rarely if ever surpassed by any of the illustrious men who have filled that great office. The judges of the Supreme Court long after he had left Washington were accustomed to speak of the admirable manner in which he had ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... her almost all the eminent men of our epoch. All this was murmured in soft, low tones, so that he only to whom she spoke tasted the honey poured into his ear. Her grace of manner all the while was infinite; for though she had no talent for conversation, she had, in the highest degree, the ability which enables one to succeed in certain little combinations, and when she had determined that such or such a great man should become her habitue, the web she spun round him on all sides was composed of threads so imperceptibly fine and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... said Georgiana, pleading her cause to the best of her ability. 'The Duchess of Stevenage has dined in Grosvenor Square ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... animals greatly increase under the artificial conditions of domestication. Certain highly specialized breeds of cattle, as the Alderneys, are much more susceptible to tuberculosis than the less specialized. The high development of the variation which consists in a marked ability to produce milk fat is probably combined with other qualities, shown in diminished resistance to disease, and under natural conditions the variation would not have persisted. The introduction of a new disease into an isolated people has often been attended with ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... Brazil. Because this is a free land, because you are a republic, because you are a self-governing people, there is no limit to what each one of you may accomplish by the exercise of your own knowledge, determination, and ability. It is the free spirit that keeps open the door of that limitless expanse, and that will conquer the wilderness and make Brazil a refuge for the poor of other lands, and a country rich and teeming with people, ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... one. Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are never a stumbling-block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... best wishes, as a legacy to any intrepid redacteur who may wish to follow in our footsteps. For ourselves, we shall rigidly adhere to the rule with which we set out, and separate the wheat from the chaff, according to the best of our ability. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... of Ecclesiasticus: 'There is an inactive man that wanteth help, is very weak in ability, and full of poverty: yet the Eye of God hath looked upon him for good, and hath lifted him up from his low estate, and hath exalted his head: and many have wondered at him, and have glorified God. . . . Trust in God, and stay in thy place. For it is easy in the Eyes of God, on a ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... mustache for a moment, while Mr. Euston watched his face. "I don't know," he said at last in a doubtful tone. "I am afraid you are taking too much for granted—I don't mean as to my good will, but as to my ability to be of service, for I suppose you mean that I should help in ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... cutting down the prices of his rivals was only a taste of the unerring instinct for business that was later to make him as much feared as respected in the trade. By a single stroke he had shown his ability to play on the weakness as well as the needs of the public, coupled with a pitiless disregard for other interests than his own, which constitutes ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... who struck me as a man of great ability, a typical American merchant prince, was singularly frank with me about his domestic affairs as they concerned his son. I cannot recall his exact words, but the gist of what he said was that, until now, Mrs Ford had had sole charge of the boy's upbringing, and—Mr Ford was singularly ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... his meek pride was filled with much wonderment that such a being should have been hidden all the years in Etienne Provancher. Many men had called around to shake his hand and increase his wonderment as to his own ability. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... shipping,—ship-building, seafaring men, and the carrying trade. Independence had deprived Great Britain of the right she formerly had to manipulate the course of the export and import trade of the now United States. It remained to try whether there did not exist, nevertheless, the ability effectually to control it to the advantage of British navigation, as above defined. "Our remaining colonies on the Continent, and the West India Islands," it was argued, "with the favorable state of English manufactures, may still ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... indulged in merely for the exquisite pleasure of arousing Susan. He wasn't going to starve; nobody was going to starve in Dinwiddie on thirty dollars a month, and there was no doubt in the world of his ability to make that much by his reviewing. It was all simple enough. What he intended to do was to write the national drama and to ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... perhaps he can help us go ashore, and get a fine deer once in a while!" exclaimed Larry, who loved to enjoy the good things of life almost as much as he did to exploit his ability as a cook. "Yum! yum, a real venison steak, cooked on the spot where the animal was shot—what a ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... founded "The Greeley Tribune," which he edited with conspicuous ability, making it the leading country paper of that ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... business capability and self-possession. The care and finish of his dress and manner showed pronounced pride of rank—a kind of well-regulated ostentation. His family were descended from the best of the half-dozen petty gentry in the rude, early days of the colony of his origin. He had by his ability become engineer-in-chief under Montcalm. Yet from the point of view of the Versailles nobility—the standard he himself was most ambitious to apply—he was but an obscure colonel, and his title a questionable affair. He ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... the King kept his son as much at a distance as possible, chiefly on the Welsh marches, learning the art of war under Hotspur and Oldcastle; and when the father and son were brought together again, the bold, free bearing and extraordinary ability of the Prince filled the suspicious mind of the King with alarm and jealousy. To keep him down, give him no money, and let him gain no influence, was the narrow policy of the King; and Henry, chafing, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proceeded with merely a slight turn of her eyes in jeremiah's direction, 'from taking a responsible part in the business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr Flintwinch combines my interest with his own, and conducts it. It is not what it used to be; but some of our old friends (principally the writers of this letter) have the kindness not to forget us, and we retain the power of doing what they entrust ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... his pen. Had he one acquaintance who would not counsel him to see a doctor for writing in that style? How would the world go round, how could Society exist, without common-sense, practical ability, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the great work of his life—the founding and editing of the New York Tribune. He had very little money to start with, and even that little was borrowed. But he had courage, truth, honesty, a noble purpose, and rare ability and industry to supplement his small financial capital. He needed them all in the work he had undertaken, for he was handicapped not only by lack of means, but also by the opposition of some of the ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... known his business, he would have taken advantage of the tempestuous night, and launched his warriors at the camp. Confident as the officers of the expedition were, in the ability of their men to repulse any assault that might be made in the daylight, it was felt that such an attack would cause terrible loss, and possibly grave disaster, if delivered at night. The enemy might not be discovered until within a few yards of the camp. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... Chancellor of SSE, however, would not risk a tenth-piece of the company's money on such a bird-brained scheme. Himself a Gunther First, he believed implicitly that Firsts were in fact tops in Gunther ability; that these few self-styled "Operators" and "Prime Operators" were either charlatans or self-deluded crackpots. Since he could not feel that so-called "Operator Field," no such thing did or could exist. No Gunther starship ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... having ever learned that art which is necessary for every business: the art of thinking; and mistake the petulance, which could give inspiration to smart sarcasms on an obnoxious measure in a popular assembly, for the ability which is to balance the interest of kingdoms, and investigate the latent sources of national superiority. With the administration of such men the people can never be satisfied; for besides that their confidence is gained only by the view of superior talents, there ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie |
