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More "Genius" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... delight in Montaigne ...; before that, in Shakespeare; then in Plutarch; then in Plotinus; at one time in Bacon; afterwards in Goethe; even in Bettine; but now I turn the pages of either of them languidly, whilst I still cherish their genius.—EMERSON. ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... walks with a singular insouciance. It is not simply that he is brave. He is that, supremely so, and not least when he is very much afraid and will not show it and carries on with his job. But there is more in it than that. There is a kind of warlike genius in him which makes him do the right thing in the right way, so that he appeals to humour and comradeship as well as to gallantry. It was one of our sergeant-majors who before a battalion attack offered L5 to the ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... these moods can the Ordinary Reader sympathize! Again and again as the Ordinary Reader turns the pages he finds the great man under the thralldom of the same insect cares and annoyances which rule us all, until he realizes as perhaps never before that poet and peasant, genius and scribe, are indeed one in a common humanity, and sighs, with a lurking smile of satisfaction, "So nigh ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... York who deals with dead men, Who sits at a table, And straightway is able To talk with the spirits of those who have fled, man! And gentles and ladies Located in Hades, Through his miraculous mediation, Declare how they feel, And such things reveal As suits their genius for impartation. 'Tis not with any irreverent spirit I give the tale, or flout it, or jeer it; For many good folk Not subject to joke Declare for the fact that they both see and hear it. It comes from New York, though, And it might be hard work, though, To ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... insane. Even jails and houses of correction—the receptacles of felons and other offenders against the laws of God and man—had in many instances been transformed, by the more enlightened spirit of the age, into comfortable and healthful residences. The Genius of Architecture, as if she had made provision for all mankind, extended her sheltering care over the brute creation. Better stables were provided for cattle; better folds for sheep; and even the unclean beasts felt the improving hand of reform. But, in the mean while, the school-houses, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... of Morristown he led his small but gallant band, and through an eventful winter, by the high efforts of his genius, whose matchless force was measurable only by the growth of difficulties, he held in check formidable hostile legions, conducted by a chief experienced in the art of war, and famed for his valor on the ever-memorable heights ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... all she's done for me—after all this time—I'm only now beginning to get glimpses of it; but it's merely as we get glimpses of an infinite beyond, because we see the stars. She's a mystery to me, in the same way that genius is a mystery, or holiness. I didn't appreciate her because I hadn't the soul, and yet it's in seeing that I hadn't the soul that I begin to get it. That's curious, isn't it? She's like some heavenly spirit that's passed by me, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... been what is called a "self-made man," and had raised himself from the ranks of the soldiery through native genius backed by strength of will. His father is first noticed in the annals of the Isles of Shoals. The mansion now seen in Kittery Point was built, indeed, partly by this oldest Pepperell known to us, and partly by his more eminent son. The building ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... saw the Sphinx, now bestial, now divine, In change and re-change; he nor praised nor blamed, But drew her as he saw with fearless line. Did he good service? God must judge, not we. Manly he was, and generous and sincere; English in all, of genius blithely free: Who loves a Man may ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... Commandant and Madame de Groot. It might have been thought enough of torture for this virtuous and accomplished lady, but twenty-nine years of age and belonging to one of the eminent families of the country, to see her husband, for his genius and accomplishments the wonder of Europe, thus cut off in the flower of his age and doomed to a living grave. She was nevertheless to be subjected to the perpetual inquisition of the market-basket, which she was not ashamed with her maid to take to and from Gorcum, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and not objective crises common to all, who think. He made personal matters of them—a thing not to be endured. For instance, in dealing with Hume, he conceived that the scepticism which confronted him in the pages of that great genius, was Hume's scepticism, and was not the scepticism of human nature at large,—was not his own scepticism just as much as it was Hume's. His soul, so he thought, was free from the obnoxious flaw, merely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... been taught by the countess to look upon her husband as a man of genius; hence they felt sure that he had only to undertake a thing, and he was sure to succeed. Besides, Daniel hoped that such grave matters of business would keep the count from ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... to be uneasy because we are not all wise men. Whereas this opinion is strongly affixed to that uneasiness where mourning is concerned, which is the greatest of all grief. Therefore Aristotle, when he blames some ancient philosophers for imagining that by their genius they had brought philosophy to the highest perfection, says, they must be either extremely foolish or extremely vain; but that he himself could see that great improvements had been made therein in a few years, and that philosophy ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... vici!" he cried, rushing into Chubikoff's room, and falling into an armchair. "I swear to you on my honor, I begin to believe that I am a genius! Listen, devil take us all! It is funny, and it is sad. We have caught three already—isn't that so? Well, I have found the fourth, and a woman at that. You will never believe who it is! But listen. I went to Klausoff's village, and began to ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... entry into college life abundantly fulfilled the expectations held of him. The head of his college wrote to his great-aunt (the wife of the Under Secretary of State) "... he has something in him of what men of Old called prophecy and we term genius ...", old Dr. Biddlecup the Dean asked the boy to dinner, and afterwards assured his father that little Joseph was the image of William Pitt, whom he falsely pretended to have seen in childhood, and to whom the Duggletons were related through ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... "Vanna is a genius, if there ever was one ... she doesn't know her hands from her feet in practical affairs ... but she's wonderful ... all the boys," and Alice sighed with as much envy as her nature would allow—"all ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... and investigators in the world. Herbert Spencer would have been swamped in a family, and the same with George Eliot. If they had married each other, as Herbert says they might (had Georgie been better-looking), philosophical and imaginative genius would have been lost in getting the meals and bending posterity over the parental knee to make sin seem undesirable. I had always felt that Jim was cut out to get married, and I stood ready to help him through the entire catalogue of crime and conspiracy, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... since been raised some six feet, and now encloses a wider sweep of ground—alterations that may be classed among the minor revolutions effected by the genius of the thick-set, fair-haired youth of seventeen, who paused on that early September afternoon to wonder what all the fuss was about. The Ailesworth County Ground was not famous in those days; not then was ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... great deal about Indians.[105] Next came Mr. Morgan,[106] the man of path-breaking ideas, whose minute and profound acquaintance with Indian life was joined with a power of penetrating the hidden implications of facts so keen and so sure as to amount to genius. Mr. Morgan saw the nature of the delusion under which the Spaniards laboured; he saw that what they mistook for feudal castles owned by great lords, and inhabited by dependent retainers, were really huge communal houses, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... had not been built, to which my grandfather, Roger Sherman, answered: "The vote is the monument." I was led by the anecdote to do what I could to have the long-neglected duty performed. The statue and monument, by two French artists of great genius, now stands at one corner of Lafayette Square. The statue of Rochambeau has just been placed at another corner ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... is no more the organ for apprehending the love of Christ than the ear is the organ for perceiving light, or the heart the organ for learning mathematics. Blessed be God! the highest gifts are not bestowed upon the clever people, on the men of genius and the gifted ones, the cultivated and the refined, but they are open for all men; and when we say that love is the parent of knowledge, and that the condition of knowing the depths of Christ's heart is simple love which is the child of faith, we are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... know, only in a lesser degree. The presence or absence of case-endings in nouns and adjectives, their difference of gender, the richness of inflections in the verbs, the frequency of particles and conjunctions, — all these characteristics make one language differ from another entirely in genius and capacity of expression. Greek is probably the best of all languages in melody, richness, elasticity, and simplicity; so much so, that in spite of its complex inflections, when once a vocabulary is acquired, it is more easy and natural for a modern than his ancestral Latin itself. Latin is ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... have said that he was more a man of genius than of learning, I mean not to take from the one part of his character that which I willingly give to the other. The erudition of Mr. Johnson proved his genius; for he had not acquired it by long ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... gladly have woven therein, had he not been apprehensive that it was the offspring of a poisonous bulb. He cannot refrain from lamenting that in his literary researches he has too often found amongst the writings of those, most illustrious for their genius and imagination, the least of that which is calculated to meet the approbation of the Christian, or even of the mere Moralist; and in conclusion he will take the liberty of addressing to those who may feel within them the stirrings of ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... presumably of the Black Lands, and the nomad Scythians, of the Barren Steppes. His extravagant and fanciful pictures of those barbarians have long been studied by the curious; but light from an unexpected source has been thrown upon the subject, and Greek genius has rescued for us the type of humanity ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... and therefore unexplored region for some thousands of years, and it remained for an American to discover and describe this vast territorial acquisition, and to annex it to the domain of medicine, which, through its skill, could modify the influence of the evil genius that there presided and spare humanity much of the ills to which it had ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... indeed a wondrous story to narrate; and could we tell it adequately it would prove of boundless interest and of exquisite beauty. It leads to the contemplation of grand phenomena in nature and great achievements of human genius. ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... morning dawned and the happy consciousness filled my mind that for one day at least I was free from toil, my heart filled with gratitude to the Galilean carpenter, who, by his gracious deeds and genius, had so impressed the hearts of men that for his sake they had taken the seventh day of the Hebrew and bequeathed it as a day of rest to all the toiling generations of the sons of men. The Roman Empire, which overshadowed the world and held the nations in subjection, knew no day of rest, and to-day ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... since, propriety being regulated by CUSTOM, language is suited to the RECEIVED opinions, which are not always the truest. Hence it is impossible, even in the most rigid, philosophic reasonings, so far to alter the bent and genius of the tongue we speak, as never to give a handle for cavillers to pretend difficulties and inconsistencies. But, a fair and ingenuous reader will collect the sense from the scope and tenor and connexion of a discourse, making allowances ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... clever you are, Mather—quite a shining genius, one of the sort who can see through a stone wall. If you say it's gammon, of course ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... think me so much my own enemy?-if my good genius has inspired the man with a desire of prolonging my happiness, can you expect that I ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... that little job up at Detroit," the Irishman went on, dropping his voice a little. "I tell you he's a genius at handling a bomb, is Ed. Blew that old factory into brick-ends, he did. He's in the saloon upstairs—got his girl with him. They've been doing a round of ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... essay "Of Genius," which appeared in the Occasional Paper of 1719, still considers "genius" largely a matter of aptitude or talent, and applies the term to the "mechanick" as well as the fine arts. The work is, in fact, essentially a pamphlet on education. The author's main concern is ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... artistic? Is it a matter limited only by the composer's power of expressing what lies in his subjective or objective consciousness? Or is it limited by any limitations of the composer? Can a tune literally represent a stonewall with vines on it or with nothing on it, though it (the tune) be made by a genius whose power of objective contemplation is in the highest state of development? Can it be done by anything short of an act of mesmerism on the part of the composer or an act of kindness on the part of the listener? ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... did not boast idly of his cuisine. He possessed, too, the genius of the successful boniface for knowing what would please his guests. He sensed our lack of interest in the wines of the Midi, and, helped by the Artist's checked knickers and slender cane, set forth a bottle ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... the four men named—Curtiss, Voisin, Bleriot and Farman—are going ahead regardless of consequences, and the inventive genius of each is so strong that it is reasonable to expect some remarkable ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... Denmark's vassal, Jaromir of Rugen. He was now but fifty-seven, but his strenuous life had aged him, and he was content to resign the command of fleets and armies to younger men, like Duke Valdemar, afterwards Valdemar II., and to confine himself to the administration of the empire which his genius had created. In this sphere Absalon proved himself equally great. The aim of his policy was to free Denmark from the German yoke. It was contrary to his advice and warnings that Valdemar I. rendered fealty to the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... business took me to Amsterdam; a brilliant young medical genius who was drinking himself prematurely into his grave had made some wonderful discoveries relating to the brain and psychology generally, so I decided to learn what I could before it was too late. I found the young doctor to be an exceedingly good fellow, only too ready ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... centre of the earth. The tip of the radicle is a kind of brain to the whole growing part of the radicle! (757/5. We are indebted to Mr. Archer-Hind for the translation of the following passage from Plato ("Timaeus," 90A): "The reason is every man's guardian genius (daimon), and has its habitation in our brain; it is this that raises man (who is a plant, not of earth but of heaven) to an erect posture, suspending the head and root of us from the heavens, which are the birthplace of our soul, and keeping all the body upright." On ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... own part of the strength of their affection and esteem, which his statement evinced, formed, I thought, a very pleasing trait, and one that harmonized well with the finely-toned unobtrusiveness and unconscious elegance which characterized the genius of his deceased brother. A little beyond the Free Church manse the road ascends between stone walls, abounding in fragments of ichthyolites, weathered blue by exposure to the sun and wind; and the top of the eminence forms the water-shed in this part of the Mainland, and ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... events of the Doctor's life are well known; and it is interesting and not uninstructive to contemplate this master-spirit struggling with the vicissitudes of fortune, and depending frequently for his next meal, on the resources of his genius, till his merit became known. View him and his cotemporary, Garrick, travelling to London together, mere adventurers, with many plans in their heads, and very little money in their pockets; we see them both rising to the pinnacle of fame; one the majestic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... and she was impatiently waiting for Harry, who was coming home for a few days before going abroad to finish his studies at Oxford. The house was a new, impeccably modern dwelling, produced by a triumph of the utilitarian genius of the first decade of the twentieth century, and Oliver had bought it at a prodigious price a few years after his dramatic success had lifted him from poverty into comfort. The girls, charmed to have made the momentous passage into Sycamore Street, were delighted ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... and subjection of New Spain synchronised curiously with the profound crisis in, and the conquest and domination of, Old Spain by its own king, a governing genius and leader of men almost as great as was the obscure Estramaduran squireling who was adding to the newly unified crown of Spain that which was to be its richest jewel in the West. When Cortes penned his first letter to the future Emperor and his mad mother in July, 1519, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... of having done our neighbour's share as well as our own. It will be enough for us to watch when, bewildered by the lusty life and growth and the maze of new-made streets of the future city, the laggard stands debating with that other self, that genius that has kept him what he is. Fancy his striking attitude, thumbs in arm-pits and eyes rolling up to some tall spire, crying out to his other self, 'Thou canst not say I helped do this! Shake not thy towseled locks at me!'—By ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... nor fail to recognize the good work the city ministers are doing. But you must not fail to recognize the difficulties of the situation. New York is sensation-mad. The competition in churches is as great as in business. There are perhaps half a dozen men of genius who fill their churches with ease, or whose churches are filled because they are the resort of "good society." The rest of the ministers are compelled to devote three-quarters of their energies to keeping a congregation ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... amongst gods and men for his many inborn virtues, for his grace, behaviour, beauty of person, vows and self-control; who is noted for might and prowess, and respected by the virtuous, and ready-witted; who is endued with genius and splendid energy, is of a forgiving temper and without malice of any kind; who hath studied the four Vedas with their branches, and the Upanishads, and the Puranas also; who is endued with devotion to his preceptors and with intellect possessed of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to such a pass that he was of a mind that he had better marry some one. He had, as it were, three strings to his bow. There were the two French strings, and there was Dorothy. He had not breadth of genius enough to suggest to himself that yet another woman might be found. There was a difficulty on the French score even about Miss Stanbury; but it was clear to him that, failing her, he was due to one of the two ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... peaceable Stephen, crown Swain, youth Swithun, strong friend Sylvanus, god of the wood Sylvester, a rustic Tancard, grateful guard Tancred, grateful speech Teague, poet Terence, tender Thaddaeus, praise Theobald, people's prince Theodore, divine gift Theodosius, genius of God Theodric, people's ruler Theodoric, people's ruler Theophilus, friend of God Thias, gift of God Thomas, a twin Thorold, Thor's power Thurstan, Thor's jewel Tibal, people's prince Tiernan, kingly Timothy, God-fearing Titus, safe Tobias, goodness of God Tom, a twin Tristram, grave, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... understand," her father replied, rather slowly and wearily, she thought, "although sometimes I am not certain that I understand these troubled times myself. Across the seas the Emperor Napoleon, a long-nosed, short-bodied man of infinite genius for setting the world by the ears, has been warring with England for the last ten years and more. He and the British, with their blockades and embargoes and Orders in Council have long been striving to ruin each other, ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... King, "he may not be a genius and he certainly isn't a criminal, but he has about as much stability ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... the centre of the inmost court, that might have been some fifty yards square, or a little more, we stood face to face with what is perhaps the grandest allegorical work of Art that the genius of her children has ever given to the world. For in the exact centre of the court, placed upon a thick square slab of rock, was a huge round ball of dark stone, some twenty feet in diameter, and standing on the ball was a colossal winged figure of a beauty so entrancing ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... dances, it will not be easy for us, who see no such things attempted on the modern stage, to form any very clear or exact notions. What we cannot doubt of is, 1. That the several theatrical dances of the antients were strictly conformable to the genius of the different species of composition, to which they were applied. 2. That, therefore, the tragic dance, which more especially accompanied the Chorus, must have been expressive of the highest gravity and decorum, tending to inspire ideas of what is becoming, ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... generous Americans showed how little rancour they bore. But the portraits of Jefferson Brick and Elijah Pogram will live; with Pecksniff, 'Sairey' Gamp, and other immortals they bear the hall-mark of Dickens's creative genius. ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... yards from the toll-gate of the bridge, on the Western side of the road, stand the work-shops of that eminent, modest, and persevering mechanic, Mr. Brunel; a gentleman of the rarest genius, who has effected as much for the Mechanic Arts as any man of his time. The wonderful apparatus in the dock-yard at Portsmouth, by which he cuts blocks for the navy, with a precision and expedition that astonish every beholder, secures ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... roles. Or, to those who have only listened to his records, again visions of the wonderful voice, with its penetrating, vibrant, ringing quality, the impassioned delivery, which stamps every note he sings with the hall mark of genius, the tremendous, unforgettable climaxes. Not to have heard Caruso sing is to have missed something out of life; not to have seen him act in some of his best parts is to have missed the inspiration of great acting. As Mr. Huneker once wrote: "The artistic career of Caruso is as well known as that ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... of all such passages. A German writer of a Life of Salmasius acknowledges that Milton had the better in the conflict in these words: 'Hans (Jack) von Milton—not to be compared in learning and genius with the incomparable Salmasius, yet a shrewd and cunning lawyer,' &c. 'O ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... pass without correction. His answers to the foresaid questions I will read to you.—What is most ancient? Time. What is greatest? The World. What is wisest? Truth. What is most beautiful? The light. What is most common? Death. What is most profitable? God. What is most Pernicious? An evil genius. What is strongest? Fortune. What is most easy? That which ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... But in an artist this is strangely balanced by his love for his work. When he has ceased to wish for life or heed it for himself he still feels instinctive revolt against extinguishing that diviner spark than life itself, his genius, lent him from the ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... furnished damaging evidence of Mary's guilt. Whether these letters were genuine or forged is never likely to be established with certainty,[32] but considering the character of Mary's opponents, their well-known genius for duplicity, the contradictory statements put forward by their witnesses and the indecent haste with which the whole enquiry was brought to a close, it is difficult to believe that the evidence of Mary's authorship was convincing. The commissioners acting on Mary's behalf ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... traditional ally and friend of the United States. I did not blame France for her part in the scheme to erect a monarchy upon the ruins of the Mexican Republic. That was the scheme of one man, an imitator without genius or merit. He had succeeded in stealing the government of his country, and made a change in its form against the wishes and instincts of his people. He tried to play the part of the first Napoleon, without the ability to sustain that role. He sought ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... in other of his dramatic histories, has closely followed Holinshed; but the light of his genius irradiates the dry pages of the chronicler. The play of Henry the Fifth is not only a poetical record of the past, but it is, as it were, "a song of triumph," a lay of the minstrel pouring forth a paean of victory. The gallant feats of our forefathers are brought vividly before our eyes, inspiring ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... A government, based on the principle of caste and class, can not stand. The aristocratic idea, in any form, is opposed to the genius of our free institutions, to our own declaration of rights, and to the civilization of the age. All artificial distinctions, whether of family, blood, wealth, color, or sex, are equally oppressive to the subject classes, and equally ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... another personage to whom the unconventional ways of "the Golden Shoemaker" gave great offence; and that was Mr. Bounder, the coachman. As a coachman, Bounder was faultless. His native genius had been developed and matured by a long course of first-class experience. In matters of etiquette, within his province, Bounder was precise. Right behaviour between master and coachman was, in his opinion, "the whole duty of man." He held in equal contempt a presuming coachman and ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... the lamp of Aladdin,—if he governed by the help of a genius who carried away the daughters and wives of his subjects through the air to the royal Parc-aux-cerfs, and turned into stone every man who wagged a finger against his majesty's government, there would indeed be an unmixed despotism. But, fortunately, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... no necessity for it—so near as to answer every need of social domesticity, and yet in a manner so free and apart as to allow undisturbed and undisturbing reveries beneath the stars, and such other irregular manifestations of genius as are common to ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... Kit's eyes are bloodshot and his hands unsteady. Death is already seeking for him at a tavern in Deptford, and the last scene in a wild, brief life starts up before us. A miserable ale-house, drunken words, the flash of a knife, and a man of genius has received his death-blow. What an epitaph for the greatest might-have-been in English literature: "Christopher Marlowe, slain by a serving-man in a drunken brawl, aged twenty-nine!" But by the time Shakespeare had reached his fortieth birthday every one of his fellow-playwrights ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... help to knowing ourselves and the world, I mean more than a knowledge of so much vocabulary, so much grammar, so many portions of authors in the Greek and Latin languages; I mean knowing the Greeks and Romans, and their life and genius, and what they were and did in the world; what we get from them, and what is its value: That, at least, is the ideal; and when we talk of endeavouring to know Greek and Roman antiquity, as a help to knowing ourselves and the world, we mean endeavouring so to know them as to satisfy this ideal, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... picture—there were no others on the frescoed walls; it was set far back in a superb oval frame of ivory and gold, and as the brilliant glare of lights shot upwards, an exquisite painting of the Mater Dolorosa could be distinctly seen—a strange companion, or presiding genius, or ornament for the shrine for ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... popularity is pleasant. Everyone likes it. But do you suppose the really big people think at all about the world's opinion when they are at work? They just give of their best because nothing less would satisfy them, but they don't do it because they want to be appreciated by the crowd. Genius always gets above the crowd. It's only those who can't rise above their critics who really care what the ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the Lord seek knowledge, the never-failing well, the mighty eagle soars to heaven on the wings of understanding, to Rav Shemuel, may whose light never be dimmed, and in whose day may the Redeemer come unto Zion.' There, take it, honor me by taking it. It is the homage of the man of genius to the man of learning, the humble offering of the one Hebrew scholar ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... conclude: there is—I know there is, from manifold experience—a genius that takes charge of every printed book and delivers it into the appropriate hands, and if not always, yet very often keeps at home the undeserving: that genius holds the key to every true production of heart and soul, and opens and closes it with ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... Philadelphia and New York contain the largest and best furnished printing establishments now in existence. The submarine cable, running like a thread of light through the depths of the broad Atlantic from the United States to England, a conception of American genius, is the greatest achievement in the telegraphic line. The Pacific Railroad, that iron highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, stands at the head of all monuments of engineering skill in modern times. Following the first Atlantic cable, soon came ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... the inquisition of reason, and force from her, as by torture, unequivocal answers to prepared and preconceived questions—yet still they would not have been talked of or described as instances of luck, but as the natural results of his admitted genius and known skill. But should an accident have disclosed similar discoveries to a mechanic at Birmingham or Sheffield, and if the man should grow rich in consequence, and partly by the envy of his neighbors and partly with good reason, be considered ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the poet of glees and love-madrigals, had sober thoughts in the intervals of his gaiety, and employed his genius in writing religious and even devout poems, which have been spiritually helpful in many phases of Christian experience. Among them was this and the four following hymns, with thirty-four others, each of which he carefully labelled ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... and waxed hotter as time, alas! proved how, in contrast to the honourable reputation of the English Queen of Tragedy, Sarah Siddons, the character and life of the gifted French actress were miserably beneath her genius. There was a little vexed talk, which probably had small enough foundation, of the admission of Rachel into the highest society; of the Duchess of Kent's condescending to give her shawl to the shivering foreigner; of a bracelet with the simple inscription, "From ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... had not the slightest idea of how such a keyhole and latch-key as he had promised could be made, save that on one occasion he had been the author of a practical little invention utilized in a box-factory, and felt that he had a touch of the inventive genius in his nature. But there was his friend Hastings. It was the thought of Hastings which gave him the inspiration when he spoke to Grampus. Hastings was one of the cleverest inventors and one of the most prominent among the younger electricians of the city. They were devoted ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... progressive civilization. In spite of her adherence to inflated militarism, she has put the whole world in her debt by her inspiring industrial and scientific achievements. Her people have taught mankind lessons of incalculable value, and her sons have enriched far distant lands with their genius. Not the least of the catastrophes inflicted by this inhuman war is that an unbridled autocracy has brought against the great German empire an indictment for arrogant assault upon the peace of nations and the ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... old man who went about that mill, often saying, "I hain't got no book l'arnin' like the rest of you." He was the man who owned the mill. He had made it with his own genius out of nothing. He had become rich and honored. Every man in the mill loved ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... Calderon, Marquis de Siete Iglesias, appeared upon the scaffold But, when the eyes of the multitude rested—not upon that lofty and stately form, in all the pride of manhood, which they had been accustomed to associate with their fears of the stern genius and iron power of the favourite—but upon a bent and spectral figure, that seemed already on the verge of a natural grave, with a face ploughed deep with traces of unutterable woe, and hollow eyes that looked with dim and scarce conscious light over the human sea that murmured and swayed below, ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. I let him go on in his own way, and never ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... patience with the foul churl who cannot enjoy the one with proper continence, and rise the better and more chivalrous from the society of the other. Wine well used is a good familiar creature—kindles, soothes, and inspirits: the cup of wine warmed by the smile of woman gives courage to the soldier and genius to the minstrel. With Burns—and he was no ordinary seer—I hold that the sweetest hours that e'er we spend are spent among the lasses. I will go farther and say the most profitable hours. And some sweet and profitable hours 'twas mine to spend among the fawn-orbed ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the Book, besides being the longest poetical work of the century, must be ranked among the greatest poems in our literature: it has a spiritual insight, human science, dramatic and intellectual and moral force, a strength and grip, a subtlety, a range and variety of genius and of knowledge, hardly to be paralleled ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... a man of genius. I hazard nothing in saying that he was fifty years in advance of his profession. He was one of those characters who was not only an observing man, but, rarest of all, he was a good observer. Nothing escaped him, and when he had seized on all the salient points of a given subject, he astounded ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... "What a genius that child has!" he said; "why, she is a second Mrs. Norton!" and advanced smiling to peep over her shoulder and see what pretty thing ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the summer light—touching the grey strange shapes of stone, thrilling through the foliage of the long- loved trees—there is the tenderness of a phantom caress. These are the gardens of the past. The future will know them only as dreams, creations of a forgotten art, whose charm no genius may reproduce. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... many poets in the world whose verses have melody and charm though their brows may never be "cooled with laurel." The objection to verse as a trifling occupation comes really from that general disinclination to read verse which excuses itself by the rarity of genius. Rossetti, who had genius in his own person, was always ready to appreciate good poetical work that had no fame to recommend it. [Footnote: Since the above was written I have met with an address delivered by Mr. Walter Besant, the novelist, in which he recommends ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... the Bible one must have a background of knowledge of the life and history of its times. He must enter into the spirit and genius of the Hebrew nation, know their aspirations, their political and economic problems, and understand their tragedies and sufferings. He must know the historical and social setting of the Jewish people, the nations and civilizations that surrounded them, and the customs, mode of ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... culminating events of the spring and summer of 1775 that we find the occasion for the preparations made by Great Britain for the campaign of 1776. Little appreciating the genius of the colonists, underrating their resources and capacity for resistance, mistaking also their motives, King George and his party imagined that on the first display of England's power all disturbance and attempts at rebellion across the sea would instantly ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... which comes through automatism, is often as sudden as the first ascent. One stroke of attention comes to do what once took many. To attain such effective speed is not dependent on reaction time. This shooting together of units distinguishes the master from the man, the genius from the hack. In many, if not all, skills where expertness is sought, there is a long discouraging level, and then for the best a sudden ascent, as if here, too, as we have reason to think in the ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... In London, of course, they are received, sought after. In Paris not so much, but one still meets them.—the most distinguished. In Berlin the men might go to court but not the women. In Vienna—well, genius will not give quarterings. But alas! so many gifted people seem to come out of the bourgeoisie, or lower down still—whether they are received or not depends ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... deep-seated sense of discontent and danger. A foreign corporation of Hollanders is to a considerable extent controlling our destinies, and in conjunction with the Boer leaders endeavouring to cast them in a mould which is wholly foreign to the genius of the people. Every public act betrays the most positive hostility, not only to everything English, but to ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... of such works, in which genius seems to have pushed its achievements to a new limit. Their bursting out from nothing, and gradual evolution into substance and shape, cast on the mind a solemn influence. They come too near the fount of being to be followed up without our feeling ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... not clear it is yet; at times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse himself with drawing. What parts, genius, and agreeableness thrown away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being saved by the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... no fear that John Rex would escape again from the woman he had deceived. The infernal genius of Sarah Purfoy had saved her lover at last—but saved him only that she might nurse him till he died—died ignorant even of her tenderness, a mere animal, lacking the intellect he had in ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... masterful spirit could brook no superior. He even conspired with the rebel vassals. But as king (1461-1483) he pursued the policy of his greatest predecessors with undaunted courage, patient perseverance, and political genius of the highest order. At first he was too much in a hurry. He tried to clip the wings of all his vassals at once. He irritated the industrial classes by severe taxation. He drove into exile or rebellion his father's ablest generals and councillors. This brought upon him the so-called ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... garden should sprout the seeds of a great Revolution! Stranger the crowds that gathered there, and the leaders both popular and Royalist—among the former, our fiery friend Danton, our cautious, snuffling Robespierre, and the boy of genius Camille Desmoulins, Danton's "slight-built comrade and craft-brother, he with the long curling locks, with the face of dingy blackguardism, wondrously irradiated ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... of Morristown he led his small but gallant band; and through an eventful winter, by the high effort of his genius, whose matchless force was measurable only by the growth of difficulties, he held in check formidable hostile legions, conducted by a chief experienced in the arts of war, and famed for his valor on the ever memorable Heights of Abraham, where fell Wolfe, Montcalm, and since our much-lamented ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... Here are two houses, formerly one, called the Grange, in which the novelist Samuel Richardson passed the greater part of his life. This pompous, vain little man, who never to the end of his life abated one whit of his savage envy of his successful contemporaries, was endowed with the genius of originality which prompted him to write as no one had ever thought of writing before. He remained here until 1755, when he moved to Parsons Green. He had begun life as one of the nine children of a man of small means, and was apprenticed to a printer. This work he carried on long ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... "unconscious" which comes from the past from that which is the presage of the future, separates out the inheritance of our long past ancestry which remains as the "sub-conscious" in us; points to the higher "super-conscious," not "sub-conscious," of which the genius is the testimony at the present time; shows that human consciousness transcends the brain; proves that human consciousness is in touch with worlds beyond the physical; and makes sure and certain the hope expressed by science, that it is possible that that which is ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... or any other. If in the highest ranges of human attainment there is to be an advancement of age beyond age, surely there is to be a progress in the spirit and language of prayer. From some forming hand and heart, by the united aid of consecrated genius, wisdom, and piety, something is to come greater than we have yet seen. No Homeric poem or vision of Dante is so grand as that will be. What is the highest idea of God, excluding superstition, anthropomorphism, and vague impersonality alike, what is the fit and true utterance ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... to look uneasily upon any new friendship, fearing a demand for a loan, gave himself up with enthusiasm to intimacy with this "grand man." The personage admired riches and recognized, besides, a certain genius in this millionaire from the other side of the sea accustomed to speaking of limitless pastures and immense herds. Their intercourse was more than the mere friendliness of a country neighborhood, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... institutions of my country render impossible. Music for the deaf! Eloquence without an audience!"] That of the pulpit only remains. But even of this—whether it be from want of the excitement and contagious emulation from the other fields of oratory, or from the peculiar genius of Lutheranism—no models have yet arisen that could, for one moment, sustain a comparison with those of England or France. The highest names in this department would not, to a foreign ear, carry with them any of that significance or promise which surrounds the names of Jeremy Taylor ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Petrarch to that of Politian. His reason for fixing on this era it is not easy to determine. Mussato preceded Petrarch, the interval between Petrarch and Politian is not particularly illustrated by excellence in Latin poetry; and Politian was much surpassed in correctness and elegance, if not in genius, by those who came after him—by Flaminio, Navagero, and Fracastorio. Yet in the hands of Johnson, such a subject would not have been wanting in instruction or entertainment. Such as were willing to subscribe, were referred to his brother, Nathaniel Johnson, who had succeeded ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... they declared, "this idea of creating a little of Paris here in old Chicago. A touch of genius really—just like that astonishing Milly Ridge to have thought of the one thing—and the cakes ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... accounts of the mode of living on board ship, and of our various scenes in China, the Isle of Bourbon, and elsewhere. Rupert had a great deal of humour, and a very dry way of exhibiting it; in short, he was almost a genius in the mere superficialities of life; and even Grace rewarded his efforts to entertain us, with laughter to tears. Neb was introduced after supper, and the fellow was both censured and commended; censured for having abandoned the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... month was "one of those charmed days when the genius of God doth flow." The wind died away by mid-forenoon, and the day settled down so softly and lovingly upon the earth, touching everything, filling everything. The sky visibly came down. You could see it among the trees and between the hills. The sun ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... auspicious moment. Other cadets of the English aristocracy, such as Lord Webb Seymour and Lord Henry Petty, were attracted at this period to the Northern university, partly by the restrictive statutes of Oxford and Cambridge, but still more by the genius and learning of men like Dugald ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... night, and a dim and uncertain light from a candle which has been long neglected, only serves to render obscurity more perplexing. The room is a costly one. One replete with all the appliances of refinement and luxury which the spirit and the genius of the age could possibly supply him with, but there is upon his brow the marks of corroding care, and little does that most mysterious being seem to care for all the rich furnishing of that apartment in ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... and his brother John, two years younger, came to the age to begin life for themselves, they both showed such decided artistic genius that it was thought best to start them in that direction, and to have them taught engraving; an art then held in high esteem. Frank chose wood, and John steel engraving. Both did good work, but their hearts were not in it, and, as soon as opportunity offered, they abandoned ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... or read the stories of his contemporaries. He practically read every American magazine from cover to cover—advertisements were a delight to him, and the finding of a new writer gave him as much pleasure as if he had been the fiction editor who had accepted the first story by the embryo genius. The official organs of our army and navy he found of particular interest. Not only did he thus follow the movements of his friends in these branches of the service but if he read of a case wherein he thought a sailor or a soldier had been done an injustice ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... genius," Burke said. "But I couldn't keep him away when the boy was damaged and there was no one else to help." He paused a moment. "He was the only man in the world I was ever afraid of," he said then. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... person is incompatible with a due and faithful discharge of the duties of either office; that it frequently gives rise to great inconvenience, and often results in detriment to the public service, and, moreover, is not in harmony with the genius of the Government: ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... heroes of romance used to segregate a man, so to speak, and leave the half of him to fall one way and the other half the other. This very sword has cloven hundreds of Saracen Knights from crown to chin in those old times when Godfrey wielded it. It was enchanted, then, by a genius that was under the command of King Solomon. When danger approached its master's tent it always struck the shield and clanged out a fierce alarm upon the startled ear of night. In times of doubt, or in fog or darkness, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was not in the nature of Prince Inga to despair for long, his past adventures having taught him confidence and courage, sharpened his wits and given him the genius of invention. He sat down and thought earnestly on the means of escape from his danger and at last a clever idea came to his mind. This is the way to get ideas: never to let adverse circumstances discourage you, but to believe ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... repellent that it is no wonder they were misunderstood. Grillparzer declared that he was groping in esthetic fog. Julian Schmidt recognized his power and the poetic charm of many of his passages, but thought him in danger of crossing the line which separates sense from nonsense, genius from insanity. Hebbel was restive under criticism, and the method of his polemics tended rather to exasperate than to conciliate his adversaries. Meanwhile Maria Magdalena and Judith were performed at the Hofburgtheater, with Christine as the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... work of a man of genius, full of fine poetry, and as amusing as a novel."— Gardener's and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... recorded most faithfully about a Malay—to a tale of Mr. Hogg's, he makes me indebted to a book which I never saw. In saying this I mean no disrespect to Mr. Hogg; on the contrary, I am sorry that I have never seen it: for I have a great admiration of Mr. Hogg's genius; and have had the honour of his personal acquaintance for the last ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... born in Rouen in 1606, the son of an official; was educated by the Jesuits, and practised unsuccessfully as a lawyer. His dramatic career began with the comedy of "Melite," but it was by his "Medee" that he first proved his tragic genius. "The Cid" appeared in 1636, and a series of masterpieces followed—"Horace," "Cinna," "Polyeucte," "Le Menteur." After a failure in "Pertharite" he retired from the stage, deeply hurt by the disapproval of his audience. Six years later he resumed ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... awakened throughout England, such as, I boldly say, never before existed in any country upon earth; and England, her eyes opened to her neglect of these classes, without whose strong arms her wealth and genius would be useless, has put herself into a permanent state of confession of sin, repentance, and amendment, which I verily trust will be accepted by Almighty God; and will, in spite of our present shame and sorrow, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... fact that I discovered him," I said, turning the conversation as Wolf Larsen stepped on the poop and joined us. "The editors were afraid of him and the publishers would have none of him. But I knew, and his genius and my judgment were vindicated when he made that magnificent ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... an assistant Colonel, he was actively in command of one of the hardest fighting battalions in the regiment. He has been pronounced a man of native ability, an able tactician and of natural military genius. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... cabinet councillors in the village, with whom he is very busy just now, preparing for the May-Day ceremonies. Among these is the village tailor, a pale-faced fellow, that plays the clarionet in the church choir; and, being a great musical genius, has frequent meetings of the band at his house, where they "make night hideous" by their concerts. He is, in consequence, high in favour with Master Simon; and, through his influence, has the making, or rather marring, of all the ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... impression upon my mind; and I have talked, by means of imperfect English, French, and interpretations, with a good many. They have made my heart bleed over the history of this most beautiful country. It is truly mournful that a people with so many fine impulses, so much genius, appreciation, and effective power, should, by the influence of historical events quite beyond the control of the masses, so often have been thrown into a false position before the world, and been subjected to such a series ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... much stuff in her basket, however, and it is something of a mystery how she manages to live from it. None but an Italian could, I am sure; and her experience must test the full virtue of the national genius for cheap salads and much-extenuated soup-meat. I do not know whether it is native in her, or whether it is a grace acquired from long dealing with those kindly-hearted customers of hers in Charlesbridge, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... Persian poet of Dilli; his odes are very elegant, and have great poetical genius; he was, as a Persian poet, inferior to none: he is the original author of this ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... for a given output; and the striking fact is that this effect may be realized by means of devices which actually save capital at particular points in the industry. If, after power looms were introduced, some inventive genius had made them cost only a quarter as much as on their first introduction they had cost, the profits of the business would have been increased and, in time, far more capital in the shape of spinning machinery, engines, etc., would have ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... list of works Gertrude Atherton has to her credit as a writer. She is indisputably a woman of genius. Not that her genius is distinctively feminine, though she is in matters historical a passionate partisan. Most of the critics who approve her work agree that in the main she views life with somewhat of the masculine ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... under Soult, Wellesley had to cross the deep and rapid Douro, in face of their fire, and without regular transport. "He dared the deed. What must have been his confidence in the men he commanded! what must have been his reliance on his own genius!" ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... work, from which the above is quoted (cap. xx.), is entitled De Occulta Philosophia. That Socrates had an attendant spirit or demon from his youth up, whose suggestions he followed as an oracle, is known to us from the Theages of Plato. But of the nature of this genius, spirit, or voice, we have no certain indications from the ancients, though the subject has been much investigated in numerous writings, beginning with the monographs of Apulejus and Plutarch. The first (Apulejus), ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... butchers of the North, thy divine head mutilated by the heels of brutes, the Christ of nations, for two months nailed on the cross, never hast thou appeared so great and so beautiful, Thou neededst this martyrdom, O our mother, to know how we love thee. In order that Paris, in which there is a genius which has given her the empire of the world, should fall into the hands of the barbarians, there must cease to be a God in heaven. As God she exists, and as God she is immortal. Paris will never surrender." When it is remembered that this ignorant, vain, foolish population ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... evil genius and mine. Our evil genius! It chastises him Through me, the instrument of his ambition; And I expect no less than that Revenge E'en now is whetting for my breast the poinard. Who sows the serpent's teeth, let him not hope ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... more superstition and extravagance, than in what regards their dreams; but they differ much in the manner of explaining their thoughts on this matter. Sometimes it is the reasonable soul that wanders out, while the sensitive soul continues to animate the body; sometimes it is the familiar genius that gives good advice about future events; sometimes it is a visit they receive from the soul of the object they dream of. But, in whatsoever way they conceive of a dream, it is always regarded as a sacred thing, and as the means which the Gods most usually employ to declare ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... in study and regarding himself learned, seeks with the aid of his learning to destroy the reputation of others, falls away from righteousness, and comes to be regarded as dissociated from truth. Verily regions of felicity herein-after are never attained to by such a person of destructive genius.' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... trials and experienced their needs. The time has gone by when the musician and composer was considered a sort of freak, knowing music and nothing else. We know the great composers were men of the highest intelligence and learning, men whose aim was to work out their genius to the utmost perfection. Nothing less than the highest would satisfy them. As George Eliot said, 'Genius is the capacity for taking infinite pains.' Think of the care Beethoven took with every phrase, how many times he did it over, never leaving it ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... compositions in the latter publication, the greater portion, he intimates in the preface, "were composed at an early age, chiefly betwixt the years of sixteen and twenty;" and as the production of a very young man, the volume is altogether creditable to his genius ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Tale. They are both by Mr. Horne, a gentleman unknown to me, but are—the latter in particular—very well done. Mr. Leigh Hunt has not failed in the Manciple's Tale, which I myself modernised many years ago; but though I much admire the genius of Chaucer as displayed in this performance, I could not place my version at the disposal of the editor, as I deemed the subject somewhat too indelicate for pure taste to be offered to the world at this time of day. Mr. Horne ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... that the busiest man always seems to have the most leisure. It is another way of complimenting him on his genius for organization. When you visit a real man of affairs you seldom find him surrounded by secretaries, stenographers, and a battery of telephones. As a rule, there is nothing on his desk save a photograph of ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... has joined in a conspiracy with the Kiplings, the Somervilles, and other persons of ambidextrous gifts to raise the standard of authorship to a height beyond the reach of ordinary genius.' ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... at it too, in her entirely unbrilliant way. If she had been an immensely clever woman, there would have been nothing special in it. She was not clever at all, yet Walderhurst had seen her produce effects such as a clever woman might have laboured for and only attained by a stroke of genius. As, for instance, when she had met for the first time after her engagement, a certain particularly detestable woman of rank, to whom her relation to Walderhurst was peculiarly bitter. The Duchess of Merwold had counted the Marquis as her own, considering him ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... population of the United Kingdom is no slight matter. Its importance is enhanced by the circumstance, never to be forgotten, that Great Britain is the centre of an Empire. The brutal and stupid jests by which respectable Englishmen often hint that the bravery, the capacity, and the genius of Irishmen are of little service to the Empire, and that their value is more than counterbalanced by the ill results of Irish discontent and sedition, conceal from unreflecting minds the extent to which ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... and humbly saluting the saints and hermits of the desert. [100] Nor was it only in ecclesiastical assemblies, among men whose education and manners were similar to his own, that Athanasius displayed the ascendancy of his genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in the courts of princes; and in the various turns of his prosperous and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends, or the esteem ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... it to crucial experiment, he found that it was the old hypothesis, and not the new one, that had to be sacrificed.[1] If the orbit was not a circle, what, then, was it? By a happy stroke of philosophical genius he lit on the ellipse. On bringing his hypothesis to the test of observation, he found it was indeed so; and rising from the case of Mars to universal statement, he generalized the law, that the planetary orbits are elliptical, having the sun ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... depletion of Bragg by the detachment of Buckner, giving to Grant the very opportunity he desired. The good fortune of the National commander culminated at Missionary Ridge. Soldiers believe in good luck quite as much as in genius, and follow a leader whose star is in the ascendant with a confidence which is the guaranty of victory. Great opportunities, however, come to all. The difference between a great soldier and an inferior one is that the great man uses his opportunities to the full, and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... illustrated by Darley. To those who have read one of the introductory chapters of this work which we copied into the International for November, it seems quite unnecessary to say any thing in illustration or commendation of the author's genius; they will be likely to purchase Clovernook as soon as they are advised of its appearance. We have nothing in our literature, descriptive of country life, to be compared with it, for effective painting or for truthfulness. The scene is laid in Ohio—near Cincinnati—while a suburban village is ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... made, but he thought Mr. Todd would say that his indications had proved the most accurate. But he had also done a great thing for exploration in changing the modus operandi. He had been one of Sturt's party that went out with bullock-drays; but he had had genius, and had changed all that, starting upon exploring with light parties, and thus being able to accomplish so much, and he was glad to say that explorers since had followed up the same plan with great success. (Cheers.) And they were ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... fields and Goad's clear waters are free to Goad's people." I remember how on this occasion he pressed my hand with his famous cordiality, looked gravely and earnestly into my face, and then gazed sternly into vacancy. It was a fine picture of genius descending for a moment from its hill-top to show how close ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... know I have always told you Turner belonged to the Greek school. Precisely as the stream of blood coming from under the throne of judgment in the Byzantine mosaic of Torcello is a sign of condemnation, his scarlet clouds are used by Turner as a sign of death; and just as on an Egyptian tomb the genius of death lays the sun down behind the horizon, so in his Cephalus and Procris, the last rays of the sun withdraw from the forest as the ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... social development which belongs to the very noblest stage of civilization. All generous companies of artists, authors, philanthropists, men of science, are, or ought to be, Societies of Mutual Admiration. A man of genius, or any kind of superiority, is not debarred from admiring the same quality in another, nor the other from returning his admiration. They may even associate together and continue to think highly of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated England, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant twaddle—the milk, not destitute of water, on which the babes of literature were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little album, enriched with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of rhyme and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following sage ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... in most of the public libraries of Europe, to find anything more than a small fraction of the innumerable obscure publications which the neglect of grocers and trunkmakers has spared to be ransacked by the all-devouring genius of Homoeopathy. I have endeavored to verify such passages as my own library afforded me the means of doing. For some I have looked in vain, for want, as I am willing to believe, of more exact references. But this I am able to affirm, that, out of the very small number which I have been ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... running through it all. It was now leading him and his fellows into the fire, and when they advanced, no one must stay behind. No class of the community had yet advanced with so bright and great a call; they were going to put an end forever to the infamy of human genius sitting and weighing the spheres in space, but forgetting to weigh the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... radiant spirit of Greece alone She had—one power, which made her breast its home! In her, like us, there clash'd, contending powers, Germany, France, Christ, Moses, Athens, Rome. The strife, the mixture in her soul, are ours; Her genius and her ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... to see you back. You have the genius of distinction, even in small things. How natural that the Swami should single you out for notice and so announce your home-coming ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... framers of the Constitution to withhold from the General Government the power to regulate the great mass of the business and concerns of the people have been fully justified by experience, and that it can not now be doubted that the genius of all our institutions prescribes simplicity and economy as the characteristics of the reform which is yet to be effected in the present and future execution of the functions bestowed upon us ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... made our conclusions that however subject he might be to his indefinitely future mother-in-law, he would not be at all so to his wife, if she could help it. He took the lead, but because she gave it him; and she displayed an aptness for conjugal submissiveness which almost amounted to genius. Whenever she spoke to either of us, it was with one eye on him to see if he liked what she was saying. It was so perfect that I doubted if it could last; but my wife said a girl like that could keep ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... revenge, which prompts the members of a family to commit fresh crimes to obtain satisfaction. These crimes necessitate further acts of vengeance, and the curse is thus transmitted from generation to generation. The word is also used for a man's evil genius, which drives him to sin without any provocation; a man so driven is sometimes called Alastor. The epithet is applied to Zeus and the Erinyes as the deities of revenge and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... said he, I enquire for, as by the Peculiarity of your Countenance, and the Firmness of your Look, you seem, young Boy, to be; I would hold some Discourse with you. The Pastorals of your Performance I have seen; and tho' I will not call 'em Perfect, I think they show a Genius not wholly to be overlookt. My Name, continued he, is Sophy, nor is it unknown in the World. In this Book (and here he pluckt it out of his Pocket) I have pen'd some Rules for your ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... Brive No! fortunately not, for the disposal of wines is a troublesome matter, and, moreover, the cultivation of the vine is exceedingly expensive. My estate was planted with pine trees by my grandfather, a man of genius, who was wise enough to sacrifice himself to the welfare of his descendants. Besides, I have furniture, which ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... Stephen Fox. This gentleman living with her but a year, she afterwards married Mr. Carrol, an officer in the army, and survived him likewise in the space of a year and a half. She afterwards married Mr. Joseph Centlivre, yeoman of the mouth to his late Majesty. She gave early discoveries of a genius for poetry, and Mr. Jacob in his Lives of the Poets tells us, that she composed a song before she was seven years old. She is the author of fifteen plays; her talent is comedy, particularly the contrivance of the plots, and incidents. Sir Richard Steele, in one of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... mover was Hezekiah Grice, a native of Baltimore, where he was born just one hundred years ago. In his early life, Grice had met Benjamin Lundy, and in 1828-9, William Lloyd Garrison, editors and publishers of "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," published ...
— The Early Negro Convention Movement - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 9 • John W. Cromwell
... this manner, that is, to proceed with a presiding principle and a prolific energy, is with me the criterion of profound wisdom. What your politicians think the marks of a bold, hardy genius are only proofs of a deplorable want of ability. By their violent haste, and their defiance of the process of Nature, they are delivered over blindly to every projector and adventurer, to every alchemist and empiric. They despair of turning to account anything that is common. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... vocal and instrumental, appears natural to them: Neither is their genius for literature to be despised; many instances are recorded of men of eminence amongst them: Witness Ignatius Sancho, whose letters are admired by all men of taste—Phillis Wheatley, who distinguished ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... the Life and Character of Edmund Burke, with Specimens of his Poetry and Letters, and an Estimate of his Genius and Talents compared with those of his great Contemporaries. With ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... counterfeit madness, but set his house on fire in the night, and he next morning came before the assembly in great distress, and besought the people, in consideration of the sad disaster, to release his son from the service, who was about to go captain of a galley for Sicily. The genius, also, of the philosopher Socrates, on this occasion, too, gave him intimation by the usual tokens, that the expedition would prove the ruin of the commonwealth; this he imparted to his friends and familiars, and by them it was mentioned to a ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... known in England; one of these is at Millyard, London, where my talented antiquarian friend, W. H. Black, is elder and pastor. These places of worship are supported by an endowment. Bunyan's book does not appear to have been answered; indeed, it would require genius of no ordinary kind ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... been expected that France would have been the first object of his curiosity. For the grace and dignity of the French King, the splendour of the French Court, the discipline of the French armies, and the genius and learning of the French writers, were then renowned all over the world. But the Czar's mind had early taken a strange ply which it retained to the last. His empire was of all empires the least capable ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not help thinking Adrian is doing very wisely," observes Arthur Dynecourt, some evil genius at his ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... aught of grief remains Save for that friend, beloved, bewailed, revered, To whom my heart for thrice ten years was bound By truest love and gratitude endeared: The glory of his land, in whom were found Genius unmatched, and mastery of the soul, Beyond all human wight, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... unless they hastened to the rescue all their cattle should have a similar slaughter. The volunteers came pouring in, and Saul marched to Jabesh-Gilead. A battle followed, and the Ammonites were routed with terrible slaughter. It was a grand victory, and won for Saul the glory of military genius. This settled the question of his right to reign, and his sceptre was ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... of Cromwell with Lord Manchester at Newbury was destined to give a new colour to the war. Pym, in fact, had hardly been borne to his grave in Westminster Abbey before England instinctively recognized a successor of yet greater genius in the victor of Marston Moor. Born in the closing years of Elizabeth's reign, the child of a cadet of the great house of the Cromwells of Hinchinbrook, and of kin, through their marriages, with Hampden and St. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... memorable instance of the inefficiency of local descriptions in a very remarkable one by a writer of fine genius, composing with an extreme fondness of his subject, and curiously anxious to send down to posterity the most elaborate display of his own villa—this was the Laurentinum of Pliny. We cannot read his letter to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... your father a working-man? He had a genius for mechanics, and if he had lived he would have been as great in his way as any statesman ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... Reinhard. Reinhard, in an answer to an attack made upon his hero for bringing out Munchausen as a pot-boiler in German and English simultaneously, definitely stated in the Berlin Gesellschafters of November 1824, that the real author of the original work was that disreputable genius, Rudolph Erich Raspe, and that the German work was merely a free translation made by Buerger from the fifth edition of the English work. Buerger, he stated, was well aware of, but was too high-minded to disclose ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... the progress of the Negro race, Murray favored such an exposition because, he declared, it would offer opportunity to have registered the facts and statistics of the Negro's achievement since emancipation. As evidence of the inventive genius of his race, he submitted to Congress at this time a list of patents which had been granted by the government for the inventions of Negroes. Murray spoke briefly of what the Negroes were doing and thinking and, in conclusion, gave to the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... absurd notion going about, among those half-educated people who frequent Ethical Platforms, that Literary Criticism must be "constructive." O that word "constructive"! How, in the name of the mystery of genius, can criticism be anything else than an idolatry, a worship, a metamorphosis, a love affair! The pathetic mistake these people make is to fancy that the great artists only lived and wrote in order to buttress up such poor wretches as these are upon the particular little, thin, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... year and a half's wanderings. Though overwhelmed with 'marks of festive joy,' the call 'of the wind on the heath,' was too strong to be resisted, and in a short time he slipped away again and went back to his chosen people. He must have been a very finished actor, with a genius for 'make-up,' to have imposed on half the people that he befooled. Amongst his first roles were those of a shipwrecked mariner; a poor Mad Tom, trying to eat live coals; and a Kentish farmer, whose drowned farm in the Isle of Sheppey could no longer ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... established himself in the favor of the different members of the Van Kirk family. Mrs. Van Kirk spoke of him to her lady visitors as "a perfect jewel," frequently leaving them in doubt as to whether he was a cook or a coachman. Edith apostrophized him to her fashionable friends as "a real genius," leaving a dim impression upon their minds of flowing locks, a shiny velvet jacket, slouched hat, defiant neck-tie and a general air of disreputable pretentiousness. Geniuses of the foreign type were never, in the estimation of fashionable New York society, what you would call "exactly nice," and ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... by means of a magic book that has come into his possession, Faust first experiments with the "sign" of the Macrocosm, but makes no attempt to summon its presiding genius, that is, the World-spirit. He has a wonderful vision of the harmonious Cosmos, but it is "only a spectacle," whereas he craves food for his soul. So he turns to the sign of the Earth-spirit, whom he feels to be nearer to him. By an act of supreme daring he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... expires again, almost without communicating any degree of warmth. But, above all, our provisions were expended, and from what quarter to obtain an immediate supply it defied the most inventive genius to discover. Our sole dependence was upon the boats. Of these a flotilla lay ready to receive us, in which were embarked the black corps, with the 44th; but they had brought with them only food for their own ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... disconcerted the rebels, who had expected resistance, and hoped to find some point which they might more easily assail. At length one of their leaders, with more military genius than the rest, proposed bringing the guns down to the front gate. In vain, however, the shots were fired against it; the gates were of iron backed by wood, and the shots made no impression on them. ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... of child-life which the world has ever produced, there would be scattered here and there some few works of a distinctly unique character, before which we should rest so completely satisfied that we should quite forget to look at any others. These choice gems are the work of those rare men of genius who, looking beyond all trivial circumstances and individual peculiarities, discovered the essential secrets of child-life, and embodied them in ideal types. They are pictures of childhood, rather than of children, representing those phases of thought and emotion which are peculiar ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... future if I did not believe it?" returned Malcolm earnestly. "Why are these talents, these gifts of genius, this thirst for knowledge given to us, if they are not to be developed and turned to account hereafter? Think of the conditions under which such work will be done"—and here Malcolm's voice was full of enthusiasm—"the ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... their tea, she told him how annoyed she had felt at having recently had a performance postponed in favour of Avery Hill: and how the latter was said to be going crazy, with belief in her own genius. Maurice seemed to be in the dark about what was happening, and made no attempt to hide his ignorance. She could see, too, that he was not interested in these things; he played with a tassel of the sofa, and did not notice when she ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Boyd is a lady of fine poetical genius and superior literary attainments. She has been an earnest advocate of woman suffrage for many years, and is herself a living argument of woman's ability to use the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... which of the two was the greater, discussion is idle, but that Hawthorne was the finer genius few would deny. Poe, as cunning an artificer of goldsmith's work and as adroit in its vending as was ever M. Josse, declared that "Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, creation, imagination, originality,—a trait which in the literature of fiction ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... at the very sight of my stern aunt I would instantly secrete my whistle in my blouse and fly for the garret or cellar, like a cat caught in the cream. Such are the early tribulations of musical genius! ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... two friends that posterity is indebted for the Decades and the Opus Epistolarum, in which the events of those singularly stirring years are chronicled in a style that portrays with absolute fidelity the temper of an age prolific in men of extraordinary genius and unsurpassed daring, incomparably rich in achievements that changed the face of the world and gave a new direction to the ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... of inimitable tales. The writer's whimsical humor and inventive genius find fitting scope in the ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... (1715-1774). She had, however, been able to increase her territory by the addition of Lorraine (1766) and, in 1768, of the island of Corsica. A year later a child was born in the Corsican town of Ajaccio, who one day, by his genius, was to make France the center for a time of an empire rivaling that of Charlemagne in extent. When the nineteenth century opened France was no longer a monarchy, but a republic; and her armies were to occupy in turn every European capital, from Madrid to Moscow. ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... heavens were already painted with his ascending glories. I repeated in a kind of poetical rapture the inimitable metaphoric epithet of the Poet of Nature; an epithet preserved so faithfully, and therefore with so much genius, by his English translator, Pope. The rosy-fingered morn, indeed, appeared in all her plenitude of natural beauty; and the Sun, that he might not long lose the sight of his lovely spouse, followed her steps very shortly, and exhibited himself just surmounting the hills ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... had worn out the expedient of "Advice to a Painter."[92] This author has transferred the work, and sent his advice to the Poets; that is to say, to the turners of verse, as he calls them. Well, that thought is worn out also, therefore he directs his genius to the loom, and will have a new set of hangings in honour of the last year in Flanders. I must own to you, I approve extremely this invention, and it might be improved for the benefit of manufactory: as, suppose an ingenious gentleman should write a poem of advice to a calico-printer: ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... was drawn from observation: yet was each a pure creation Which revealed at once the genius of originating mind: Not a man and not a woman but combined the Broadly Human With a something quite ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... these Miriam-like flights of prophecy on the might-have-been. It isn't fair to judge a man's promise by one modest performance, and so I shall say nothing, save that I am sure it was the charm of the man that won my aunt's affection, not the genius of the builder. ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ordered a copy, and have now read the "Few Words about Jane Eyre." The writer has certainly made many mistakes, but apparently not from any unkind motive, as he professes to be an admirer of Charlotte's works, pays a just tribute to her genius, and in common with thousands deplores her untimely death. His design seems rather to be to gratify the curiosity of the multitude in reference to one who had made such a sensation in the literary world. But even if the article had been of a less harmless character, we should not have felt inclined ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... thus caught I have frequently taken the civet cat. This is a very pretty arid curious creature, about forty inches long from nose to tip of tail. The fur is ash-gray, mottled with black spots, and the tail is divided by numerous black rings. It is of the genius Viverra, and is exceedingly fierce when attacked. It preys chiefly upon fowls, hares, rats, etc. Its great peculiarity is the musk-bag or gland situated nearly under the tail; this is a projecting and valued gland, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Gunnhild, and had learned all kinds of sorcery and witchcraft among the Finns. Erik wedded with this woman, and it afterwards befell that she wrought more evil in Norway than even Erik himself. She was his evil genius, egging him on to deeds of treachery and violence which made him detested of ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... life to which by inheritance the delicate framework of her mind and person was adapted, she would have been the object almost of adoration, for her virtues were as eminent as her defects. All the genius that ennobled the blood of her father illustrated hers; a generous tide flowed in her veins; artifice, envy, or meanness, were at the antipodes of her nature; her countenance, when enlightened by amiable feeling, might have belonged to a queen of nations; her ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... countenance, and says, "I am not here any longer as a delinquent, a receiver of bribes, to be punished for what I have done wrong, or at least to suffer in my character for it. No: I am a great inventive genius, who have gone out of all the ordinary roads of finance, have made great discoveries in the unknown regions of that science, and have for the first time established the corruption of the supreme magistrate as a principle of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... general mercantile business in Springfield—a brother of the distinguished lawyer, James Speed, of Louisville, who afterwards became Attorney-General of the United States. He was one of those men who seem to have to a greater extent than others the genius of friendship, the Pythias, the Pylades, the Horatios of the world. It is hardly too much to say that he was the only—as he was certainly the last—intimate friend that Lincoln ever had. He was his closest companion in ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... woven therein, had he not been apprehensive that it was the offspring of a poisonous bulb. He cannot refrain from lamenting that in his literary researches he has too often found amongst the writings of those, most illustrious for their genius and imagination, the least of that which is calculated to meet the approbation of the Christian, or even of the mere Moralist; and in conclusion he will take the liberty of addressing to those who may feel within them the stirrings of a mind capable of mighty ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... a pitch-fork, and every agricultural implement available for assaulting purposes, on the slightest hint of his son's having written a play. So the son, bringing to me the father's rent (which I receive), imparted his secret, and pointed out that he was determined to pursue his genius, and that it would put him in peril of starvation, and that he ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... an instinctive military genius, like Aguto, like Ferruccio, like Gian delle Bande Neri, like all the great Condottieri. But he would probably have rotted in the Spielberg, or been shot in some fortress of the Quadrilateral, if he had not been supported ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... her out of chemistry, wherein she was a genius, into surgery, in which she was only a talent. She is now house-surgeon in a great hospital, and the public has lost a great ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... us, as in sex love, or when our self-love and lust for quick gain[1] or hate has been aroused do we lose the caution that is the antithesis of trust. The expert in human relations is he who can overcome distrust; the genius in human relations ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... future as a pioneer missionary. It was a remarkable position, one not without its difficulties and dangers, and one naturally that could not become common. But Mary Slessor was an exceptional woman, and it was to the honour of the Church that it at last realised the line of her genius, and in spite of being sometimes at variance with her policy, permitted her to follow her Master in ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... to play fast and loose with his genius. It does not belong to him, it belongs to the Almighty; it belongs to the world and to a coming generation. At thirty De Musset was already an old man, seeking in artificial stimuli the youth that would not spring again. Coming from a literary family ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... aroused nothing short of the object desired would content him. At once forceful and subtle, he had at his command infinite resources which his wandering and eventful life had heightened almost to the point of genius. He saw this stone, and at once felt an inordinate desire to possess it. He had coveted other men's treasures before, but not as he coveted this. What had been longing in other cases was mania in this. There was a woman in America whom he ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... was, on the recommendation of his masters, sent from Brienne to the Royal Military School at Paris; this being an extraordinary compliment to the genius and proficiency of a boy of fifteen.[5] Here he spent nearly two years, devoted to his studies. That he laboured hard, both at Brienne and at Paris, we may judge; for his after-life left scanty room for book-work, and of the vast quantity of information which his strong memory ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... succinctly expresses an attitude at least as common, though usually better disguised, among other subcultures of hackers. There may be intended reference here to an SF story originally published in 1952 but much anthologized since, Mark Clifton's 'Star, Bright'. In it, a super-genius child classifies humans into a very few 'Brights' like herself, a huge majority of 'Stupids', and a minority of 'Tweens', ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... literature, on which he also was much set (and which as rhetoric-reader I was at that time teaching young students at Carthage), and to read with him, either what himself desired to hear, or such as I judged fit for his genius. But all my efforts whereby I had purposed to advance in that sect, upon knowledge of that man, came utterly to an end; not that I detached myself from them altogether, but as one finding nothing better, I had ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... a man I have discovered; he has a specialty; he is a man of genius—he knows how to set men to work. It is he who has founded cannon and cut the woods of Bourgogne. And then, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, you may not believe what I am going to tell you, but I have ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... introduction of a newer catchword! I assure you the most successful book—the wittiest comedy, the divinest poem, have never won for their authors the immediate and sensational reputation which this singer has obtained at a bound with a few doggerel verses and an ungrammatical refrain. Isn't there genius in ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... of the old Hope disdain spoke out there. "I cannot bear to think of it—with all your education and talents and genius. I wish you had found some business. There is the five thousand dollars of the life-insurance, you know; and you could take it, though Agatha made me promise that I would not have it fooled away in any thing. But I should be glad to have ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... act, and the great avenging pang of Nature after its consummation. What was Hester Prynne's pillory, compared to the heart of any of those mothers? I thought, too, of Rousseau, bringing to such a place as this children who had the right to inherit divine genius, and deserting them for the sordid reason that he did not choose to earn their bread,—the helpless mother weeping at home, and begging, through long years, to be allowed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... suitable space has been made in the cell through the gradual disappearance of the victuals. Others again—more hurried these—find means of obeying the common law pretty early by engaging in stercoral manufactures. By a stroke of genius, they make the unpleasant obstruction into building-bricks. We already know the art of the Lily-beetle (Crioceris merdigera. Fabre's essay on this insect has not yet been translated into English; but readers interested ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... tour de force. The Ring and the Book, besides being the longest poetical work of the century, must be ranked among the greatest poems in our literature: it has a spiritual insight, human science, dramatic and intellectual and moral force, a strength and grip, a subtlety, a range and variety of genius and of knowledge, hardly ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... "capacity for taking infinite pains" which has been defined as genius, he labored as the hours flew, building together close-fitted word on word, sentence on sentence. As the sculptor must dream the statue prisoned in the marble, as the artist must dream the picture to come from the brilliant unmeaning ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... robbed quite all the others, but he was stirred by the brisk romance of money-making. The swindlers were supermen—blonde beasts with card indices and options instead of clubs. Not that Mr. Wrenn made any observations regarding supermen. But when, by way of commercial genius, the swindler robbed a young night clerk Mr. Wrenn whispered to Theresa, "Gee! he certainly does know how to ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... harmonize with the independence of a state. Be that as it may, the Institute exhibited for religion, independant of its ministers, none of that profound respect, inseparable from a lofty combination of mind and genius; and Bonaparte was left to support, against men of more value than himself, opinions which were ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... fine things that you and I can never possess. We know that. Genius, greatness,—they are high and forbidding mountain peaks. Their sides are rugged and precipitous. They have pulled iron hoods of snow and ice upon their brows. But goodness,—that is a peak that may ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... life in general there is but one decree. Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret. Do not suppose," he added smiling, "that I hold that youth is genius; all that I say is that genius, when young, is divine. Why, the greatest captains of ancient and modern times both conquered Italy at five-and-twenty! Youth, extreme youth, overthrew the Persian Empire. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... in the years to come I believe it will be a fact over which the union will rejoice, that when the battle waged the fiercest, when shot and shell rained the thickest, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the state, true to the genius of its organization, stepped boldly forth and extended sympathy and influence to our brothers who were struggling so bravely for the right, saying, "Here I stand—I can do no other; so help ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier
... the men called apostles, that conveys any idea of what God is. Those writings are chiefly controversial; and the gloominess of the subject they dwell upon, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better suited to the gloomy genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not impossible they were written, than to any man breathing the open air of the Creation. The only passage that occurs to me, that has any reference to the works ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... "No genius, I allow!" Mr. Aylett would add, in speaking of his wife's bantling among his compatriots, "but a man whose industry and sound practical knowledge of every branch of his profession will make for him the fortune ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... decisions of the courts, who, despairing of reconciling the discrepancies in their own law, governed themselves almost exclusively by the Roman, so much less accommodated, as it was, than their own, to the genius of the national institutions, as well as to the principles ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... bow, the javelin, and the sword, and in every exercise becoming a young gentleman and a warrior. So devouringly did he persevere in his studies, and in his exertions to excel, that he never remained a moment unoccupied at home or abroad. The development of his talents and genius suggested to him an inquiry who he was, and how he came into the house of a washerman; and his foster-mother, in compliance with his entreaties, described to him the manner in which he was found. He had long been miserable at the thoughts of being the son of a washerman, but now ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... a young man mad over Tchaikovsky's being a genius. He dreams of living according ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... real distinction, and he had been the acknowledged representative of his country when the King visited it in 1822. All this was now to change, and the fabric of prosperity which he had raised by his genius and labour, and which had never spoiled the simplicity and generosity of his character, was suddenly to crumble into ruin with, however, the result of revealing him as the possessor of qualities even greater and nobler than any he had shown in his happier ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... possess great quickness of capacity, and readily learn any thing that is taught them. They have an apt genius for all mechanical arts, and excel in carpentry, cabinet-making, turnery, and the like, and are very expert in the construction of wooden-houses, as indeed all the habitations and even the churches ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... out, in prehistoric times, the fierce conflicts of ancient Aryan races, Pandavas and Kauravas, around which the poetic genius of India has woven the wonderful epos of the Mahabharata. Only a couple of miles south of the modern city, the walls of the Purana Kilat, the fortress built by Humayun, cover the site but have not obliterated the ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... These chieftains were not barbarians. They were in a certain sense cultivated and refined. They gathered around them in their camps and in their courts orators, poets, statesmen, and officers of every grade, who seem to have possessed the same energy, genius, taste, and in some respects the same scientific skill, which have in all ages and in every clime characterized the upper classes of the Caucasian race. They carried all the arts which were necessary for their purposes and plans to high perfection, and in the invention of tales, ballads and poems, ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... we hear the expression "Why, I never thought of that!" Why? Because we have failed to exercise Common Sense—that genius of mankind, which, when properly directed is the one attribute that will carry man and his kind successfully through the perplexities of life. Common Sense is as a plant of delicate growth, in need of careful training and continued watching so that it may bear fruit ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... was much amused with it. He held out his hand, and put it on the face of his courtiers—showing fight. It was very white, which gave him occasion to pass to my skin, and pity my being so white. I made several useful remarks on Haussa grammar, and begin to understand the genius of ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... if the intelligence quotients of the subjects affected the time of contact which Charlie was able to maintain. Naturally, we picked the men here with the highest IQ's, the two men we have who are in the top echelon of the creative genius class." He cleared his throat. "I did not include myself, of course, since I wished to remain an impartial ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... recognized philosophically, being in reality the Oversoul spoken of by Emerson, but only recently has it been recognized scientifically." The French scientist pointed out that from the superconsciousness come inspiration, genius, moral values. "Belief in this is not mysticism though it recognized and valued the qualities ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... philosophy, warmed with human tenderness, in which the dazed but semi-conscious vicegerent of heaven moralises over human life. There is a grandeur in that conception so vast that nothing short of the rarest inspiration of genius can rise to it. The deficiences of McCullough's Lear were found in the analysis of that part of the performance. He had the heart of Lear, the royalty, the breadth; but not all of either the exalted intellect, the sorrow-laden experience, or the imagination—so gorgeous in ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... their heads under the burden of grief, and, with the taper of life burning low in the socket, looked forward into the darkness of the unknown. Therefore we do no indignity to the myth of Demeter and Persephone—one of the few myths in which the sunshine and clarity of the Greek genius are crossed by the shadow and mystery of death—when we trace its origin to some of the most familiar, yet eternally affecting aspects of nature, to the melancholy gloom and decay of autumn and to the freshness, the brightness, and the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... extraordinarily complicated nature of the racial problems involved, they tended to overlook the steady advance made in recent years by Austria in the conceptions of political and constitutional freedom. But at every turn Hungary has been Austria's evil genius: the influence of the Magyar oligarchy has given a reactionary flavour alike to internal and to foreign policy, has hampered every reform, and poisoned the relations of the State with ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... to be regaled with a brass band practice, so, finding from one of the assembled Arabs that there was a second institution of the kind in King Street, Long Acre, I passed on thereto. Here I was fortunate enough to find the presiding genius in the person of a young man engaged in business during the day, and devoting his extra time to the work of civilizing the barbarians of this district. Sunday and week-day services, night schools, day schools, Bands of Hope, temperance meetings, and last, not least, the soup kitchen, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Latin apologizing to the reader for troubling him with them. "Though these following testimonies concerning the Author," he says, "were understood by himself to be pronounced not so much about him as over him, by way of subject or occasion— it being the general habit of men of brilliant genius, if they are at the same time one's friends, to fashion their praises too eagerly rather by the standard of their own excellencies than by truth—yet he was unwilling that the singular goodwill of such persons towards him should remain unknown, and the rather because others advised him strongly ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... hell," the Captain said. "He's a genius. That seventeenth-century un-scientist has more feeling for folkways in his calloused left hand than you'd find in all the Colonial Survey. How do you suppose the Old Order maintains itself in Pennsylvania, a tiny Deitsch-speaking enclave surrounded by calico ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... he had thought of women as domestic beings. A wife was the genius of home. He knew men who thanked their wives for all the prosperity and content that they enjoyed. Others he knew who told quite a different tale, but these surely were sorrowful exceptions. Nowadays he saw the matter ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... smiling, repeated the sound, grasped the reins with a firm hand, and spurred his horses, whose beautiful manes floated in the breeze. This child of the desert was in his element, and with his black face and sparkling eyes appeared, in the cloud of dust he raised, like the genius of the simoom and the god of the hurricane. "I never knew till now the delight of speed," said Morcerf, and the last cloud disappeared from his brow; "but where the devil do you get such horses? Are they ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... system of drains and fountains was still to be invented; nothing of the kind as yet existed except the circuit sewer, constructed by Aubriot, provost of Paris under Charles the Wise, who also built the Bastille, the pont Saint-Michel and other bridges, and was the first man of genius who ever thought of the sanitary improvement of Paris. The houses situated like that of Lecamus took from the river the water necessary for the purposes of life, and also made the river serve as a ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... is connected by Aristotle as well as Plato with the flux of Heracleitus. But Aristotle is only following Plato, and Plato, as we have already seen, did not mean to imply that such a connexion was admitted by Protagoras himself. His metaphysical genius saw or seemed to see a common tendency in them, just as the modern historian of ancient philosophy might perceive a parallelism between two thinkers of which they were probably unconscious themselves. We must remember throughout that ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... warm summer's day; the sun rose and smiled as impassively over the Galician mountains, and valleys, and plains as it had smiled through countless ages before the genius of man had invented even the division of time. From all sides of the doomed fortress eager, determined men were advancing; Fort No. 10 was captured at noon by the Twenty-second Bavarian Infantry Regiment; ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... better Our Lord's reproach to Martha. Our Beloved needs neither our brilliant deeds nor our beautiful thoughts. Were He in search of lofty ideas, has He not His Angels, whose knowledge infinitely surpasses that of the greatest genius of earth? Neither intellect nor other talents has He come to seek among us. . . . He has become the Flower of the field to show how much ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... in his chair. "I don't pretend to have Mr. Fulkerson's genius for advertising; but it seems to me a little early yet. We might celebrate later when we've got more to celebrate. At present we're a pleasing novelty, rather than a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Men of great genius as easily discover one another as freemasons can. It was therefore no wonder that the count soon conceived an inclination to an intimacy with our young hero, whose vast abilities could not be concealed from one of the count's discernment; for though this ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... which may be considered a curiously sympathetic supplement to Mrs. Stowe's wonderful defense of slavery as it existed in the South. Mrs. Stowe, let me hasten to say, attacked the possibilities of slavery with all the eloquence of genius; but the same genius painted the portrait of the Southern slave-owner, and ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... Politian. His reason for fixing on this era it is not easy to determine. Mussato preceded Petrarch, the interval between Petrarch and Politian is not particularly illustrated by excellence in Latin poetry; and Politian was much surpassed in correctness and elegance, if not in genius, by those who came after him—by Flaminio, Navagero, and Fracastorio. Yet in the hands of Johnson, such a subject would not have been wanting in instruction or entertainment. Such as were willing to subscribe, were referred ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... of lava, the words flowed from his lips; in fiery dithyrambic, in impassioned hymns, he poured forth his love and pain. The genius of poesy hovered over him and lighted up his noble ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... exceptions in North Carolina. There were many Negroes in old North Carolina who by grasping every opportunity to earn an extra dollar by working for neighboring planters when their own tasks were done, and making such useful articles as their genius could contrive, often after years of patient toiling and saving would often astonish their masters by offering to purchase their freedom. There were others who paid to their masters annually a specified sum of money for their time, that they might enjoy ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... replied Dr. Grey; and, taking up the pen, he added, "Edward Oakley, Esq., late organist of Saint Bede's." It was the last earthly memento of one who, born a gentleman and a genius, had so lived, that, as all Avonsbridge well knew, the greatest blessing which could have happened to his daughter was his death. But, as by some strange and merciful law of compensation often occurs, Christian, inheriting mind and person from him, had inherited temperament, ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... at the lively energy with which that charming woman of genius related this little incident in her eventful history—but off Grosse Isle, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... up and which has its own opinion on the Revolution. This opinion began to be formed between 1825 and 1830, after the retirement or withdrawal of eye witnesses. When they disappeared it was easy to convince a credulous public that crocodiles were philanthropists; that many possessed genius; that they scarcely ate others than the guilty, and that if they sometimes ate too many it was unconsciously and in spite of themselves, or through devotion and self-sacrifice ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... well as our own. It will be enough for us to watch when, bewildered by the lusty life and growth and the maze of new-made streets of the future city, the laggard stands debating with that other self, that genius that has kept him what he is. Fancy his striking attitude, thumbs in arm-pits and eyes rolling up to some tall spire, crying out to his other self, 'Thou canst not say I helped do this! Shake not thy towseled locks at me!'—By ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... at that metropolis, which has received for centuries past, from the provincial towns, the bold adventurer of every denomination; has stamped his character with experience and example; and, while it has bestowed on some coronets and mitres—on some the lasting fame of genius—to others has dealt beggary, infamy, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... Letter," and he, who, as an appreciative critic, publisher, and editor, probably did more to elevate, inspire, and sustain the general literary tone of the city than any other single person. In these stirring days facile American genius springs up, like brush fires, from coast to coast. Novels pour in from the West, the Middle West, the South. To superficial outsiders it may seem as if Boston might be hard-pressed to keep her laurels green, but Boston herself has no fears. Her present may not shine with so unique a brilliance ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... scholar, the little goldsmith had not distinguished himself. Indeed it is said that as a boy he would not "take to any sort of schooling in reading, writing, or arithmetic." It cannot be said that this failure distinguished him as a genius, or the world would be full of genius-boys; but the result was that he early began to ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... seen. In truth, she had been completely forgotten by her uncle, who had wandered off with a knot of preachers after the hospitable dinner, provided for them at his house by Valmai's exertions and Marged Hughes' help; but he had never thought of introducing to his guests the real genius of the feast. She had snatched a hurried meal in the pantry, and, feeling rather lost and bewildered amongst the crowd of strangers, had retired to rest under the elder bushes, until called upon by Marged Hughes to help at the table, which she did at once, overcoming her shyness, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... Florence had been growing prouder and prouder in all the courts of Europe, nay, in Africa itself, on the strength of purest gold coinage, finest dyes and textures, pre-eminent scholarship and poetic genius, and wits of the most serviceable sort for statesmanship and banking: it was a name so omnipresent that a Pope with a turn for epigram had called Florentines "the fifth element." And for this high destiny, though it might partly depend on the stars ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... springing from the same fervid abundance, that links the Spanish tradition to ours of the present day is the strangely impromptu character of much Spanish art production. The slightly ridiculous proverb that genius consists of an infinite capacity for taking pains is well controverted. The creative flow of Spanish artists has always been so strong, so full of vitality, that there has been no time for taking pains. Lope de Vega, with ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
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