"Aptitude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and it seems as if the Malays had a special aptitude for this semi-military service, for they not only form the well-drilled protective forces of Malacca, Sungei Ujong, and Selangor, but that fine body of police in Ceylon of which Mr. George Campbell has so much reason to be proud. Otherwise very few of ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... tenderness toward her—as well as something very characteristically French—very characteristic of the French sentiment of family consistency and solidarity—in the way in which, by constantly counting upon her practical aptitude and zeal, he makes her a fellow worker toward the great total of his fame and fortune. At fifty years of age, at the climax of his distinction, announcing to her his brilliant marriage, he signs himself Ton fils soumis. ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... his plans of expansion to Graham, but he had had no intention of consulting him. In his own department the boy did neither better nor worse than any other of the dozens of young men in the organization. If he had shown neither special aptitude for nor interest in the business, he had at least not signally failed to show either. Now, paper and pencil in hand, Clayton jotted down the various details of the new system in their sequence; the building of a forging plant to make the rough casts for the new Italian shells out of the steel ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... birth, had risen by the virtues of a monk. He was studious, austere, humble, a diligent reader of the Bible, master of the canon law, rigid in his fasts; he wore haircloth next his skin. His time was divided between study, prayer, and business, for which he had great aptitude. From the poor bishopric of Acherontia he had been promoted to the archbishopric of Bari, and had presided over the papal chancery in Avignon. The monk broke out at once on his elevation in the utmost rudeness and rigor, but the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... she manifested when Essex proved unworthy of her friendship! See her love of children, her readiness of sympathy, her fondness for society,—all feminine qualities in a woman who is stigmatized as masculine, as she perhaps was in her mental structure, in her habits of command, and aptitude for business: a strong-minded woman at the worst, yet such a woman as was needed on a throne, especially in stormy times and in a rude ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... every family has a personal stake in promoting excellence in education. Excellence does not begin in Washington. A 600-percent increase in Federal spending on education between 1960 and 1980 was accompanied by a steady decline in Scholastic Aptitude Test scores. Excellence must begin in our homes and neighborhood schools, where it's the responsibility of every parent and teacher and the right of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... of modern Greece, deteriorated and debased as they are by political servitude, many of those qualities which distinguished their predecessors: the same natural acuteness—the same sensibility to pleasure—the same pliancy of mind and elasticity of body—the same aptitude for the arts of imitation—and the same striking physiognomy. That bright, serene sky—that happy combination of land and water, constituting the perfection of the picturesque, and that balmy softness of its air, which ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... anxious to hear if he had discovered any aptitude for acting among the girls and the boys who lived in ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... of the adult woman's voice is wholly unlike that of the child's thin register. Her medium tones, even when sung softly, have a fuller and more resonant quality, and if she lead in songs, etc., the pupils, with the proverbial aptitude for imitation, will inevitably endeavor to imitate her tone-quality. They can only do so by using the thick register, which it is so desirable to utterly avoid. It is worse yet for a man to lead the singing. ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... his eyes failed to predict his future, his hands told the story of his life distinctly enough—those long, white, languid hands, what could they mean but art? And very soon Hubert began to draw, evincing some natural aptitude. Then an artist came into the neighbourhood, the two became friends, and went together on a long sketching tour. Life in the open air, the shade of the hedge, the glare of the highway, the meditation of the field, the languor of the river-side, the ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... a young man; he was no more versed in affairs of this kind than Bernenstein, and it cannot be said that he showed so much aptitude for them. He was decidedly pale this morning; his manner was uneasy, and his hands trembled. He did not lack courage, but that rarer virtue, coolness; and the importance—or perhaps the shame—of his mission upset the balance of his nerves. Hardly noting where he went, ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... here come three days at the end of July, and cannons think it necessary to fire off, squibs and crackers to blaze and fizz, fountains to run wine, kings to make speeches, and subjects to crawl up greasy mats-de-cocagne in token of gratitude and rejouissance publique!—My dear sir, in their aptitude to swallow, to utter, to enact humbugs, these French people, from Majesty downwards, beat all the other nations of this earth. In looking at these men, their manners, dresses, opinions, politics, actions, history, it is impossible to preserve a grave ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... son enters the army as an officer and may continue, but if he has not displayed any special aptitude for the military profession he retires and manages his estate. These estates are calculated by their proprietors to give at least four per cent interest income on the value of the land. Many younger sons after a short term of service ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... professions for which the Negro seems fitted. The South needs labor badly, but she cannot use her millions of Negroes effectively until they are turned into competent and dependable workers. The Negro appears to have little aptitude for mechanical work, or for mill and factory employment. Diversified agriculture on a small scale seems to be the most promising industry for him, and one in which he ought consistently to ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... picture as an imitation of it, but will be due to the execution or colouring or some similar cause. Imitation, then, being natural to us—as also the sense of harmony and rhythm, the metres being obviously species of rhythms—it was through their original aptitude, and by a series of improvements for the most part gradual on their first efforts, that they created ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... They are delicate, complex, and involve large elements of prophecy. They are and should be undertaken only by those directly responsible to the people whose welfare they advance or imperil. They are decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and which has long been held to belong in the domain of political power not subject to ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... respects, he is only," said the father, "a nobler youth than common; but in this singular endowment he has something supernatural to man. He is without fear—he knows not what it is; and, with a dexterity inconceivable, accomplishes the most abstruse and difficult purposes. In his lessons, such is his aptitude, that he learns as if he had brought knowledge with him into the world; and in field-sports, the chase, and all exercises, he possesses an ardour and courage by which he outstrips every competitor. His generosity is equally unbounded; and whatever he undertakes is pursued ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... nature he is in this half-hatched civilization of ours, which merely distracts our energies by multiplying our needs and leaves us no better off than we were before we discovered them! He seems to have a natural aptitude for discerning, or even inventing, your wants and supplies them before you yourself are aware of them. While in his hands nothing petty invades you. Great-mindedness becomes possible. "Magnanimus AEneas" must have had an excellent ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... these abstract combinations exercising a wonderful fascination over me. Our professor, the good Abbe Duchesne, was particularly attentive in his lessons to me and to my close friend and fellow-student Guyomar, who displayed a great aptitude for this branch of study. We always returned together from the college. Our shortest cut was by the square, and we were too conscientious to deviate from the most direct route; but when we had had to ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... of the Fanariotes, who were trained to official aptitude and immorality under the Turks—of the politicians of the revolution who deserted the cause of their country for the service of the protecting powers at the last national assembly—and of a large class of educated men not bred to commerce, who have resorted to Greece to make their fortunes, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... "admired disorder;" yet he could lay his hand on any volume in a moment, "You never saw," he writes, "a bookcase in more true harmony with the contents than what I have nailed up in my room. Though new, it has more aptitude for growing old than you shall often see; as one sometimes gets a friend in the middle of life who becomes an old friend ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... over the letter, thought he knew the hand writing, and, of course, was already acquainted with the charge made against poor Pen. Against his own conscience, perhaps (for the worthy doctor, like most of us, had a considerable natural aptitude for receiving any report unfavorable to his neighbors), he strove to console Helen; he pointed out that the slander came from an anonymous quarter, and therefore must be the work of a rascal; that the charge might not be true—was not ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... aptitude or taste of philosophical reflections, so he merely mentioned that Alfred was living in Sutton, and hoped that Mildred ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... which hardly allows of a step in advance or retreat even in the course of ten years. The secret intrigues of men who desire above all things to avoid noise requires special shrewdness, a special aptitude for dealing with small matters, and a patient endurance such as one only finds in persons callous to all passions. It is thus that provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely ridiculed in Paris, is full of treachery, secret stabs, hidden victories and defeats. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... University Correspondence Class will be found neither better nor worse than those of any other, and they may therefore pass unnoticed; if however, the correspondence system of tuition may furnish the means of arousing a latent aptitude, when the possibilities of other methods of approach are excluded— and in so doing, of elevating the individual to that position for which he was by nature qualified, ensuring him the introduction to the one sphere of labour for which he was born— it will have ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... were an agricultural people, while the Huns were nomads; they had good laws, and were tolerably well civilized, but the Huns were savages. It is probable that they belonged to the Thibetic or Turkish stock, which has always been in advance of the Finnic, and has shown a greater aptitude for political organization and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Line of Head long and well marked, it increases all the promise of mental aptitude and success, but with a weak, badly marked, or irregular Head Line, it augments all its ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... those days. It was difficult also for Congress to know how to judge and discriminate concerning the material which it found at its disposal. There had been nothing in the careers of the prominent patriots to indicate whether or not any especial one among them had a natural aptitude for diplomacy. The selection must be made with little knowledge of the duties of the position, and with no knowledge of the responsive characteristics of the man. It was only natural that many of the appointments thus blindly made should turn out ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... an aptitude at his lessons that had created in his guardian's mind some ambition for him, and she held him down to his books with rigid assiduity. He was naturally studious, but the feeling that he was being driven made his tasks repellent, ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... volage nature where the other sex are concerned, and early shows tendencies which ought to be sympathetically checked and directed. Catherine has got a strong touch of Uncle Billy's unscrupulousness, and is often deceitful and scheming, with a wonderful aptitude for the nursery dominoes and other games of chance. But both, taught by Fraulein or Mademoiselle—and that good old Nurse Timson!—only show their mother their sweetest side when in her company, and are meek, well-behaved little mice, influenced to be thus not from any moral conviction—because ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... lightly and underrates the peril to which the United States was then exposed. Genet was no casual rhetorician raised to important office by caprice of events, but a trained diplomatist of hereditary aptitude and of long experience. His father was chief of the bureau of correspondence in the Department of Foreign Affairs for the French monarchy, and it was as an interpreter attached to that bureau that the son began his career in 1775. While still ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... basket-making. A considerable training and natural aptitude go to form the expert workman, for the ultimate perfection of shape and beauty of texture depend upon the more or less perfect conception of form in the [v.03 p.0482] craftsman's mind and on his power to impress it on a recalcitrant material. In England at least, he rarely uses ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... too prone to dilapidate and destroy their dwellings; they were therefore required to pay for the locks, cupboards, and doors. They were instructed in the Christian religion, and displayed considerable aptitude; but of some, it is remarked, that they were inattentive to learning, and fond of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... well as traders, along the coast of the Indian Ocean. As the Bantu vary in aspect, so do they also in intelligence. No tribe is in this respect conspicuously superior to any other, though the Zulus show more courage in fight than most of the others, the Fingos more aptitude for trade, the Basutos more disposition to steady industry. But, while the general level of intellect is below that of the Red Indians or the Maoris or the Hawaiians (if rather above that of the Guinea negroes), individuals are now and then found of considerable talents and great force of ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... can make beds and clean rooms—all that sort o' thing. As for cooking, I've got a natural aptitude for it. You ask Emma; she'll tell you. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... may pass for one good reason for not writing a play, that I cannot form a plot. But the truth is, that the idea adopted by too favourable judges, of my having some aptitude for that department of poetry, has been much founded on those scraps of old plays, which, being taken from a source inaccessible to collectors, they have hastily considered the offspring of my mother-wit. Now, the manner in which ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... had ever a companion more innocent, engaging, gay, and airy. But although in this case it would be easy to exaggerate its import, yet, in the Jenkin family also, the tragedy of the generations was proceeding, and the child was growing out of his father's knowledge. His artistic aptitude was of a different order. Already he had his quick sight of many sides of life; he already overflowed with distinctions and generalisations, contrasting the dramatic art and national character of England, Germany, Italy, and France. If he were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the length of Linderman, displaying an aptitude that caused both young men of money and disinclination for work to name him boat-steerer. Shorty was no less pleased, and volunteered to continue cooking and leave the boat ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... venal purposes by their trafficking visitors. Now among the Algonkins, the Shawnee tribe did more than all others combined to introduce and carry about religious legends and ceremonies. From the earliest times they seem to have had peculiar aptitude for the ecstasies, deceits, and fancies that made up the spiritual life of their associates. Their constantly roving life brought them in contact with the myths of many nations. And it is extremely probable that they first brought the tale of the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... well hope to occupy these posts, not only because of their aptitude for organization on so large a scale, but because their international relations would facilitate the sale or barter of goods between countries. The cohesion which exists amongst them would speedily lead to the monopolization of all the higher posts ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... the clock by the chime now sounding from the stables. I have fed on bread and milk (a dreadfully opaque diet) and I await the morning Church in humble hope. It will begin in half an hour. We keep early hours in the country. So you will be able exactly to measure my aptitude and fullness for letter writing by the quantity written now, before I bolt off for hat, gloves, and prayerbook. I always put on my thickest great coat to go to our Church in: as fungi grow in great numbers about the communion table. And now, to turn away ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... to feel at ease, and acquire a genuine fondness for sea life. My aptitude for languages not only familiarized me with English, but enabled me soon to begin the scientific study of navigation, in which, I am glad to say, that Captain Solomon Towne was always pleased to aid ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... As he was industrious, he did not fail in it; because it was not the thing he loved best, he did not markedly succeed. It was too late to change his profession, and he found in himself no such decided aptitude for anything else as should make him know that this or that would have been preferable; but he knew now that the genius of the physician was not his, that to do his work because it was duty, and to attain the respectable success ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... been given accounts to make fair copies of, Mr. Goodworthy was not satisfied and gave them to another clerk to do. At first the work had been tolerable from its novelty, but now it grew irksome; and when he discovered that he had no aptitude for it, he began to hate it. Often, when he should have been doing something that was given him, he wasted his time drawing little pictures on the office note-paper. He made sketches of Watson in every conceivable attitude, and Watson was impressed by his talent. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... all this? There was insanity on both sides. For him, the prince, to love this woman with passion, was unthinkable. It would be cruel and inhuman. Yes. Rogojin is not fair to himself; he has a large heart; he has aptitude for sympathy. When he learns the truth, and finds what a pitiable being is this injured, broken, half-insane creature, he will forgive her all the torment she has caused him. He will become her slave, her brother, her friend. Compassion will teach even Rogojin, it will show him how to reason. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... or a dog. And, since I must publish my whole shame, 'tis not above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of the use of leaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat. They conjectured of old at Athens, an aptitude for the mathematics in him they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood. In earnest, they would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for give me the whole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve. By these features of my confession ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... any thing, implying some continuance or permanence. It may be formed by nature or induced by extraneous circumstances. It is a settled disposition of the mind or body, involving an aptitude for the performance of certain actions, acquired by custom or frequent repetition. There are habits of the body, of the mind, of action; physical, mental, moral and religious habits. All these are included ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... of them has any natural aversion. The repugnance to evil, if they ever felt it, has long since disappeared from their natures. The man is serious, the woman frivolous, but the criminal tendency in both cases is the same; each performs his or her part in the crime with characteristic aptitude. Mrs. Manning was a creature of much firmer character than her husband, a woman of strong passions, a redoubtable murderess. Without her dominating force Manning might never have committed murder. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... I am the son of peasants; my father was marshal in a poor village of Auvergne. At school I gave proof of a certain aptitude for work above my comrades, and our cure conceived an affection for me and taught me all he knew. Then he made me enter a small seminary. But I had neither the docile mind nor the submissive character that was necessary for this education, and after several ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... obvious that that body of men should be thoroughly trained. In the German army the training of men to do this work (General Staff work) is given only to officers specially selected. Certain young officers who promise well are sent to the war college. Those who show aptitude and industry are then put tentatively into the General Staff. Those who show marked fitness in their tentative employment are then put into the General Staff, which is as truly a special corps as is our construction corps. How closely ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... another had twenty-three houses and one hundred and fifty acres under tillage, raising barley, wheat, potatoes and vegetables, and having thirty-six head of cattle. It is unnecessary to multiply instances, of the aptitude, the Indians are exhibiting, within so recent a period after the completion of the treaties, to avail themselves of obtaining their subsistence from the soil. Their desire to do so, should be cultivated to the fullest extent. They are, of course, generally ignorant of the ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... the career in which he was so successful. It is true that war fully developed many qualities which had been observed in him previously, and (surest sign of real capacity) he to the last continued to grow with every call that was made upon him. But he manifested an aptitude for the peculiar service in which he acquired so much distinction, an instinctive appreciation of the requisites for success, and a genius for command, which made themselves immediately recognized, but which no one had expected. Nature had certainly endowed him with some ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... definite," said Mr. Bolton. "Philip is showing aptitude for his profession. I hear the best reports of him in New York, though those sharpers don't 'intend to do anything but use him. I've written and offered him employment in surveying and examining the land. We want to know what it is. And if ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... urging him to "Learn Movie Acting, a fascinating profession that pays big. Would you like to know," it demanded, "if you are adapted to this work? If so, send ten cents for our Ten-Hour Talent-Prover, or Key to Movie-Acting Aptitude, and find whether you are suited ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... he has always lived in a somewhat humble position, and it is to the credit of his nature as a man that he bears not the slightest trace of the parvenu. Plain and undistinguished in appearance, he combines the advantages of a prodigious memory with a remarkable aptitude for reading his fellow-man, and this last quality would be more valuable were it not leavened by a weakness in resisting flattery and adulation. He is very pious and self-reliant, which is provocative of bigotry and hot temper; and surrounded and approached ...
— 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
... sat stretching himself in an easy chair in the drawing-room, before the fire, previously to his dressing for dinner. It was a November evening, and he had been out all day, and on such occasions the aptitude for delay in dressing is very powerful. A strong-minded man goes direct from the hall door to his chamber without encountering the ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... perpetrated on puppies during the course of their education or 'breaking-in', are sometimes infamous. Young dogs, like young people, must be to a certain degree coerced; but these animals receive from nature so great an aptitude for learning, and practising that which we require of them, and their own pleasure is so much connected with what they learn, that there is no occasion for one-tenth part of the correction that is occasionally ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... varieties having opposing characteristics so as to obtain a smoother beverage. This is called blending, a process that has attained the standing of an art in the United States. Most package coffees are blends. In addition to other qualities, the practical coffee blender must have a natural aptitude for the work. He must also have long experience before he becomes proficient, and must be acquainted with the different properties of all the coffees grown, or at least of those that come to his market. Furthermore, he must know the variations in characteristics ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the middle of the country that sericulture chiefly nourishes. The smallest output of raw silk is from the most northerly prefecture and from the prefecture in the extreme south-west of the mainland. But human aptitude plays its part as well as climate. The Japanese hand is a wonderful piece of mechanism—look at the hands of the next Japanese you meet—and in sericulture its delicate touch is used to the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... York. Its early years were lean and filled with bickerings and doubts, and it was not until S. E. Wilkinson was elected grand master in 1885 that it assumed an important role in labor organizations. Wilkinson was one of those big, rough and ready men, with a natural aptitude for leadership, who occasionally emerge from the mass. He preferred railroading to schooling and spent more time in the train sheds of his native town of Monroeville, Ohio, than he did at school. At twelve years of age he ran away to join the Union Army, in which ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... elements of both processes. Education, as the etymology of the term suggests, denotes culture of original tendencies; yet the routine of a school system is frequently organized about formal discipline rather than around interest, aptitude, and attention. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the prospect of anything spicy, but by grave, financial authorities, Ministers and ex-Ministers, who listened attentively to his acute criticism. His public speaking benefited by a rare combination of literary style and oratorical aptitude. There was no smell of the lamp about his polished, pungent sentences. But they had the unmistakable mark of literary style. Had his physical strength not failed, and his life not been embittered by the episode ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... point it is needful to make mention of the third generation—the several sons who early showed their zeal and aptitude for perpetuating the family tradition. It was from his school playground that the eldest son, Percival, witnessed with intense interest what appeared like a drop floating in the sky at an immense altitude. This proved to ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... and seals: they are what zoologists call aberrant and highly specialised types, and therefore precisely those which might be expected to display a fixity and want of pliancy in their organisation, or the smallest possible aptitude for deviating in new directions towards new structures, and the acquisition of such altered habits as a change from aquatic to terrestrial or from Volant to non-volant modes of living ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... Chaillot, but he did not stay there long, for about the 25th of September he was at 21 Rue Careme-Prenant in the Faubourg du Temple. Hozier had rented an entresol there, and had employed a man called Spain, who had an aptitude for this sort of work, to make a secret place in it. Spain, under pretence of indispensable repairs, had shut himself up with his tools in the apartment, and had made a cleverly-concealed trap-door, by means of which, in case of alarm, the tenants could descend to the ground floor and go ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... story in a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the passion and the tragedies ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... His aptitude for scientific pursuits early revealed itself, and he had a perfect passion for exploration. When only a boy, he usually chose to spend his holidays scouring the country for botanical, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... What did she do there? How did she consort with an Italian husband? With what ambition was she soon inspired in the more elevated position in which her second marriage placed her at Rome? What talents, what political aptitude were manifested by her, and developed at a court which at that time bore the highest repute for skill in politics and diplomacy? How did Italian finesse and cunning blend and harmonize with the quick penetration and delicate tact of the Frenchwoman? What ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... effective interdependent proportions. In a technical way an exception should be noted in his skilful building of the ode—a form in which he was extremely successful and for which he evidently had a native aptitude ... Lowell's constitutes, on the whole, the most admirable American contribution to the nature poetry of English literature—far beyond that of Bryant, Whittier, or Longfellow, I think, and only occasionally excelled here and there by the magic touch of ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... brains and imbeciles heavy ones. We must not forget the great importance of the hereditary or engraphic predispositions of the nerve element or neurone, to certain activities and especially to work in general, that is to say, their aptitude to produce energy, or if one prefers it, their ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... voix douce: "Que veux-tu, mon ami? cela passera en grandissant; son ge, j'tais comme lui." En attendant, Jacques grandissait; il grandissait beaucoup mme, et cela ne lui passait pas. Tout au contraire, la singulire aptitude qu'avait cet trange garon rpandre sans raison des averses de larmes allait chaque jour en augmentant. Aussi la dsolation de nos parents lui fut une grande fortune.... C'est pour le coup qu'il s'en donna de sangloter ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... over to the marine sentry, telling him to send them on to the ship's office; "and, as you are now both eighteen, the proper age to be entered on the books as 'ordinary seamen,' and have shown your aptitude for the service during the six months you have been aboard this ship, I pass you, my lads, so you may now look upon yourselves as ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... remembrance of posterity, at least has that of giving one distinguished statesman to British America, and a governor to New Brunswick. It was in this society that he made his first attempt at public speaking, and it may be said that from the very beginning he showed a remarkable aptitude for debate and ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... through its professors. The People need feeling alone, and feeling they possess. They take their station before the curtain with an unvoiced longing, with a multifarious capacity. They bring with them an aptitude for what is highest—they derive the greatest pleasure from what is judicious and true; and if, with these powers of appreciation, they deign to be satisfied with inferior productions, still, if they have once tasted what is excellent, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... acute for natural phenomena; his memory is excellent, as often as he sees fit to make use of it. There is no difference between him and the Caucasian in original faculties, and the reticence peculiar to him under certain circumstances is not due to lack of mental aptitude. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... himself, told me what passages he chose in the history of his life: how he came to be frocked (but 'cucullus non facit monachum'), and how, in the troubles of these times, he had discovered in himself a great aptitude for the gunner's trade, of which he boasted not a little. He had been in one and another of these armed companies that took service with either side, for hire, being better warriors and more skilled than the noblesse, but a curse to France: for, in peace ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... tormented puppets, moving and capering, not at all from will and desire of their own, but agitated violently and incessantly by some hidden hand, forced into playing parts they did not want to play, saying words they had no wish to speak, cutting antics for which they had no aptitude or liking. Cruelties lurked everywhere, waiting in the confused mummery. Reality was being left and with it the practical grasp of those powerful simplicities that alone can guide life through confusion. I felt this with stinging certainty. Everyone seemed ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... and already showing uncommon aptitude for study, he went with his instructor and friend, Rev. Thatcher Thayer, to the town of Dennis, upon Cape Cod, where he spent four years ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... first choice for the new western command was "Light-Horse Harry" Lee. But considerations of rank made the appointment inexpedient, and "Mad Anthony" Wayne was named instead. Wayne was the son of a Pennsylvania frontiersman and came honestly by his aptitude for Indian fighting. In early life he was a surveyor, and in the Revolution he won distinction as a dashing commander of Pennsylvania troops at Ticonderoga, Brandywine, Germantown, Stony Point, and other important engagements. Finally he obtained ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... average British ship of the same strength; and that the latter was in turn superior to the average French ship. The explanation given by the victor is in each case the same; the American writer ascribes the success of his nation to "the aptitude of the American character for the sea," and the Briton similarly writes that "the English are inherently better suited for the sea than the French." Race characteristics may have had some little effect between the last pair of combatants (although only a little), and it is possible ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... received an assignment which is decidedly unwelcome either as to location or occupation, it is not even then, or indeed at any time, too late to endeavor to find another. The administration has done its best to adjust the individual aptitude and wishes of each worker to the needs of the public service, but its machinery is at his service for any further attempts he may wish to ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... had been insulted in the person of Adair, and it was not long before a bright idea was elicited from among them. On board the ship, belonging to the men, was a large monkey, whom they called Quirk, a very tame and sagacious animal, who had a peculiar aptitude for learning any trick which any person had perseverance enough to teach him. "He'd know more nor any of the ship's boys if it weren't for his tail," the men used to remark after the performance of one of his ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... made by Holbach of Boulanger's name makes it necessary to consider for a moment this almost forgotten writer. Nicholas Antoine Boulanger was born in 1722. As a child he showed so little aptitude for study that later his teachers could scarcely believe that he had turned out to be a really learned man. As Diderot observes, "ces exemples d'enfans, rendus ineptes entre les mains des Pdans qui les abrutissent en dpit de la nature la plus ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... in one way or another, earned his own living and he had learned even beyond his father's hopes to tune pianos. But he did it at an incredibly small expense in time and energy. What his heart went into during those two years was the study of musical theory and composition, and, thanks to a special aptitude which rose to the pitch of genius, he managed to make the comparatively meager training he could get in so short a time, suffice to give him the technical ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... they were; because they had paid the money and he had received the pleasure. And the occasion is a fair one for self-complacency. While the one man was working to be able to buy the picture, the other was working to be able to enjoy the picture. An inherited aptitude will have been diligently improved in either case; only the one man has made for himself a fortune, and the other has made for himself a living spirit. It is a fair occasion for self-complacency, I repeat, when the event ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... know what I think of you. You have a particular aptitude for beneficence. You have it in the first place in your character. You are a benevolent person. Ask Bessie if you don't hold her more gently and comfortably than any of ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... word social in its broadest sense, are physical, intellectual and material. There must be developed manly strength and courage and a power of intellect which will manifest itself in organization and attractiveness, and in the aptitude of employing appropriate methods for ends in view. To these must be added the power that comes through wealth; and thus, with the real advancement of condition and character will come, tardily and grudgingly perhaps, but nevertheless ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... unsaleable translations of Welsh and Danish bards, a travelling tinker and a vagabond Ulysses, he became a person of considerable importance. His name was acclaimed with praise and enthusiasm at Bible meetings from one end of the country to the other. He developed an astonishing aptitude for affairs, a tireless energy, and a diplomatic resourcefulness that aroused silent wonder in those who had hitherto regarded him as a failure. His illegal imprisonment in Madrid nearly brought about a diplomatic rupture between Great Britain and Spain, and later his missionary ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... Under good regulations they might, no doubt, be rendered serviceable; but every alteration of their condition, with regard to the hospitals, to be an improvement, must bring them nearer to the superior condition of responsible nurses, chosen for their aptitude, and remunerated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... It was more than a century since the works of Darwin and other philosophers had been burned. Young students who showed an aptitude for science, and so were potentially dangerous, were taken early within the Sacred Precincts, initiated into the mysteries of the Priests, and were given work and safety under the shadow of the Entity. They rarely went wrong; and when they did they went further ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... and historian, second s. of Joseph H., of Ninewells, Berwickshire, was b. and ed. in Edin., and was intended for the law. For this, however, he had no aptitude, and commercial pursuits into which he was initiated in a counting-house in Bristol proving equally uncongenial, he was permitted to follow out his literary bent, and in 1734 went to France, where he passed three years at Rheims and La Fleche in study, living on a small allowance ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Wales, and Scotland are essentially the same. They are middle horned; not extraordinary milkers, and remarkable for the quality rather than the quantity of their milk; active at work, and with an unequalled aptitude to fatten. They have all the characters of the same breed, changed by soil, climate, and time, yet little changed by man. The color, even, may be almost traced, namely: the red of the Devon, the Sussex, and the Hereford; and where ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... thickness. She was, however, taller than her mother, and very much more graceful in her movement. And she could already assume a personal dignity of manner which had never been within her mother's reach. She had become aware of a certain brusqueness of speech in her mother, a certain aptitude to say sharp things without thinking whether the sharpness was becoming to the position which she held, and, taking advantage of the example, the girl had already learned that she might gain more than she would lose by ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... alertness, industry, punctuality, are capable of being developed by education. It is further admitted that such special qualities as literary or artistic taste, the mathematical or the historical sense, an aptitude for business or finance, are ready to evolve themselves, in response to the fostering influence of practical experience directed by skilful teaching. It is admitted, in other words, that there is much in human nature, apart from ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... ability to use the doughy weapon at his side, he would not have resisted the strong temptation to draw his sword and make an example then and there of the contemners of his power and magnificence. But the culprits has shown such an aptitude in the use of arms as to inspire his wholesome respect, and he was very far from sure that they might not make a display of his broadsword an occasion for heaping fresh ridicule upon him. An opportune remembrance came ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... that," Ditmar replied, who was quite willing to have it thought that his inquiry was concerned with Janet's aptitude ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Ware, Massachusetts. He was put into the dyeing and bleaching department, and was thoroughly trained in it by Mr. William T. Smith, a scientific man, and one of the best practical chemists in New England. Young Holt manifested a remarkable aptitude for chemistry, and when but a mere boy was known as one of the most successful and dexterous manipulators in ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... administration of Rome in the absence of his imperial master. Cicero wrote letters to his freedman Tiro in terms of friendship and affection. The master of a great household selected a slave for his ability and aptitude, and had him trained to be the medical adviser of the household; and the skill shown by the doctor sometimes gained ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... remarkable aptitude for guessing, Horace, and this case offers you no tough problem—if ever you acknowledged toughness. I have a regard for her and for him—for both pretty equally; you know I have, and I should be thoroughly thankful to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... been as prosperous as the country one had been the reverse. The provincial trade in arms declined with the close of the York and Lancaster wars. Men were not permitted to turn from one handicraft to another, and Robert Headley had neither aptitude nor resources. His wife was vain and thriftless, and he finally broke down under his difficulties, appointing by will his cousin to act as his executor, and to take charge of his only son, who had served out half his time as apprentice to himself. There had been delay until the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... speculative plane. He excels in sharp etchings which bring the outline of a character into bold prominence. He is happy in defining isolated traits and in throwing a new light on much used words. "Cleverness," he writes, "is a certain knack or aptitude at doing certain things, which depend more on a particular adroitness and off-hand readiness than on force or perseverance, such as making puns, making epigrams, making extempore verses, mimicking the company, mimicking a style, etc.... Accomplishments are certain external graces, which ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... find school-furniture studied with painstaking care and proportioned to their stature, have been placed the works executed by the school-children themselves of every kind, primary, maternal and professional. These works, in a general way, prove an average aptitude for the industrial arts, and indicate a real taste for beautiful forms. A hall is wholly set apart for the pupils of the special schools. Finally, around the two pavilions are arranged the numerous statues, purchased, or ordered by the City of Paris, ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... twenty-five—consecrated her life to the care of her young son—just eight years old—and, under her parental roof in the Via del Corso, she engaged some of the best teachers of the day to undertake his education. Cosimonino's aptitude for military affairs and his taste for chemical studies soon made ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... in church of Santa Croce. Gauthier, M.: exiled to Lausanne. Geneva: scenery, Fort de l'Ecluse; arcades; J.J. Rousseau; Calvin; Servetus; sentiments of Genevese towards Napoleon and the Revolution; literary aptitude of Genevese; attachment to their country; the women; French refugees refused an asylum in; admitted into Helvetic Confederation. Genoa: the women of, peculiarities of the streets; ducal palace; Columbus; bridge of Carignano; churches. Georges, Mlle: fine ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... Temporal Coadjutors; their duty was to administer the property of the Society, to superintend its houses, to distribute alms, to work in hospitals, to cook, garden, wash, and act as porters. They took the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Those, on the other hand, who showed some aptitude for learning, were classified as Scholastics, and were distributed among the colleges of the order. They studied languages, sciences, and theology, for a period of five years; after which they taught in schools for another period of five or six years; and when ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Puritan, has for his opinion "no exquisite reasons, but reasons good enough." In the periods of science immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena, enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good—they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... unsightly manner. Joe had hardly made good that character for "fighting it out to the end" for which he was apt to claim credit. Boscobel was altogether disconcerted by his fall. And Nokes, who had certainly shown no aptitude for the fray, was abused by them all as having caused their retreat by his cowardice; while Sing Sing, the runaway cook, who knew that he had forfeited his wages at Gangoil, was forced to turn over in his heathenish mind ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... of the tribes on both sides of the Salt Range, such as Gakkhars, Janjuas, Awans Tiwanas, Ghebas, and Johdras, who are fine horsemen and expert tent-peggers, not "tall heavy men without any natural aptitude for horsemanship," as Sir Herbert Risley described his typical Panjabi (p. 59 of ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... called Max seemed to be looked upon as a leader, for it is absolutely necessary that in every pack of boys some one takes the initiative. His whole name was Max Hastings, and on numberless occasions he had shown an aptitude for "doing things" when the occasion arose, that gained him the respect of his chums. For a complete record of these achievements the reader is referred to earlier volumes of this series, where between the covers will be found much ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie |
