"Propensity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Lo, a coward!" It is only too true that cowards and sluggards both may take shelter under a shield of indifference; but it is equally true that any reasonably acute mind, if only charitably disposed, can readily distinguish between an inactivity which springs from craven or sluggish propensity, and that other which belongs to constitutional temperament, and which, while passing calm and dispassionate judgment upon excesses of opinion of either party, contributes insensibly to moderate the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... slightly over four acres, where the market is held every Saturday, and where once a year is also held that great event of Nottingham, the Michaelmas goose fair. Here also disport themselves at election-times the rougher element, who, from their propensity to bleat when expressing disapprobation, are known as the "Nottingham lambs," and who claim to be lineal descendants from that hero of the neighboring Sherwood Forest, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... numbers of applicants. The Bhils freely hunted down and captured their friends and relations who continued to create disturbances, and brought them in for punishment. Outram managed to check their propensity for liquor by paying them every day just sufficient for their food, and giving them the balance of their pay at the end of the month, when some might have a drinking bout, but many preferred to spend the money on ornaments and articles of finery. With the assistance of the corps the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... sensation, which is the best security for the success of a drama—curiosity. After the two first acts are over, and pleasantly over, with the excellent drawn characters of Ashfield and his wife, and the very just satire which arises from Sir Abel's propensity to modern improvements—the acts that follow excite deep interest and ardent expectation; both of which are so highly gratified at the conclusion of the play, that, from the first night of its performance, it has ranked among the best of the author's productions, and in the first class ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... young nephew of Mrs. Lafirme, whose duty on the plantation was comprehended in doing as he was bid, qualified by a propensity for doing as he liked, rode up from the store one day in the reckless fashion peculiar to Southern youth, breathless with the information that a stranger was there wishing audience ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... Eve have profited little by her example. The curiosity of the fair sex is still insatiable, and, as it is often ill directed, it frequently terminates in error. In the country this feminine propensity is troublesome to a traveller, and he who would avoid importunities would do well to announce at once, on his arrival at a Cumberland inn, his name and his business, the place of his abode and the length of ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... records. He raised objections in order to show how he could remove them, and started difficulties about matters which had not before been brought into question. In the beginning of his ministry, he manifested this propensity. At a church meeting at John Putnam's house, Feb. 20, 1690, less than three months after his ordination, he threw open the whole question of baptism for discussion among the brethren. There is no reason to suppose that their attention had been ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... seemed to value himself not a little on the distinction. Pride in skepticism is a peculiar distinction of young men. It takes years and maturity to make the discovery that the power of faith is nobler than the power of doubt; and that there is a celestial wisdom in the ingenuous propensity to trust, which belongs to honest and noble natures. Elderly skeptics generally regard their unbelief ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Warwick, I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done him in the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of Newcastle once, and as the farmer in Conway described Mount Washington, I thought the Duke felt a propensity to "hunch up some." Somehow it is pleasant to look down on the crowd and have a conscious right to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... by the sound of loud growlings, which made Uncle Mark and several of the party start to their feet, with guns ready to receive the bear from whom they expected an attack. Recollecting Jacques' propensity to practical joking, I lay quiet; and I heard my uncle come back soon afterwards, growling almost as much as the supposed bear, and observing that the brute had got off, though it must have been close to the camp. I said nothing, though I suspected who had performed ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... as one of the brightest ornaments of this nation. Originally, his name was Winfred, or Winfrith, and he was born at Kirton, in Devonshire, then part of the West-Saxon kingdom. When he was only about six years of age, he began to discover a propensity to reflection, and seemed solicitous to gain information on religious subjects. Wolfrad, the abbot, finding that he possessed a bright genius, as well as a strong inclination to study, had him removed to Nutscelle, a seminary of learning in the diocese of Winchester, where he ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... there, but in their fissures rose stately trees, under whose umbrage nestled the villages of the people. We found the various village elders greedy for cloth, but the presence of the younger son of Nzogera's men restrained their propensity for extortion. Goats and sheep were remarkably cheap, and in good condition; and, consequently, to celebrate our arrival near the Malagarazi, a flock of eight goats was slaughtered, and distributed ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... slightest propensity either to extravagance in herself or to the encouragement of extravagance in others, the Princesse de Lamballe was a model of prudence, and upon those subjects, as indeed upon all others, the Queen could not have had a more discreet counsellor. She ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... must be admitted that to bestow intellectual culture upon the pupils, without giving them religious instruction, is to draw forth and add to the powers of the mind, without giving it any helm to guide it; in other words, it is to increase the capacity, without diminishing the propensity, to do evil. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... the mind. The imaginary positions I loved most, were generally of the painful kind: the greater the sufferings of the personages concerned in my various plots of combined circumstances, the more was my propensity gratified. From this morbid state of excitement, I was, of course, often precipitated, by the mere decay of the cerebral energy that fed it; and when I was forced again to contemplate and mix with the common affairs of life, I felt the contrast ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... had ever since his youth developed a peculiar kind of mean and silly propensity. Having moreover from tender infancy grown up side by side with Tai-Y, their hearts and their feelings were in perfect harmony. More, he had recently come to know to a great extent what was what, and had also filled his head with the contents of a number of corrupt books and licentious ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of the Collector's, had a streak of genius as an architect and several lesser gifts, among them a propensity for borrowing and a flexible tenor voice. He trolled an ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Social developments tended to the same, and no longer either wishing or finding it possible to roam, they were all now, through an entire century, taking up their ground and making good their tumultuous irruptions; with the power of moving had been conjoined a propensity to move. Rustic life, which must essentially have been maintained on the great area of German vagrancy, was more and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... always be soothed into smiles by an open bureau with large liberty to upheave its contents from turret to foundation-stone. As the infant world ascended from cambric and dimity to broadcloth and crinoline, its propensity for investigation grew stronger. It loved not bureaus less, but a great many other things more. What sad consequences might have ensued, had this passion been left to forage for itself, no one can tell. But, by the wonderful principle of adaptation which obtains throughout the universe, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... then the peanuts are cracked and munched faster than ever; one hand being employed in fortifying the inner man with this nutriment of universal use, while the other enforces the views of the orator. This laughing propensity of the sable crowd is a great cause of disorder. They laugh as hens cackle—one begins ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... Miss Mitchell, of Nantucket, has lately discovered a planet, long looked for? I can not conceive why "honor to whom honor is due" should not be rendered to woman as well as man; nor will it necessarily exalt her, or foster feminine pride. This propensity is found alike in male and female, and it should not be ministered ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... plying the hammer, the file, and the chisel, in preference to the saw and the plane. Many a cuff did the foreman of carpenters give him for absenting himself from his proper shop and stealing off to the smithy. His propensity was indeed so strong that, at the end of a year, it was thought better, as he was a handy, clever boy, to yield to his earnest desire to be placed in the smithy, and he was removed thither accordingly in ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... and he certainly looks and acts the part," she murmured to herself as the wagon rattled away from the sidewalk, "but his propensity for turning up at the right time and the right place is rapidly becoming a matter of habit." A door beside the desk stood ajar, and above it, Patty read the words "WASH ROOM." Pushing it open she glanced into the interior which was dimly lighted by a ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... many persons sufficiently aware of the ruinous extent to which the amative propensity is indulged by married persons. The matrimonial ceremony does, indeed, sanctify the act of sexual intercourse, but it can by no means atone for nor obviate the consequences of its abuse. Excessive indulgence ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Then ought I.—Ver. 445. Nestor here shows a little of the propensity for boasting, which distinguishes ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... an infernal ball. It became endowed with a fiendish propensity to run up a player's leg and all about him, as if trying to hide in his pocket. Grace's efforts to find it were heartbreaking to watch. Every time it bounded out to center field, which was of frequent ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... seen elsewhere, and indeed, thanks be to God, within the limits of my own home. The best I can say for it is that I do not think it was a vicious childhood. I do not think, trying to look at the past impartially, that I had a strong natural propensity then developed to what are termed the mortal sins. But truth obliges me to record this against myself. I have no recollection of being a loving or a winning child; or an earnest or diligent or knowledge-loving child. God forgive me. And what pains and shames me most of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... gravely. He was still a little suspicious of his chum's propensity to tease. It did not tend to make him less uneasy when, a little later, Captain Eri opened the parlor door and whispered, "Say, Perez, I've jest thought of some-thin'. What are you goin' to say to M'lissy Busteed? Her ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... am!' she cried, 'that this thing has happened. But you are very fortunate that it has occurred in my house, rather than in somebody else's, for I know what measures to take to cure you of the propensity to crime which you have so clearly shown. I shall, of course, have to send you away immediately; for I could never again trust you in my home, for although it is only a trifle that you have stolen,—yes, deliberately stolen,—yet anyone who takes only ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... sense of life's gravity: at least, as we go on in years, we are all tempted to frown upon our neighbour's pleasures. People are nowadays so fond of resisting temptations; here is one to be resisted. They are fond of self-denial; here is a propensity that cannot be too peremptorily denied. There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbours good. One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neighbour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Revolutionary thought "represented an attack on over- interference, vested interests, superstition, and tyranny of every form. It showed a marked propensity to ignore history, and to judge everything by its immediate reasonableness. It pictured a society free from all laws and coercion, freed from all clerical influence and ruled by benevolence, a society in which all men had equal rights and were able to attain the fullest self-realization. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... who though very amiable in the main, and obliging in their offices to others, have yet that most unhappy propensity of being ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... principally on fish, roots, and mountain rice, but they occasionally make a raid on the neighbouring valleys and carry off the herds. So great was their cattle-stealing propensity in Spanish times, that several semi-official expeditions were sent to punish the marauders, particularly on the Cordillera de Zambales, on the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice: but he that hopes to be a good angler, must not only bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself; but having once got and practiced it, then doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant, that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... by what means) of speaking a much purer English language than that which is in general spoken on the parent soil. This astonished me much; but it is really the case. Amongst his many good qualities he has one unenviable and, I may add, a bad propensity: he is immoderately fond of smoking. He may say that he learned it from his nurse, with whom it was once much in vogue. In Dutch William's time (he was a man of bad taste) the English gentleman could not do without his pipe. During the short ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... afterwards too fond of similar useless baubles."[3] This species of delight is soon over, and is succeeded by a desire to triumph in the ignorance, the credulity, or the cowardice, of their companions. Hence that propensity to play tricks, which is often injudiciously encouraged by the smiles of parents, who are apt to mistake it for a proof of wit and vivacity. They forget, that "gentle dulness ever loved a joke;" and that ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... gesticulation, shrugs, and wise shakes of the head, are called into requisition, to effectually and unmistakably express their ideas. The usages of good society are regarded by them as a great restraint upon their besetting propensity to expatiate in phrases of grandiloquence, and to magnify objects of trivial importance. They are always sure to initiate topics which will afford scope for admiration; they delight to enlarge upon the unprecedented growth of cities, villages, and towns; upon the comparative prices of 'corner ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... gentleman. So that here, to the husband, Goneril's touch had the dread operation of the heathen taboo. Now Goneril brooked no chiding. So, at favorable times, he, in a wary manner, and not indelicately, would venture in private interviews gently to make distant allusions to this questionable propensity. She divined him. But, in her cold loveless way, said it was witless to be telling one's dreams, especially foolish ones; but if the unfortunate man liked connubially to rejoice his soul with such ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... with ZUG. Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does NOT mean—when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... landlord, and the goodness of his suppers, are duly chronicled. The hairdresser hears a confused buzz of admiration, and even attempts to join in it, but thinks it, at last, time to go. He goes, and narrowly escapes making the acquaintance of Mr Jardine, from his extraordinary propensity to brush all the lamp-posts he encounters with the shoulder of his coat; and gets home, to the great comfort of his wife and daughter, who have gone cozily off to sleep, in the assurance that their distinguished relative is safely locked up ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... faults with this great lever, Will. However deeply bedded in propensity, However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet Is that vast power that comes from ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... capacity. Of course I was very grateful for this, but some of his characteristics did not impress me favorably, and I sometimes wished the distance between our camps greater. His most serious failing was an uncontrollable propensity to interfere with and direct the minor matters relating to the command, the details for which those under him were alone responsible. Ill-judged meddling in this respect often led to differences between us, only temporary it is true, but most harassing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... writer. Mr. Reed conceives him to have been a Jesuit, and Pope terms him an Irish priest. Langbaine says, that "his acquaintance with the nobility was more than with the muses, and he had a greater propensity to rhyming, than a genius to poetry." As a proof of the former assertion the Duke of Newcastle prefixed two copies of verses to his characters, in which he calls Flecknoe ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... fire among his subjects, which continues even to this day in some places in Persia. Others assert that Ham was the author of it, and then his son Canaan; and it is most probable that the unfortunate sons of an accursed father were the first who, following the propensity of their own heart, sought out sensible objects to which they might offer a superstitious worship. As the two sons of Ham, Canaan and Mizraim, settled, the one in Phoenicia, and the other in Egypt, it is probable that these were the first nurseries of idolatry; and the sun, being looked ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... low in the west; he had overlooked the fact that it was customary for the Hunter establishment to sup early during the warm summer months. But when he turned to find Sarah watching, stiff and uncompromising, from the doorway, he remembered with painful certainty her attitude toward his propensity to pick up any stray that might catch him in a moment of too pronounced mellowness—stray human or ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... flattering testimonial. He was at that time located in New York as an editorial contributor and occasional "special correspondent" of a leading newspaper. He had seen much of life—tasted much of its pains and pleasures—perhaps thought more than either; and though with a little too much of a propensity for late hours and those long stories which would grow out of current events seen in the light of past experience, he was held to be a very pleasant companion by other men than ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... driven not by any change in our basic objective, which remains peace and freedom for all mankind. Rather, the need for change is driven by the inexorable buildup of Soviet military power and the increasing propensity of Soviet leaders to use this power in coercion and outright aggression to impose their ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... constantly asks himself; and his greatest enigmas are the smiling faces of habitual industry, stimulated by the wants of the day, or fears for the future. If he is excited to exertion, it is commonly to indulge some vicious propensity, or display his scorn of those pursuits which render others happier than himself. If he seek to relieve his inanity in books, his literature ascends no higher than the romances, the newspapers, or the scandal, of the day; and all the nobler pursuits of mind, as well as body, are utterly lost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... horrors of the sea, and even think we could undergo them twenty times for such a sight. We came into the harbour last night, and landed as soon as we could collect our wits, and mother collect us; Madame has been at Gibraltar before, and so ought to have had the use of hers, but knowing her propensity to lose her way, we made Hargrave look after her, while we three elder girls each took a little child. Both the mothers looked after our things. The boys and Jenny were left behind. So we landed just before ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... traced to the ownership of Thomas Edward, he was dismissed from the school in great disgrace. His perplexed parents sent him to another school, the teacher of which used more vigorous measures to cure him of his propensity, applying to his back an instrument of torture called "the taws." It was in vain. From this second school he was expelled, because some horse-leeches, which he had brought to school in a bottle, escaped, crept up the legs of the other boys, and drew ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... (occupation of land under lease from an American codefendant).[798] On the other hand, it was held in a recent case, that Oregon was entitled to require that one pleading insanity as a defense against a criminal charge should prove same beyond a reasonable doubt, and to make "morbid propensity" no defense.[799] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... there is hardly any other means of educating the spirit of a people in this respect, except by War, and that too under bold Generals. By it alone can that effeminacy of feeling be counteracted, that propensity to seek for the enjoyment of comfort, which cause degeneracy in a people rising in prosperity and immersed ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... deformed in person, blind in one eye, one leg shorter than the other, one arm somewhat withered, with a mind as eccentric as his person was deformed. To say nothing of the deformity of his habits, suffice it, he had a propensity for taking snuff that may seem almost incredible, when in these days those who use it are not very much inclined to expose the article. He used to carry it in his coat-pocket, which was made of leather; ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... remarkably intelligent, active, bright and strong. From remarks made by various members of the Gordon family and their domestics, both Jackman and his servant had been led to the conclusion that the boy was the very impersonation of mischief, and were more or less on the look out for displays of his propensity; but Junkie walked demurely by their side, asking and replying to questions with the sobriety of an elderly man, and without the slightest indication of the latent internal fires, with which ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... possible for a white man to approach. He was a Siwash (male Indian) with one exception—his love of the coin. But then, he had an object in this ambition; and a fault, if it is a means to a worthy end, must be commended. He had this propensity developed to the most pronounced degree. It was a disease with him, for which there was no cure. In outward appearance he was a typical B.C. specimen of the obsolete "coureur de bois" of eastern ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... article in La Lectura, Ortega y Gasset illustrates my propensity to become offensive by recalling that as we left the Ateneo together one afternoon, we encountered a blind man on the Calle del Prado, singing a jota, whereupon I ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... less distrusted or feared him. Nor were these feelings unreciprocated. Unless duty called, he seldom went among the crew. Hard stories too were told about him; something, in particular, concerning an hereditary propensity to kill men and eat them. True, he came from a race of cannibals; but that was all that was known to ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... he cannot be admitted to approach the Divinity till the purging fire shall have expiated the stains with which his soul was infected. The same fire, in others, will cancel the corruption of matter and the propensity ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... a conviction that there is no propensity in Frank to waste one of those guineas of which he is so enamoured. Without the least love of money, Frank is a rigid economist. The father indulges no false wants because it would be expensive; the son has none to indulge. Habits which in the one are the fruits of avarice, in ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... suppose," said she, "that I am offended at the manner you took of showing me you had found out my propensity. It was a very good idea, and I shall be delighted to become better acquainted with my new friend," at the same time placing her hand upon him. "He is a very handsome little fellow, but I must tell you frankly ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... overcome the propensity I feel to add Mr. Burke to this illustrious catalogue, though the name of this gentleman leads me out of the circle of the cabinet. Mr. Burke raised himself from an obscure situation, by the greatness of his abilities, and his unrivalled genius. Never was distinction more nobly ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... bless it in the cathedral before Santa Guadalupe. During the ceremony, it was said, there grew a fine head of flaxen hair on the image and it received beautiful blue eyes. And it had the miraculous propensity to ever after wink its eye in the presence of a priest and at the approach of a Christ-hating Jew, it would spit. This virtue saved much wealth for the family of Don Jose, as they were ever put on their guard ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... pride of learning, pride of beauty, pride of wealth, pitilessness for all creatures, malevolence towards all, mistrust in respect of all, insincerity towards all, appropriation of other people's wealth, ravishment of other people's wives, harshness of speech, anxiety, propensity to speak ill of others, violent craving for the indulgence of lust, gluttony, liability to premature death, violent propensity towards malice, irresistible liking for falsehood, unconquerable appetite for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... eager perusal of works of fiction. I regard this fact as an indication of a want of her nature. Not, therefore, to eradicate but to control, and direct, and restrain, this propensity, would I make an endeavor. In the words of the afflicted Lady Russell, used on the anniversary of her husband's execution, I would say, "I do not contend with nature, but keep her as innocent as I can." Select only such writings of this class as some judicious friend ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... fair-minded referees would allow me five dollars for. I am sure I spent more than that for ammunition, to say nothing of time, traps, dog-food, etc., during the year or two that I was playing the despot and trying to exterminate them. Now that I have rid my mind of the barbarous propensity to kill them, I really enjoy seeing them sitting up by their holes, or peeping at me ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... have observed it. You had set your affections on Arthur; and thinking he had thrown himself away, you do not resist the common propensity ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an evil name on account of a propensity which led her at times to commit actions that seem worthy only of a demon of lewdness. This was, however, only the hysteria of a moment, not the settled habit of her life. On one notable occasion, by diverting the attention of the bestial pig-god Kama-pua'a, and by vividly presenting to him ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... grow up solitarily in any locality. When one arises, the absence of all external and social incentives to the study can only betoken an inherent propensity and constitutional fitness for it. Such a man is too much in earnest to keep his knowledge to himself, or to wish to stand alone. He makes disciples,—he aids, encourages, guides them. His own researches are fully communicated; and this with a prodigality proportioned to his own ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... crone the singular beggar-woman who was generally to be seen on the steps of the Franciscan Church, chuckling to herself and laughing, and soliciting alms from the worshippers; he himself, urged by some inward inexplicable propensity, had often thrown her a hard-earned penny, which he had not had to spare. "Leave me, leave me in peace, you insane old woman," he said; "but you are right, it is hunger more than my wound which has made me weak and miserable; for three ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... age of eleven years that a catastrophe took place which changed my prospects in life, and I must, therefore, say a little more about my father and mother, bringing up their history to that period. The propensity of my mother to ardent spirits had, as always is the case, greatly increased upon her, and her corpulence had increased in the same ratio. She was now a most unwieldy, bloated mountain of flesh, such a form as ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Electress Sophia was not perhaps a very estimable, though a very intelligent princess. But she was eighty-four when the crown came within reach, and she died of rage at an unfriendly letter from Queen Anne, betraying her Jacobite propensity. ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... a small hole through the vessel's bottom, and pushing up a stick with a handkerchief attached, that they were enabled to attract the attention of a passing ship, by whose people they were cut out. Old Mitchell's propensity for fishing was very singular. Almost down to the last, when in his hammock under the forecastle, he would have a line passed to him whenever he heard fish playing about; and he would catch at it as it was drawn through his fingers, until ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... properly want somewhat more time than might another man to do it in; but not, I venture to say in spite of Goethe, through innate inadequacy to his task and unconquerable weakness of the will; not, I venture to think in spite of Hugo, through immedicable scepticism of the spirit and irremediable propensity to nebulous intellectual refinement. One practical point in the action of the play precludes us from accepting so ready a solution of the riddle as is suggested either by the simple theory of half-heartedness or by the simple ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... information respecting the Balagnini, the great pirates of these seas. They are represented as in habiting numerous small islands in the vicinity of Sooloo: their origin is Badjow. I apprehend there would be little difficulty in breaking their power, and curing the propensity ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... been, as I could always have very well dispensed with them. I required them for your own good, rather than my own. Before habits of industry are formed, necessity is the only thing which will overcome our natural propensity to indulge ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... occasion in human affairs," he added, "which more uniformly exemplifies this propensity of human nature than the exit of a President of the United ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... French have as great an aversion for traveling as the English have a propensity for it, both English and French have perhaps sufficient reasons. Something better than England is everywhere to be found; whereas it is excessively difficult to find the charms of France outside France. ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... guns; but there will be little benefit from the new law unless a reward shall be offered for the destruction of the birds of prey which swarm in every portion of the island—eagles, falcons, kites, hawks, ravens, crows, and last, but in cunning and destructive propensity not the least, the "magpies." These birds exist in such numbers that unless steps are taken to destroy them it will be hopeless to expect any increase of game. When a magpie wakes in the early morning his first thought is mischief, and ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... peace and enjoyment in the fulness of all things; grown old, and when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had experience of every state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a man completely happy; I say, after all this, any one would have thought that the native propensity to rambling which I gave an account of in my first setting out in the world to have been so predominant in my thoughts, should be worn out, and I might, at sixty one years of age, have been a little inclined to stay at home, and have done ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... Byron, recorded in Julian and Maddalo, was of a less ardent sort. Indeed Byron said of it, "As to friendship, it is a propensity in which my genius is very limited.... I did not even feel it for Shelley, however much I admired him." [Footnote: Letter to Mrs. (Shelley?) undated.] Arnold's Thyrsis, Tennyson's In Memoriam, and more recently, George Edward Woodberry's North Shore Watch, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... visit like this, we did not see the best sample of this isolated community: I hope not, for their sake; for our followers had a greedy, overreaching air and manner really disgusting, and in all our little transactions exhibited a sordid grasping propensity one could not expect to meet with in a people so out of the world, and who are in the possession of great plenty: their island yields abundance of corn and common vegetables, the sea upon their shores is famous for the quantity and quality of its fish, and therefore ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... a Propensity to set any Work in a ridiculous and false Light, are so far from being the Characteristicks of a true Critick, that they are the certain Marks whereby we may know that a Man has not the true Spirit ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... elparoli. Pronunciation elparolado. Proof (for press) presprovajxo. Proof pruvo, provo. Prop subtenajxo, subteno. Propaganda propagando. Propagandism propagandismo. Propagate propagandi. Propel antauxen pusxi, irigi. Propensity emo, inklino. Proper (exact) gxusta. Proper konvena. Property propreco, posedajxo. Prophecy profetajxo. Prophesy profetajxi. Prophet profeto. Propinquity proksimeco. Propitiate favorigi, trankviligi. Propitious ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the halls of study, which were long narrow verandahs, and found several white-bearded and sagacious-looking Moollahs reading out portions of the Kor[a]n to their attentive scholars, with a grave countenance and a loud nasal twang, exciting a propensity to laughter which I with difficulty repressed. I do not think the reasoning of the college is very deep, or that the talents of its senior wrangler need be very first-rate, and am inclined to suspect that this pompous reading was got up for the occasion ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... learned to covet in silence, to dissemble, to dissimulate, to lie, and at last to steal,—a propensity for which I had never hitherto had the slightest inclination, and of which I have never since been able quite ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... bellicose propensity," said Burr, "must be punished. I shall have him arrested by the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." All attempts to correct the depravity of man, to stay the headlong propensity to vice, to abate the madness of ambition, will be found deplorably inefficient, unless we apply the restrictions and the tremendous sanctions of religion. A profound regard and deference for religion, a constant ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... sign of moral principle, or of the concrete or its heroisms, or the simpler affections of the heart, Poe's verses illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with the rhyming art to excess, an incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal themes, a demoniac undertone behind every page—and, by final judgment, probably belong among the electric lights of imaginative literature, brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat. There is an indescribable magnetism about the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... story of a girl—a little girl—who had a propensity for getting into trouble, because she had not learned the lesson of obedience. She masters this, however, as the story tells, and in doing so she and her brother have a ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... fatal to her aunt, the ill-fated Eleanor, was as innate in the bosom of Caroline; no opportunity had yet offered to give it play, still the seeds were there, and she could not resist the temptation now presented. Even in her childhood Mrs. Hamilton had marked this fatal propensity. Every effort had been put in force to check it, every gentle counsel given, but arrested in its growth though it was, erased entirely it could not be. The principles of virtue had been too carefully instilled, for coquetry to attain the same ascendancy and ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... man can have. I might provide for her decently enough out of doors for something like a pound a week; and that would be a cheap enough way of paying off all old scores. But I'm not quite clear that it would be a safe way. A life of idleness might develop Mrs. Woolper's latent propensity for gossip—and gossip is what I want to avoid. No, that ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... The propensity of Campbell to adapt or imitate the thoughts and expressions of others has often struck me. Let me then suggest the following (taken at random) as further, and I believe hitherto unnoticed, illustrations of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... with a thief no one is willing to trade." Latter voyagers have borne similar testimony to their brethren still further north; but their honesty seems to have arisen from the want of temptation; for the same missionaries add: "We have discovered that this propensity is not altogether wanting in the northern Esquimaux, who now and then, if they think they can do it without detection, will make a little free with their neighbour's property." And a further acquaintance with the natives ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book De Sphaera having been lent to him, he was so pleased with it that he immediately began a course of astronomic studies. Pennant's first propensity to natural history was the pleasure he received from an accidental perusal of Willoughby's work on birds. The same accident of finding, on the table of his professor, Reaumur's History of Insects, which he read more than he attended to the lecture, and, having been ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... exciting pastime. We have frequent record of the habitual high play of Marie de Medicis, who found in it a solace for her sick-room and a diversion from her domestic annoyances, and thus the dangerous propensity of the monarch was heightened by the presence of the loveliest women of the land and the charm and fascination of wit ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... to its timbers. If the deceased has been a chief, or a soldier related to his chief, it is not uncommon to slay his favorite pony and place the body beneath the scaffold, under the superstition, I suppose, that the horse goes with the man. As illustrating the propensity to provide the dead with the things used while living, I may mention that some years ago I loaned to an old man a delft urinal for the use of his son, a young man who was slowly dying of a wasting disease. I made him ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... absurd, yet the impulse to perform them was irresistible—a mysterious dread hanging over me till I had given way to it; even at that early period I frequently used to reason within myself as to what could be the cause of my propensity to touch, but of course I could come to no satisfactory conclusion respecting it; being heartily ashamed of the practice, I never spoke of it to any one, and was at all times highly solicitous that no one should ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... man of low extraction, who had been knighted by an Irish lord-lieutenant in some convivial frolic. No one could tell a good story, or sing a good song better than Sir Terence; he exaggerated his native brogue, and his natural propensity to blunder, caring little whether the company laughed at him or with him, provided they laughed. 'Live and laugh—laugh and live,' was his motto; and certainly he lived on laughing, as well as many better men can contrive to live ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... a friend of yours (tho not of mine), and that it would not be the handsome thing to dedicate to one friend anything containing such matters about another. However, I'll work the Laureate before I have done therefor. I like a row, and always did from a boy, in the course of which propensity, I must needs say, that I have found it the most easy of all to be gratified, personally and poetically. You disclaim "jealousies"; but I would ask, as Boswell did of Johnson, "of whom could you be jealous?"—of none of the living certainly, and (taking all and all into consideration) ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... There exists a propensity, it seems, in the people of this part of the country, particularly about Agen, to fix contemptuous epithets on strangers who settle amongst them; it matters not from what land they come,—it is sufficient that the Gascon idiom is ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... delightful manner, making a tour of the "rows" and the odd corners with quaint buildings. The tourist, fortified with his red-backed Baedecker, is a common sight to Chester people, and his "dollar-distributing" propensity, as described by the English writer I have quoted, is not unknown even to the smallest fry of the town. Few things during our trip amused me more than the antics of a brown, bare-foot, dirt-begrimed little mite not ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... the least formidable of all. The one most to be dreaded is that which results from the excessive and premature exercise of the reproductive functions, for, as has been well observed, "the too frequent indulgence of a natural propensity at first increases the concomitant desire and makes its gratification a part of the periodical circle of action; but by degrees the over excitement of the organs, abating their tone and vitality, unfits them for the discharge of their office, the accompanying pleasures ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... her out to solitary musing among her native mountains, causing her to form innumerous combinations from common objects, giving strength to her perceptions, and swiftness to their arrangement. Love had come, as the rod of the master-prophet, to swallow up every minor propensity. Love had doubled all her excellencies, and placed a diadem on her genius. Was she to cease to love? Take the colours and odour from the rose, change the sweet nutriment of mother's milk to gall and poison; as easily might you wean Perdita from love. She grieved for the loss of Raymond ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... are forced to do what he would have us do—admire the ingenuity of the poet, together with his knowledge of effect, rhythmical and dramatic, his flexibility and strength of versification, and marvellous faculty of word painting. This propensity to make all things subservient to the advancement of Art is not always productive of present good to one's fellow beings, whatever may be the results to posterity, as the luckless women who cross the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... into the town, and it went the way of his stipend—into the pockets of his gambling companions. Again he returned home as full of grief as before. The Indian soon heard of what had happened, for he loved the padre very much; so he brought him another bag of silver. The padre's propensity was incurable, and he lost that as he had done the first. The Indian's generosity was not yet worn out, and he brought him a third bag full of ore. When the padre saw it, he could scarcely believe his ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the superiority of the soothing system. The vinegar of criticism would have festered the wounds of his vanity; the art of (must I call it) flattery healed them. It left a scar, I acknowledge; for the doctor still wrote verses, and still had a lurking propensity for climbing the slippery slope of poetic renown. But the realities of life are fortunate correctives to this passion, and, like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... grave tone and face, knowing all the while that there was no fear whatever for the people of Sark. Was there a propensity in me, not hitherto developed, to make ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton |
