"Adaptability" Quotes from Famous Books
... regard to facts relative to natural history: and this is the more lamentable, and perhaps the more surprising, when we consider its unlimited adaptability to all capacities, ages, sexes, and ranks; and, moreover, the absolute necessity of many parts of it to ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... they were not even asked by what name men knew them. Not caring to hear a name which might not harmonize with their idea of the fitness of things, the cowboys of the Bar-20 had, with a freedom born of excellent livers and fearless temperaments, bestowed names befitting their sense of humor and adaptability. The official title of the Sioux was By-and-by; the dog was known as Fleas. Never had names more clearly described the objects to be represented, for they were excellent examples of ... — Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... have lived nowhere else, till, after the lapse of ages, he had developed invention and adaptability. Besant and Rice, in "Ready-money Mortiboy," speak of Divine Discontent as the motive power impelling man to progress. Not till the chalk and the limestone shelters were stocked, and could hold no more, would men be driven to invent for themselves ... — Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... first novel which Luigi Poggi thrust through the knothole in the orphan asylum fence, was at once transferred to Alice Van Ostend and her surroundings so soon as the two children established their across-street acquaintance. Upon her arrival in Flamsted, the child's adaptability to changed circumstances and new environment was furthered by the play of this imagination that fed itself on what others, who lack it, might call the commonplace of life: the house at Champ-au-Haut became her lordly ... — Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... that throughout the South had guarded its patrician ranks with almost Brahmin jealousy, she sternly decried every infringement of caste custom and etiquette. Nature and education had combined to deprive her of any adaptability to the new order of things; and she rejected the idea that "a lady should transact business", with the same contemptuous indignation that would have greeted a proposition to wear "machine-sewed garments", that last resort of impecunious ... — At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... already seen, there is almost no limit to the height that can be reached by the pure head tone without admixture of palatal resonance. Very young voices, especially, can reach such heights, for without any strain they possess the necessary adaptability and skill in the adjustment to each other of the larynx, tongue, and pillars of the fauces. A skill that rests on ignorance of the true nature of the phenomenon must be called pure chance, and thus its disappearance is as puzzling ... — How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... occurred to any of the Normans who stood with William at Hastings, and scarcely to any of their children. Yet this result was predetermined by the stubborn tenacity and numerical superiority of the conquered people and by the easy adaptability of the Norman temperament. Racially, and to a less extent socially, intermarriage did its work, and that within a very few generations. Little by little, also, Norman contempt and Saxon hatred were softened into tolerance, and at last even into a sentiment of national ... — A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... the adaptability of the electric arc in comparison with forge fire, oxy-acetylene or other method. The answer is somewhat difficult if made general. There are no doubt some cases where the use of a drop hammer and forge fire or the use ... — Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... condition to turn up in the world's market as a competitor. Should China also, as a result of the Japanese-Chinese war, be compelled to open her immense territory to European culture, then, in view of the great adaptability and marvelous unpretentiousness of the Chinese workingman, another competitive power will have risen, more dangerous than any that the world's market has yet had to reckon with. Truly, the future of bourgeois society is threatened from all sides with grave dangers, and there ... — Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... them half-way; his repeated repulses by the Doctor and all the difficulties that beset his return to freedom had made him very sulky and snappish. He had not patience or adaptability enough to respond to their advances, and only shrank from their rough good nature—which naturally checked the current of ... — Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... of adaptability, too,' said Gwendolyn. 'I watched her at dinner, and she never made a single slip, although I imagine there were several things that were new ... — A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... did not know then how readily people can forget the life of toil behind them and adapt themselves to one of luxury and ease; and with her the adaptability commenced in some degree the moment Shannondale station was reached, and she saw the handsome carriage waiting for them. A carriage finer far and more modern than the one from Collingwood, in which Mrs. Atherton and the young ... — Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... of Music," very justly and considerately discourses of the utility of violin accomplishment, and the adaptability of the instrument to womanly practice. ... — Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... Princesse Mathilde by; at ball at the Quai d'Orsay. Washington, D. C., characteristics of; Lord Lyons's reminiscences of life at; a French conception of. William I, Emperor, attempted assassination of. Winter of 1879, severity and hardships of. Wittgenstein, Prince. Women, adaptability of American; cramped lives of middle-class French; more uncompromising than men in political views; ambitions ... — My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... to the grade of these people at once with that fatal adaptability to environment which he had permitted himself to foster throughout his entire life, and which had led him to be contented in almost any circumstances. It was as if the brute in him were forever seeking a lower level, wallowing itself lower and lower into the filth and into the mire, ... — Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... heritage as the angels': it may be used for ill, as easily as for good. The first explorers, and the traders who followed them, were not idealists but rough adventurers. Breaking in, with the full tide of western knowledge and adaptability, to the quiet backwaters of primitive conservatism, they brought with them the worse rather than the better elements of the civilization, the control of environment, of which they were pioneers. To them Africa and the East represented storehouses of treasure, not ... — Progress and History • Various
... has it been broken by British supremacy. Inflexibly as he dominates a social system in all essentials more rigid than any other, the Brahman has not only recognised the need of a certain plasticity in its construction which allows for constant expansion, but he has himself shown unfailing adaptability in all non-essentials to varying circumstances. To the requirements of their new Western masters the Brahmans adapted themselves from the first with admirable suppleness, and when a Western system of education was introduced into India in the first half ... — Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... the Theatre. The sandwich—as substantial as was consistent with portability, and as cheap as possible—we hailed as one of our greatest institutions. It forced its way among us at all stages of the entertainment, and we were always delighted to see it; its adaptability to the varying moods of our nature was surprising; we could never weep so comfortably as when our tears fell on our sandwich; we could never laugh so heartily as when we choked with sandwich; Virtue never looked so beautiful ... — The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... young adaptability, found great fund of entertainment in the new social developments that unfolded ... — Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... country villa at Careggi and was brought here when the palazzo was refurnished for Francis I, Cosimo I's son and successor, and his bride, Joanna of Austria, in 1565. Nothing could better illustrate the accomplishment and imaginative adaptability of the great craftsmen of the day than the two works of Verrocchio that we have now seen: the Christ and S. Thomas at Or San Michele, in Donatello and Michelozzo's niche, and this exquisite fountain splashing water so musically. Notice ... — A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... field of mechanics electricity is decidedly preferable to any other agent. Heat may be transformed into motive power by a suitable engine, but there its adaptability is at an end. An electric current drives not only a motor, but every machine and tool attached to the motor, the whole executing tasks of a delicacy and complication new to industrial art. On an electric railroad an identical current ... — Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... again to examine the capture, which kept on raising its head a little and letting it fall back on the deck, after which a wave ran along the body right to the tail, which, instead of being round and tapering off, showed the creature's adaptability for an aqueous life by being flattened so that the end was something like ... — Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... to the environment. By the time of the first frost, rapid-growing crops have been raised and harvested, sides of meat either preserved or frozen in mammoth lockers. With this supreme talent of adaptability mankind has become part of the ecology and guaranteed his own survival during the ... — Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... you're right," Mrs. Trotter agreed, with the adaptability that was one of her strong points. "There was Mattie Kendall, now, who kept up her dressmaking after she married Henry Beach. Well, she set out to dress her children on the left-overs, and it went all right while they was little. But Mamie got grasping. After ... — Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... hundred pieces under the direction of Theodore Thomas. In 1874 he made a metrical version of "The Legend of Don Munio" from Irving's "Alhambra," and set it to music for a small orchestra and chorus. Its adaptability to the resources of the vocal societies of smaller cities has made it one of ... — Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... this visit also that the Senator made the acquaintance of Mr. Washington Hawkins, and was greatly taken with his innocence, his guileless manner and perhaps with his ready adaptability to ... — The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... vehicle of emotion and no other means to ecstasy has served man so well. In art any flood of spiritual exaltation finds a channel ready to nurse and lead it: and when art fails it is for lack of emotion, not for lack of formal adaptability. There never was a religion so adaptable and catholic as art. And now that the young movement begins to cast about for a home in which to preserve itself and live, what more natural than that it should turn to the one religion of unlimited ... — Art • Clive Bell
... kinds of poetry alike there was one point on which they were rigidly exacting; the adaptability of the subject to the kind of poetry selected, and the careful construction ... — Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... kicker, and frequently challenged some of the party to race with him. He is also a persistent walker, and from every camp, both morning and evening, he sallied forth for a brisk half-hour walk. His cheerfulness and adaptability on all occasions, and his optimism in regard to all the great questions, are remarkable. His good-will and tolerance are boundless. Notwithstanding his practical turn of mind, and his mastery of the mechanical arts and of business methods, he is through and through ... — Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... companionship with the changing experiences of their daughters, who are willing to modify ill-fitting social conventions into rules of conduct which are of actual service to their children in their daily lives of factory work and of city amusements. Those mothers, through their sympathy and adaptability, substitute keen present interests and activity for solemn warnings and restraint, self-expression for repression. Their vigorous family life allies itself by a dozen bonds to the educational, the industrial and the recreational organizations of the ... — The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... to be discussed two phases of the automobile which have tremendous significance for the future of the industry—its commercial adaptability and its relation with the farmer and the farm. Let us ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... with never danger of sprain or dislocation, for the subjugation of a back-latching frock. Moreover, years of practice have given her adeptness in accomplishing this achievement, so that to her it has become an everyday feat. But man has neither the experience to qualify him nor yet the bodily adaptability. ... — The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... restrictions. In neither case would he find in "Mark" any serious stumbling-block. In fact, persons of all the categories admitted to salvation by Justin, in the middle of the second century,[7] could accept "Mark" from beginning to end. It may well be, that, in this wide adaptability, backed by the authority of the metropolitan church, there lies the reason for the fact of the preservation of "Mark," notwithstanding its limited and dogmatically colourless character, as compared with the Gospels of ... — Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... called upon oftenest to exercise, or to neglect, it is apparent that the one who possesses the most of them and who cultivates them the most earnestly has the greatest number of opportunities of winning the admiration of others. It is of a girl possessing this fine adaptability to the world's workaday surroundings that "Amber" draws this pen-picture: "Shall I tell the kind of girl that I especially adore? Well, first of all, let us take the working girl. She is not a 'lady' in the acceptance of the term as it is employed by many members of this latter day's hybrid ... — The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... judgment. The boy was taking hold with a strong, if unguided, hand. Already the feather was gone from his hat, the lace from his throat. Two days in the canoe and a night on the ground had stained and wrinkled his uniform,—a condition of which, with his quick adaptability, he was already beginning to feel proud. He had flushed often, during the first day, under the shrewd glances of the voyageurs, who read the inexperience in his bright clothes and white hands. Menard knew, from the way his shoulders followed the swing of his arms, that the steady paddling ... — The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... discussion of the endogamous and exogamous types of society. Whatever may have been the origin of exogamy, the survival of the exogamous type in progressive societies may easily be explained on the ground of superior adaptability, variability and plasticity, which enables such societies to survive a change of environment while the more rigid structure of the endogamous clan brings ... — Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... both its antiquity and its adaptability to varying conditions, the constitution of the kingdom of Hungary deserves to be considered one of the most remarkable instruments of its kind. Like the fundamental law of England, it is embodied in a maze ... — The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Origin, history, distribution, characteristics, adaptability, uses, and standards of excellence of all pedigreed breeds of cattle, sheep and swine in America. The accepted text book in colleges, and the authority for farmers and breeders. Illustrated. 371 pages. 5 ... — Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... who travel and those who reside there, are of a different conformation and belong to a different type. The crudeness which so shocked Europeans in their predecessors they have, with characteristic adaptability, readily and gracefully outgrown. But whether they have improved in other respects, and whether, on other grounds, we have cause to be particularly proud of our countrymen abroad at the present ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... Adaptability to a varied diet is an element of well-being in the animal, a factor of prime importance for the extension and predominance of its race in the bitter struggle for life. The most unfortunate species would be that which depended for its existence on a diet so exclusive ... — More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... Faust by chance. If we insist upon adhering to the theories of natural selection, or survival of the fittest, be it so; we only transfer the choice to a Something which can choose, and leave the fitness or adaptability to the judgment of an originator, who can ... — The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... regarded the life they were living as an unmixed hardship. The judge entered upon it with infinite zest. He displayed astonishing adaptability, while he brought all the resources of a calm and modest knowledge to bear on the vexed problem of procuring sustenance for himself and ... — The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... of her cabins had been torn away to make more room for the troops who would sleep in rows on her decks, as thick as buffaloes in a herd. The soldiers, like all the others whom he saw, were mostly boys. The average could not be over twenty, and some were not over sixteen. But they had the adaptability of youth. They had scattered themselves about in easy positions. One was playing an accordion, and another a fiddle. The officers did ... — The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... drawing of Amy on her day out giving tea to the children at her home in a hat with a big feather. To-morrow appeared first in the Pall Mall Magazine. Of that story I will only say that it struck many people by its adaptability to the stage and that I was induced to dramatize it under the title of "One Day More"; up to the present my only effort in that direction. I may also add that each of the four stories on their appearance in book form was picked out on various grounds as the "best of the lot" by different critics, ... — Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... to saying that the crucial test of the frieze of the Parthenon is its adaptability to an apartment in Bloomsbury. So long as the illusion of the Acropolis gave credit to Pheidias' design, and the sunlight of Attica imposed its delicate intended shadows edging the reliefs, the countrymen of Pericles might be tricked; but the visitor to the British Museum, ... — On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... to northern climates, others to the soils of western or eastern regions and so on. These qualities must have decided the general lines of the distribution, and the species must have been segregated according to their respective climatic qualities, and their adaptability to soil and weather. A struggle for life and a natural selection must have accompanied and guided the distribution, but there is no reason to assume that the various forms were changed by this process, and that ... — Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... not derived from the mind of the thinker; and we certainly cannot credit the elemental essence itself, which belongs to a kingdom further from individualization even than the mineral, with any sort of awakening of the manasic quality. Yet it does possess a marvellous adaptability which often seems to come very near it, and it is no doubt this property that caused elementals to be described in one of our early books as "the semi-intelligent creatures of the astral light". We shall find further evidence of this power when we come to consider the case of the artificial ... — The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... Among his dramas, generally tragedies, are Anne Boleyn, The Betrothed, and Francesca da Rimini, and among his books of poetry, Street Lyrics, Koenigsmark, and The Book of the Dead. His dramas combine poetic merit with adaptability for acting. ... — A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... of the school has not appealed to the pupils as interesting or valuable. This has not been altogether the fault of the curriculum, but often has come from the lack of adaptability of the work to the pupils studying it. Through frequent changes of teachers, poor classification, and irregularity of attendance, rural pupils have often been forced to go over and over the same ground, without ... — New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... a great relief to find the girl so pretty, so gentle in her ways, so eager to please, so naturally dainty and particular. Cherry had quick apprehension and ready adaptability of nature. She took to the new ways like a duck to the water. She had a sweet voice and a refined fashion of speaking. In a very short while she looked as much at home in the presence of the ladies as Petronella herself. Kate found indeed that the city-bred ... — The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... recommend the Indiana pecan in many states; the improved black walnuts over a much wider area, and the chestnut in many localities where it is not a native tree. The top-working of native hickories and black walnuts also can be confidently recommended. In every case, however, the adaptability of the kind of nut to the locality should be passed upon by an expert. In every case, also, even in that of top-working native hickories and walnuts, intelligent and generous care is essential for any degree of ... — Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... to either heathen or Jewish temples. Some model, however, was necessary, and their choice being limited, they appear to have adopted the simple style of the Roman basilica, or court of justice. There was an adaptability about the general plan of such a building which rendered its selection natural and not inappropriate, while the dignified simplicity of its construction and the object for which it was primarily founded—the dispensation of justice—commended it no doubt in the first instance ... — Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... the poet. In this case we observe the poet's happy choice of a metre. Of all the varied lyric rhythms none, at least to our ears, lends itself so readily to a musical setting as the Sapphic; and the many melodies attached to odes in this metre by the monks of the Middle Ages attest its special adaptability to choir-singing. Augustus was highly pleased with the poet's performance, and two years' afterwards he commanded him to celebrate the victory of his step-sons Drusus and Tiberius over the Rhaeti and ... — A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... Samoa furnished many surprises, chief among which was the adaptability of the Maorilanders to military discipline. When the men came on board the transports (Moeraki and Monowai) discipline simply wasn't in their dictionaries. They acknowledged orders with a "Right O, Sport," or with an ... — New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... move—he was a stranger in a strange land and much disturbed, besides, by his fears for his daughter—but he started a secret inquiry through his old valet, whom he ran across in the street, and whose peculiar adaptability for this kind of work he ... — The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... without him, would have carried him back to the city with them by a gentle violence; but there was nothing in anything he said or did that betrayed ambition on his part. He liked to hear them talk, especially of their ideas of progress, as they called them, at which, with the ready adaptability of their sex, they joined him in laughing when they found that he could not take them seriously. The social, the emotional expression of the new scientific civilization struck him as droll, particularly in respect to ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... an almost eternal frost, many of them have been preserved as entire as at the fatal moment they sank under the rigors of external conditions no longer fitted for their existence. It has been attempted by some to prove the adaptability of these animals to the present conditions of the northern hemisphere; but so untenable in every phase is this opinion, that it would be sheer waste of time and space to attempt its refutation. That they may have migrated northward ... — The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... chief prominence of the potato will still consist in its adaptability as an article of food. Burbank does not overlook this. He has produced and is producing potatoes with better flavor, of larger and uniform size and which give a much greater yield to the area. Palatability in the end decides the permanence of a food, and ... — Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... for doin away with slavery in the District of Columby and for the Constooshnel Amendment. In Kentucky we are hangin men uv the John Brown style, and mobbin all uv the persuasion uv the Connecticut nominee. Sich a variety uv principle,—a party uv sich adaptability,—kin hev but one great central idee, on wich there is no diversity uv opinion, and to which all other ideas is subordinate. That idea is POST OFFICE! and ef Androo Johnson could be got rite on that question, we'd care not wat else he required ... — "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... end of the fourth century, in its most refined form, Apollinarianism, the immediate positive cause of monophysitism. Ebionitism, related to docetism as realism to idealism, possessed equal vitality and equal adaptability. It showed itself in various humanistic interpretations of Christ. Of these the most elaborate was Nestorianism, which exerted the most insistent and immediate negative influence on the early growth ... — Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... Lincoln's mental power and moral force, of his intense and magnetic personality, after the vast responsibilities of government were thrown upon him at the age of fifty-two, furnish a rare and striking illustration of the marvellous capacity and adaptability of the human intellect—of the sound mind in the sound body. He came to the discharge of the great duties of the Presidency with absolutely no experience in the administration of government, or of the vastly varied and complicated questions of foreign and domestic policy which ... — The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... to me a never-failing source of interest. Though the various species of trees appear to be growing almost at random, yet each species shows a decided preference for peculiar altitude, soil, temperature, and moisture conditions. It is an interesting demonstration of tree adaptability to follow a stream which comes out of the west, in the middle mountain-zone, and observe how unlike the trees are which thrive on opposite sides. On the southerly slopes that come down to the water is ... — Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... introduced to a few judges' drawing-rooms, ancient, melancholy dwellings with faded pier-glasses, where he used to go to make a fourth at whist with venerable shadows. Jenkins's evening party was therefore a debut for this provincial, of whom his very ignorance and his southern adaptability made immediately ... — The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... when first I realised what would be my fate for the rest of my life, I nearly broke my heart. But afterwards, whether owing to the power of human adaptability or to the theory of compensation, I grew to disregard my infirmity. By building a series of two or three rooms on to the ground floor of the house, so that I could live in it without the need of being carried up and ... — The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... at the situation, which had promised a stirring of the blood, but the train passed and thrust him back with a hand that seemed almost palpable in the staleness of ordinary life. When he left the Frontier he had left behind him the old content, the humorous adaptability to circumstances which had once been a main element of ... — A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... engineering, which exhibits in a marked degree the controllability and adaptability of steam, is Mr. Herbert Wadsworth's steam tiller, an engraving of which ... — Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... invariably supported the show, while the lower classes came as a matter of course. Mr Wopples, however, was equally as clever in providing a bill of fare as in inducing the public to come to the theatre, and the adaptability of the family was really wonderful. One night they would play farcical comedy; then Hamlet, reduced to four acts by Mr Wopples, would follow on the second night; the next night burlesque would reign supreme; and when the curtain arose on the fourth night Mr Wopples ... — Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... like domestic champagne to polish their adopted one. Milliners, dancing masters and private tutors got it. Miss—er—McRamsey was grateful, loving, and tried to forget Hinkle's. To give ample credit to the adaptability of the American girl, Hinkle's did fade from her memory and speech most ... — Strictly Business • O. Henry
... literature. But he had the old Norse energy; which not only drove him or his ancestors to settle and conquer in lands so distant and diverse as Russia and Sicily, Syria and North America, but enabled him to infuse new life into the countries he conquered. Further, he still retained that adaptability and power of assimilation which is characteristic of peoples in a primitive stage of civilisation. With a wonderful instinct he fastened on to the most characteristic and strongest features of the different nations he was brought in contact with, developed them, gave them permanent form, ... — Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... things are added in time, if the brother be worthy, the power of glib speech that neither man nor woman can resist when a meal or a bed is in question, the eye of a horse-cope, the skill of a cook, the constitution of a bullock, the digestion of an ostrich, and an infinite adaptability to all circumstances. But many die before they attain to this degree, and the past-masters in the craft appear for the most part in dress- clothes when they are in England, and thus their glory is hidden from ... — The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... bone, and fat, the general shape and thickness of a piece of beef should be noted when its quality is to be determined. In addition, its adaptability to the purpose for which it is selected and the method of cookery to be used in its preparation are also points that should ... — Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, made Carnegie his private secretary. How well the young man used his opportunities in this occupation appeared afterward when he turned his wide acquaintanceship among railroad men to practical use in the steel business. It was this personal adaptability, indeed, that explains Carnegie's success. In the narrow, methodical sense he was not a business man at all; he knew and cared nothing for its dull routine and its labyrinthine details. As a practical steel man his position is ... — The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... dominated the less daring effects at the other tables. Undine, on entering, had seemed to be in the same mood as her companions; but Bowen saw that, as she became conscious of his friend's observation, she isolated herself in a kind of soft abstraction; and he admired the adaptability which enabled her to draw from such surroundings the contrasting ... — The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... "Adaptability to environment," piped the girl, glibly. "You can't get along by speaking New York in Montana, any easier than you ... — The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... since he had worked his way up through all branches of the game, and he was sure that with practice he could do the photographic work. He hoped to teach Andy enough about it so that he could help; Andy seemed to have an adaptability superior to some of the others and would learn ... — The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... environment in which he is born, so that emigration becomes an ever more permanent phenomenon for the greater portion of men, for whom the accident of birth will less and less determine the course of their future life. And the abnormal man who is below the minimum of adaptability to social life and bears the marks of organic degeneration, develops either a passive or an aggressive form of abnormality and becomes ... — The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... delightfully arranged itself. It was a room a trifle overcrowded, but one wouldn't have wanted anything taken away, the graceful confusion, on a background of almost austere order, gave the happiest sense of adaptability to a variety of human needs and whims. Mrs. Upton had finished her own tea, but the flame still burned in waiting under the silver urn; books and reviews lay in reach of a lazy hand; lamps, candle-light and flowers made a soft radiance; a small griffon dozed before the ... — A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... APPEARANCE OF SAUCES AND GRAVIES are of the highest consequence, and in nothing does the talent and taste of the cook more display itself. Their special adaptability to the various viands they are to accompany cannot be too much studied, in order that they may harmonize and blend with them as perfectly, so to speak, as does a pianoforte accompaniment with ... — The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Their astounding adaptability is what strikes one—the women's I mean. The ones who have been to Europe only on trips even, have all acquired a more reserved tone and gentler voices, while the girls who went to school in Paris or have lived in England ... — Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... assume, that, when God dispersed the sons of Noah, he fixed the "bounds of their habitation," and, that, from the earth and sky the various races have secured their civilization. He sent the different nations into separate parts of the earth. He gave to each its racial peculiarities, and adaptability for the climate into which it went. He gave color, language, and civilization; and, when by wisdom we fail to interpret his inscrutable ways, it is pleasant to know that "he worketh all things after the ... — History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... its multitudinous ramifications. Then all the vast ceremonial of this body passed in review before her mind, each rite symbolic of some function, physical, mental and spiritual, and she marveled at the adaptability of the parts to each other and then to the ... — Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... abandon of a wilder life, and very characteristic is the frequent discarding of foot and head dress and even garments in the blind instinct to realise again the conditions of primitive man. The manifestations of this impulse, if read aright, are grave arraignments of the lack of adaptability of the child's environment to his disposition and nature, and with home restraints once broken, the liabilities to every crime, especially theft, are enormously increased. The truant, although a cording to Kline's measurements slightly ... — Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... an ancient people, who might as well have worn a jacket of lead for the comfort they had of their boast. The beauty of laws for human creatures is their adaptability to ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had "made little fur," entertaining them as courteously as you would your special friends at an afternoon of pink tea and pink thoughts. Visiting the sick, trading fur, cultivating her little garden, bringing wolf pups and bear cubs up by hand, thus this plucky woman passes her days. It takes the adaptability and dour determination of a Scot to fit into this niche. Your Irishwoman would last in ... — The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... hand. Here was a trait that formed a bond of sympathy, and Mira took courage. It is not the contemplation of their nobler qualities, but their weaknesses, that puts us on easy terms with our fellow-men. Breakfast promised to last a long time. Gaffney, with the adaptability of the trooper of years of service on the frontier, had been worming something of their visitors' story out of them. The average Indian never wants to tell his name, but gets a friend to give it for him. It proved, however, to be Bear-Rides-Double ... — Under Fire • Charles King
... undisturbed power, and none of his friends had any fear that he would be driven out by the Allies so long as he contrived to hit it off with the Hungarians. Should these turn away from him, however, the cosmopolitan financiers, whose cardinal virtues are suppleness and adaptability, would readily work with his successor, whoever he might be. The few who knew of this quickening of high ideals with low intrigue were shocked by the light-hearted way in which under the aegis of the Conference a discreditable ... — The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... excelled was that requiring a quick intelligence, nimble fingers, and the faculty of easy adaptability. In the realm of physical strength woman was not a competitor, but there was another field in which she more than made up for that loss, and in which she early began to show great native ability. That was in all pursuits demanding the ... — Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... relations of animal life—those systems, to which we have given the names of the great leaders of our science who first proposed them, being in truth but translations into human language of the thoughts of the Creator. And if this is indeed so, do we not find in this adaptability of the human intellect to the facts of creation, by which we become instinctively, and, as I have said, unconsciously, the translators of the thoughts of God, the most conclusive proof of our affinity with the Divine mind? And is not this intellectual and spiritual connection with the Almighty ... — Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... as well as to the same power of adaptation, the monkey race, and especially the ourang-outang, closely typo approximates. Cuvier's reasoning, in my view, applies only to the adaptability (if I may be allowed the expression) of the human animal, without deciding how far he should avail himself of his power to ... — Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... which means that they are just and even-tempered. An enormous, loose-jointed machine the British Empire, which seems sometimes to creak a bit, yet holds together for that very reason. Imperial weight may have interfered with British adaptability to the kind of warfare which was the one kind that the Germans had to train for; but certainly some Englishmen ... — My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... nut which is quite neglected is the Japanese walnut. It has been on trial in this country for perhaps fifty or seventy-five years. It has indicated its adaptability to a wide range of the country; it succeeds on a great variety of soils and it is both hardy and early to come into bearing. It has this disadvantage, however,—the nuts are small; but in flavor the kernals can hardly be distinguished from those of the butternut. Very often it forms ... — Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... curved lines and smoothness, in this perfect adaptability of means to end, there is the spirit of art showing itself, not with colour or crayon, but working in tangible material substance. The makers of this plough—not the designer—the various makers, who gradually put it together, had many things ... — Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... offensive, at least in form. But the most remarkable American peculiarity in regard to slang, or indeed in regard to any new fangle in language, is the quickness with which it is adopted, and comes, if not into general use, into general knowledge. This readiness of adaptability to slang may, however, be attributed almost entirely to the reporters and correspondents, and "makers-up" of our newspapers, who catch eagerly at anything new in phraseology as well as in fact, to give a temporary interest ... — The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... shop-keeping, railway work, automobile driving, agricultural work, police work, they have been found efficient beyond precedent and intelligent beyond precedent. And in the munition factories, in the handling of heavy and often difficult machinery, and in adaptability and inventiveness and enthusiasm and steadfastness their achievement has been astonishing. More particularly in relation to intricate mechanical work is ... — What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... word with her, and he did not arrive at the Gallito house until after she and Bob Flick had left. This was the first untoward event in a successful morning, but he concealed his chagrin and, with his usual adaptability to circumstances, exerted himself to be agreeable to Mrs. Gallito, not without hope of gaining more or less ... — The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Carew, with the easy adaptability which marked him, was the central figure of one of the groups where he acted as a species of toastmaster, to direct the trend of the stories and lead the singing. Weldon sat slightly apart, watching the firelit ... — On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... phenomenal. By 1860 it was the leading grape in America and it so remains. Concord furnishes, with the varieties that have sprung from it, seventy-five per cent of the grapes grown in eastern America. The characters which distinguish the vine are: Adaptability to various soils, fruitfulness, hardiness and resistance to diseases and insects. The fruits are distinguished by certainty of maturity, attractive appearance, good but not high flavor, and by the fact that they may be produced so cheaply that no other grape can compete with this variety ... — Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... an oyster adapted? For as many as are likely to happen to it, and no more. So are the machines; and so is man himself. The list of casualties that daily occur to man through his want of adaptability is probably as great as that occurring to the machines; and every day gives them some greater provision for the unforeseen. Let any one examine the wonderful self-regulating and self-adjusting contrivances which are now incorporated with the ... — Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... have no misgivings. There is adaptability of character in Fanny. But my younger daughter, Mrs General, rather worries and vexes my thoughts. I must inform you that she has ... — Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Wells water retained its name and fame for centuries after the monks were banished and the burly king who drove them out had himself turned to dust. It has always been acknowledged as one of the purest waters to be found in the kingdom; but its peculiar and special adaptability to the brewing of "good old English cheer" was left to be discovered by the founder of the firm of Messrs. Walter Showell and Sons, who, as stated before, some twelve years back, erected the nucleus of the present extensive brewery. Starting with the sale of only a few hundred barrels ... — Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... are model settlements. Dar Es Salaam, in particular, is a beautiful and perfectly appointed colonial town. In the care in which it is laid out, in the excellence of its sanitary arrangements, in its cleanliness, and in the magnificence of its innumerable official residences, and in their sensible adaptability to the needs of the climate, one might be deceived into believing that Dar Es Salaam is the beautiful gateway of a thriving and busy colony. But there are no ramparts of merchandise along her wharves, no bulwarks ... — The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... her young; granaries; apartments for her soldiers, her workers, etc.; and they and the multifarious halls and corridors which communicate with them are arranged and distributed with an educated and experienced eye for convenience and adaptability. ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... external faculties, there would arise but little difficulty—on earth in selecting partners adapted to each other. Considerations of wealth and position are permitted to influence your selections rather than the idea of congeniality and adaptability. ... — Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... to the Congress. They are based upon the just principle that appointments to the service should be made only after a practical test of the applicant's fitness, that promotions should be governed by trustworthiness, adaptability, and zeal in the performance of duty, and that the tenure of office should be unaffected by ... — Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... but one could be employed, the choice of sight as the one best adapted for the greatest number of purposes is an intelligent one; but, as the choice is not limited, the question arises whether, in recognizing the superior adaptability to our purpose of the one, we do not lose sight of a possibly important, though secondary, function in the other. If sight were all-sufficient, there would be no need of a combination. But it cannot be maintained that such is the case. The ... — Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... the rich natural resources of the United States have furnished a substantial basis for industrial progress. On the other hand, we must note that the American people are energetic and versatile,—combining, to a happy degree, the qualities of initiative and originality, perseverance and adaptability. The great wealth and prosperity of the country as a whole have been the result of the combination of a favorable ... — Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... which is present in the individuals—the immediate concrete locations of all historical actuality—in the nature of impulse, interest, purpose, inclination, psychical adaptability, and movement of such sort that thereupon or therefrom occurs influence upon others, or the reception of influence from them—all this I designate as the content or the material of socialization. In and of themselves, these materials ... — Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... these interests eventually let the reins fall into the hands eager to grasp them and, in the endless labour and sense of usefulness, Conning learned to know content and comparative peace. He grew to look upon his present life as a kind of belated reparation. He was not depressed; with surprising adaptability he accepted what was inevitable and, while reserving, in the personal sense, his past for private hours, he managed to construct a philosophy and cheerfulness that carried him well on the ... — The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... severe as to destroy the grafts. Unfortunately, the grafts had developed so well, even to the actual bearing of nuts by three varieties, that in 1940 I did not think this precaution was necessary. Then came our catastrophic Armistice Day blizzard, the most severe test of hardiness and adaptability ever to occur in the north. Many of our hardiest trees suffered great injury from it, such trees, for instance, as Colorado blue spruce, limber pine, arborvitae; cultured varieties of hickories, hiccans, heartnuts; fruit trees, including ... — Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... The adaptability of the Barnes hickory on all stocks is notable, for it is the only one of the 10 fine hickories tested in the 1919 contest, of which this is true. If these grafts continue to flourish, and especially if future experiments check the results this year, the Barnes will have ... — Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... it should be borne in mind that large trunks and dress boxes are inadmissible. From Pindi to Srinagar everything must be transported by wheeled conveyance, and, in Kashmir itself, all luggage must be selected with a view to its adaptability to the backs of coolies or ponies. In Srinagar one can buy native trunks—or yakdans—which are cheap, strong, and portable; and the covered creels or "kiltas" serve admirably for the stowage of kitchen utensils, food, ... — A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... taking place in certain machine industries favour the increasing adaptability of labour. Many machine processes are either common to many industries, or are so narrowly distinguished that a fairly intelligent workman accustomed to one can soon learn another. If it is true that "the general ability, which is easily transferable from one trade to another, is every ... — The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... in fancy, hearken to the measured splash of the drops from the sodden moss? Could anything be more consoling than this cushion to my bruised and aching arms? Ease and sloth were sweet indeed. I was free, but not at large. The amazing adaptability of the human mind had reconciled me in a few suffering hours to this confined space. Verily do I believe that the overcoming of this subtle anodyne demanded the expenditure of more vital force than the sum of all the long-sustained automatic exertion ... — Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... with the adaptability of her kind—the adaptability which makes the French innkeeper the best in the world, always served a real "American breakfast" in ... — The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... analysis; and for bituminous coals, Youghiogheny and Pittsburgh coals. In some sections east of the Allegheny Mountains the semi-bituminous Clearfield (Pa.) and Cumberland (Md.) are also considered as standards. These coals when of good quality possess the essentials of excellence, adaptability to various kinds of furnaces, grates, boilers, and methods of firing required, besides being widely distributed and generally accessible in the Eastern market. There are no special grades of coal mined in the Western States which are widely and generally considered as standards for testing ... — Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... right of property in man" had really been admitted in practice, if not in theory, by the framers of that Constitution itself—that institution was allowed to remain there. Indeed the sparseness of its population at the time of purchase and the amazing fertility of its soil and adaptability of its climate to Slave Labor, together with the then recent invention by Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, of that wonderful improvement in the separation of cotton-fibre from its seed, known as the "cotton-gin"—which with the almost simultaneous inventions of Hargreaves, ... — The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... of lettering: adaptability and decorative effect. Development of historic writing and lettering and its influence on type design. Classification of general forms in lettering. Application of design to lettering. Drawing for reproduction. Fully illustrated; review questions; ... — Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... was being drawn into that world of the new woman—where are women policemen, and women chauffeurs, and militant suffragists, and women in overalls and breeches, and many other strange types. The war has shown us—suddenly and marvellously—the adaptability of women. Would little Nelly, too, prove as plastic as the rest, and in the excitement of meeting new demands, and reaching out to new powers, forget the old needs ... — Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bicycle, motor-car, and flying-machine; the arrival of a cheap Press; the decline of country life and increase of the towns; the birth of the Cinema. Men are, in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions; they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those ... — Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... your American soldiers cannot be expected to take over the scouting on this front, not altogether, for they do not know the country as do we French. Yet some of your young men, Henri tells me, show marvelous adaptability in the work. Is it the Red Indian blood in them, think you, that makes them so proficient in scouting?" she ... — Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... exploit his "gift" and impressed most of those who came in contact with him with his apparent sincerity. If he duped others, it seemed he also duped himself. Moreover, and this was perhaps the secret of his continued success, his "visions" were invariably symbolic and mysterious; they possessed an adaptability of character that was truly Delphic. Indeed, his hearers were compelled to put their own interpretation upon his visions. The seer seldom pretended to understand ... — Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... College, to which he went as a lad of thirteen, the eager young student added the opportunity, then uncommon, of a systematic course of study in German, and won the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Goettingen in 1820. He had in a marked degree the characteristics of his countrymen, versatility and adaptability. Giving up an early purpose of fitting himself for the pulpit, he taught in Harvard, and helped to found a school of an advanced type at Northampton. Meantime he published a volume of verse, and found out that the passionate love of poetry which lasted ... — Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... expedition and smoothness with which the law was executed emphasized the remarkable flexibility, adaptability and efficiency of our system of government and the devotion of our people. Here was a gigantic project in which success was staked not on reliance in the efficiency of a man, or an hierarchy of men, or, primarily, ... — History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... administers the affairs of the Federal Government. He may be a new man and have had no previous training in diplomacy, and little administrative experience, but in all probability he is a man of resource and adaptability, who has mastered every detail of his high office. All important matters are referred to him, so that his daily work taxes his whole strength and energy. Another part of his function is to see the Congressmen, Senators, ... — America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... something with it, but not much. And what you do not do with it, it must do with you, if there is to be the contact which is essential to the artistic function. This contact may be closened and completed by the artist's cleverness—the mere cleverness of adaptability which most first-class artists have exhibited. You can wear the fashions of the day. You can tickle the ingenuous beast's ear in order to distract his attention while you stab him in the chest. You can cajole money out of him by ... — The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... adaptability of women—a hereditary faculty, which depends upon the fact that from the beginning of time the sex has been continually employed in making the best of situations which were not of their own choosing—Maude carried off her new character easily and gracefully. In her trim blue ... — A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... of the House. Though he has still some of the ingenuous shyness of youth—though he is modest with all his honours—though he has charmed everybody by the utter absence of swagger and side in his dazzling elevation—there is a ready adaptability about Mr. Asquith to a Parliamentary situation, which is as astonishing as it is rare in men who have spent their lives in the atmosphere of the law courts. The aptitude with which the right word always comes to his lips—his magnificent composure, and, ... — Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... extraordinary fertility and versatility of his genius. Rarely has a man of letters had so full and varied a life, or been capable of so many-sided a development. His political and scientific activities, though dwarfed in the eyes of our generation by his artistic production, yet showed the adaptability of his talent in the most diverse directions, and helped to give him that balance of temper and breadth of vision in which he has been surpassed by no genius of the ancient ... — Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... then, of a practical joke is in a position similar to that of a runner who falls,—he is comic for the same reason. The laughable element in both cases consists of a certain MECHANICAL INELASTICITY, just where one would expect to find the wide-awake adaptability and the living pliableness of a human being. The only difference in the two cases is that the former happened of itself, whilst the latter was obtained artificially. In the first instance, the passer-by does nothing but look on, but in the second ... — Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... much credit for the brilliant achievement I have tried to outline belongs to the skill and adaptability of British airmen, and how much to successful organisation, would be difficult and rather unnecessary. But it is obvious that those who guided the R.F.C. from neglected beginnings to the status of a great air service had a tremendous task. Only the technical ... — Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... with her wit; pleased that money should have been offered to him, and pleased that for the present he should have declined it. He liked her dress and her willingness to change any portion of it at his slightest hint. He liked her activity and power of walking, and her general adaptability to himself. He was pleased with everything. But she had the secret ... — Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... afternoon a little stream of visitors began to arrive, and Thomas Atkins, with his extraordinary adaptability, gravely, if somewhat inaccurately, answered the catechism of well-meaning old ladies, and flirted heartily and openly with ... — The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... will succeed. His certain call—that is, his love for it, and his fidelity to it—are the imperious factors of his career. If a man enters a profession simply because his grandfather made a great name in it, or his mother wants him to, with no love or adaptability for it, it were far better for him to be a day laborer. In the humbler work, his intelligence may make him a leader; in the other career he might do as much harm as a boulder rolled from its place upon a railroad track, a ... — How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... against God and society. In this enlightened age there should be comparatively few mistakes made in the selection of a suitable partner. Sufficient time should be taken to study each other's character and disposition. Association will soon reveal adaptability. ... — Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... wonderful how people forget even important events. If a blue sun arose to lighten the world instead of a yellow one, after nine days of wonder, man would settle down quite comfortably to a cerulean existence. Such is the wonderful adaptability of humanity. ... — The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... to Israel, in whose hand will be the destiny of the world. It is the lion of languages. It will grow anywhere, and by reason of its tenacity when once it gets a foothold it abides. It is peculiarly suited to the humanities of every race, clime, and condition; there is no limit to its expansive adaptability. It is in a special manner voracious in the destruction of other languages; wherever it goes, it sounds the death-knell of all ... — The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild |