"Trait" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trait was antipathy to war, and to any system organized with military energy, could scarcely develop great results in national administration; yet the Americans prided themselves chiefly on their political capacity. Even the war did not undeceive ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... so common in the New World, it is but natural that many a high tribute to them should be found in the old records. Not for any particular or exactly named trait are these women praised, but rather for that general, indescribable quality of womanliness—that quality which men have ever praised and ever will praise. Those noble words of Judge Sewall at the open grave of his mother ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... keepers in the royal parks and forests, and are used to trace wounded deer. An officer in the 1st Life Guards has two noble dogs of this description, for one of which, I am informed, he gave fifty pounds. In fact, they are by no means uncommon in England. One distinguishing trait of purity in the breed is the colour, which is almost invariably a reddish tan, progressively darkening to the upper part, with a mixture ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... Scandinavian peninsula have certain peculiarities in their melody which impart to their work a trait of local color. This one finds in the writings of Grieg, Svendsen, and to some extent in those of Gade. A similar coloring was hit upon much earlier by Mendelssohn in the beginning ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... trait in his conversation, that though he indulged in many references to the old authors, and allusions to classic customs, he never deviated into the innumerable quotations with which his memory was stored. No words, in spite of all the quaintness and antiquity of his dialect, purely ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a living being, every physical structure and every mental trait, may be placed in one of two categories. Either they are inborn or they are acquired. An inborn or innate character is one which, in common parlance, arises in the individual 'by nature.' Thus arms, legs, eyes, ears, head, etc., and all inborn characters. The child inherits them from ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... of them have this trait developed to a remarkable degree. George's motions attracted the man. Then he leaned forward, and removed the knife from the loop. He held it up, exactly like a magician would exhibit some article that he intended ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... trait, a touch of the human in this unknown, clattering suspect of the fishing streams. I resolved to watch ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... that exhales away like a perfume with lapse of time. Historic doubts attack remote events, especially when of the extraordinary character which tempts the narrator to that magnifying of the marvellous which experience has found to be a constantly recurring human trait. It is simply impossible that the original evidential value of the "signs" accompanying the Revelation should continue permanently unimpaired. To employ them now as "evidences of Christianity," when the Revelation has won on ethical grounds recognition ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... world excelled The present in this line; Our loving Lord has not withheld From us this trait divine. ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... thirty rupees' worth of satisfaction out of his royal highness, and then go up to court and pay my fine." It will be seen that Mr. Hornaday is a true-born American, and not disposed to stand any nonsense that conflicts with the great law of human equality. But though this trait makes him appear somewhat uncharitable toward prejudices that have survived the Declaration of Independence, it shows itself in its most amiable light in his own free and sociable disposition, his readiness to be on terms of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... older girl holding a curly-haired child on her back. The pure, gentle face of the young girl is one not to be easily forgotten, and which reappears on other canvases of the artist. The affectionate care of this older sister for the child she carries is one of many instances in which the same trait is shown in Meyer's pictures, and is eminently characteristic of ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... seldom fired at a bird, for lack of powder and shot; but it was enough for him to decoy a moorhen or to detect the track of a grouse. Yegor had the character of being a straightforward fellow and 'no talker.' He did not care for talking and never exaggerated the number of birds he had taken—a trait rare in a sportsman. He was of medium height, thin, and had a pale, long face, and big, honest eyes. All his features, especially his straight and never-moving lips, were expressive of untroubled ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... humor, their literary workmanship, their genuine pathos, and their real power and eloquence, but what has been described as their deep, true humanness, and the inimitable manner in which the mirror is held up to nature that all may see reflected therein some familiar trait, some description or character which is ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... He would not argue the point. One American trait which the Creole is never entirely ready to encounter is this gratuitous Yankee way of going straight to the root ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... intellectual types, the careless and the uncritical, the over-clever and the illogical thinkers, could easily protect themselves against the dangers of the shortcomings in their mental mechanism if their minds had not another trait, which, too, is more frequent in America than anywhere else in the world—the lack of ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... a contented mind," remarked Jack, who admired this positive trait in Herbert's nature, so different from George's ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... ago I felt that I was well on my way to success, for I found a youth who offered every promise of great manhood. I studied him until I knew his every trait and his every strength—he didn't seem to have any weaknesses. I raised him according to my own ideas; he became a tall, straight fellow, handsome as a bronze statue of a god. Physically he was perfect, and he had a mind as fine as his body. He had the best blood of his nation ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Land-Thing or All-Thing. At this the king was chosen for the whole community, who sometimes appointed subordinate officers called Yarls, or earls, to preside over large districts. Respect for women was a marked trait among the Scandinavians, as Tacitus has noticed of their congeners, the Germans. They were admired for their modesty, sense, and force of character, rather than for the fascinations which the nations of the South prefer. When Thor described his battle with the sorceress, the answer ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... any indignity to women, he punished with death; but to the wounded, either of his own or of the enemy's forces, he was as gentle as a nursing sister and the brave and able he rewarded with instant promotion and higher pay. In no one trait was he a demagogue. One can find no effort on his part to ingratiate himself with his men. Among the officers of his staff there were no favorites. He messed alone, and at all times kept to himself. He spoke little, and then with ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... themselves in the warmth of his bright looks and generous humour. His laughter cheered one like wine. I do not know that he was very witty; but he was pleasant. He was prone to blush: the history of a generous trait moistened his eyes instantly. He was instinctively fond of children, and of the other sex from one year old to eighty. Coming from the Derby once—a merry party—and stopped on the road from Epsom in a lock of carriages, during which the people in the carriage ahead saluted ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... great deal to eradicate Mary's love of pretty clothes. That trait of hers had always amused him. He recalled more than one Sunday at Ware's Wigwam when she insisted on putting on her "rosebud sash" to wear walking on the desert, when there was nothing but the owls and the jack-rabbits to take notice. And he recalled the big hat-box she had squeezed into the ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... horse living. The spirit of antagonism rose up in him, that spirit of antagonism of the human against the animal, that eternal ambition of the one to master the other. And besides, I'm not sure that James didn't want to show off before the girl— another very human trait in mankind. For my part, I wouldn't give yesterday's rose for a man who wouldn't show off once in a while, when his best girl is ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... man which is equivalent to a strong natural instinct is his disposition to "do murder." This may account for his love of "sport," or it may only be an hereditary trait derived from the period when he had not yet concerned himself with agriculture, but slew wild beasts and used his implements of stone to crack their bones and get the marrow out. The instinct to slay birds, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... urbanity of manners which has been noticed by every foreign tourist as a marked Japanese trait. Politeness is a poor virtue, if it is actuated only by a fear of offending good taste, whereas it should be the outward manifestation of a sympathetic regard for the feelings of others. It also implies a due regard for ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... hands, I have spent a good share of it at the Opera, of which France is proud, and to the support of which her Government directly and liberally contributes. It is not only a National institution, but a National trait, and as such I ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... say that his colouring is adequate—he always asserted that a sense of proportion was success in art. His tone is peculiarly personal; he paints expressions, the fleeting shades that cross the face of a man, a woman, a child. He patiently awaits the master trait of a soul and never misses it, though never displaying it with the happy cruelty of Sargent and always judging mercifully. Notwithstanding his humble attitude in the presence of nature, he is the most self-revealing of painters. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... plan by which an expectation of the conversion of the natives to Christianity can possibly be indulged, 263. —————, of Africa, through commerce, the only effectual means of abolishing the slave trade, 270. Civil war prevalent in West and in South Barbary, 279. Characteristic trait of Muhamedans, 308. Christians, ordered by the emperor, on pain of death, to live peaceably with one another, 520. Christ acknowledged by muselmen, 240. Circumcision, when performed among Muhamedans, 345. Cobas ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... vagaries of her devout mind, Madame de l'Incarnation possessed a singular aptness for practical affairs. Several of her early years had been spent in the house of her brother-in-law, where she had displayed an amazing talent for the ordinary business of life. A knowledge of this trait had doubtless led the Jesuits to press her appointment as Superior of the new Ursuline Convent which Madame de la Peltrie proposed establishing at Quebec. Meanwhile, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Richelieu's niece, had also been moved by the pleadings from ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all mankind,—although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... mean by nature, let him give full swing to his meanness. Such a fellow brings discredit upon generosity by putting on its semblance. If he attempts to disguise the smallness of his soul, he only adds to his contemptible trait of meanness the still more despicable vice of hypocrisy. Mean by the sacred institution of Nature, and without a generous trait to mar the excellence of his native meanness, so long as he continues unqualifiedly mean, he exists a perfect type of a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... country, until the happy day when they, too, receive the order for a passage. Many times the entire family of a widowed mother, with the mother herself, has been thus transferred to our shores from the savings of the son or daughter who first ventured over. I refer to this remarkable trait in the Irish character, not to censure, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... for his native country was the leading trait of his character; he seems to have begun his three hours' voyage with a firm determination to be displeased at every thing he saw out of Old England. For a meagre, powdered figure, hung with tatters, a-la-mode ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... of this trait is in "The Evening Star," an earlier poem. Chrysaor, in the old mythology, sprang from the blood of Medusa, armed with a golden sword, and married Callirrhoe, one of the Oceanides. The poet, looking at evening upon the sea, muses upon the long-drawn, quivering reflection ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... belief. The comparison of these with dream books, still sold and used, and with a more extensive collection of superstitions, retained in this and other continents, would no doubt offer curious results. At present attention may be called only to one remarkable trait, namely: the interpretation of dreams by contraries. This practice I conceive to be altogether modern, and to have resulted from the extension of scientific culture, which has lead to the discredit of more direct explanations. So far as I am aware, ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... the king would put him to death for his answer or act on his advice. The king swore not to hand him over to the princes; so Jeremiah promised that if Sedekiah would give himself up to the Chaldeans he and his house would be spared and the city saved. The king—it is another credible trait in this weak character—feared that the Chaldeans would deliver him to the mockery of those Jews who had already deserted to them. Jeremiah sought to reassure him, again urged him to surrender, and ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... for some time been a small lion at evening parties; he now began to be lionised at serious dinners. He was thought much of in Carlton Gardens, and his name figured at official banquets in Downing Street. The Duchess of Dovedale considered it a nice trait in his character that, although he was so much in request, and worked so hard in the House, he never missed one of her Thursday evenings. Even when there was an important debate on he would tear up Birdcage Walk in a hansom, and spend an hour in the Duchess's amber drawing-rooms, enlightening ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... spending their money in law suits; at the same time the natives, gradually accustoming themselves to this new order of things, would lay aside that disposition to strife and contention, which forms so peculiar a trait in their character, and that antipathy and odium would also disappear with which they have usually viewed ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... his business grew rapidly; but he avoided speculation, and confined himself to legitimate commerce. He was plain and simple in his habits, carrying this trait to an extreme long after economy had ceased to be necessary to him. He worked hard, indulged in no pleasures except horseback exercise and the theater, of both which he was very fond. It was only after he had amassed a ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... speak in words of honest praise of some good feature of his character, or of something he has done or possesses, he says in effect, "I wish it was even as you say; but you are mistaken. I have no such trait as you refer to, and what I have done is far from deserving the eulogium you have passed upon it. I am a very poor creature, and have no such goodness as you attribute to me, and am not capable of doing any such good work as you say ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... of the rules in Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar is, "As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out." He followed this rule. Some have complained that the great humorist's mind, like Emerson's, often worked in a disconnected fashion, but this trait has been exaggerated in the case of both. Mark Twain has certainly made a stronger impression than many authors whose "sixthly" follows more inevitably. It is true that his romances do not gather up every loose end, that they do not close with a grand climax ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... the well-to-do was not left intact. Some lost their possessions to spite him and others destroyed themselves with their livelihoods. Similarly he hated and made away with some others who had no considerable wealth; for, if they possessed any excellent trait or were of a good family, he became suspicious that they ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... and hearty, though simple and unostentatious, reverence for the sex, that teaches men to regard all women as worthy of freedom, respect, and protection, simply by virtue of their womanhood. I say not that this chivalry is a Southern, but that it is an American trait. As such I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... or draft. The very bulk of the currency seemed to impress them. He had seen an old-timer refuse a twelve-hundred-dollar marked cheque for his property, and yet surrender greedily at the sight of a thousand one-dollar bills piled on a table before him. This was a trait of human nature found in many persons unaccustomed to the handling of considerable sums of money, and sharp traders considered it good business to take advantage of it. The banker thought he understood why Harris wanted all the money in bills, although the sum was larger than he had ever seen ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... technically, as an eighteen-er, giving him an alert appearance which had first attracted me. By nature taciturn, he was always willing to sit up all night as long as the gin was handy, an excellent trait in a navigator. About his neck he wore a felt bag containing ten or a dozen assorted marbles with which he furnished his vacant socket according to his fancy, and the effect of his frequent changes was ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... figure on that wrinkled cheek! For never thought but left its stiffened trace, Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face, As the swift record of a raindrop stands, Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands. On every face as on the written page Each year renews the autograph of age; One trait alone may wasting years defy,— The fire still lingering in the poet's eye, While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest strain,— Non omnis moriar ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... coquetry; it was a genuine dread of undue familiarity. A kindred trait in Mahony's own ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... mind dwells more on show than on substantial things, and a proof that the possessor of this quality is not content to rely altogether on the higher moral feelings and attainments for her claims to deference. In a word, it is some such trait as that which distinguishes the beautiful plumage of the peacock, from the motive that incites the bird to ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... misgivings ought to be felt. When we spoke of the treatment of the sick, we had always to emphasize that the suggestion cures symptoms but not diseases. In the same way hypnotic suggestion might reenforce a single trait but would not reform the personality of the child. Yes, the artificial reenforcement of such special features would deprive education of that which is the most essential, namely, the development of the power to overcome ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... as throwing light upon the Provencal temperament are the numerous and constantly recurring interjections. This trait in the man of the Midi is one that Daudet has brought out humorously in the Tartarin books. It is often difficult in serious situations to take these ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... arms are not so essential to female beauty as erectness of figure, a trait on which our low school-desks have made sad havoc. The only sure panacea for round shoulders in boys appears to be the military drill, and Miss Mitford records that in her youth it was the custom in girls' schools to apply the same remedy. Dr. Lewis relies greatly on the carrying of moderate weights ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... betrayed the perplexity and trouble of his mind. How could he give up the lovely girl at his side, whose very imperfection and need won more upon him than any display of conscious strength and advanced spirituality? Her frankness, her humility and severe self-condemnation, appealed to every generous trait of his large, charitable nature. He now believed, as never before, that she was "capable of the noblest things," and he began to suffer from the torturing thought that his course was a mistaken one, and that he wronged her by acting upon the supposition that her old surroundings of ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... cheerful person on board. Food and sleep had restored his spirits wonderfully and with the characteristic trait of his race, he was almost satisfied as long as he had those two things. No one had mentioned his fight with Petersen to him. If he did not remember it, there was no use in telling him about it. The four boys decided ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... making honourable mention of a trait of attachment manifested on this occasion by the first lieutenant, a Scotch baronet of an ancient family, who had not been at sea for twenty-two years, when he was appointed to the Tisiphone. The ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... a couple of wild, uncouth lads, (her nephews,) during their residence in college, it speaks much for her good nature, at all events. They were not, I believe, grateful for the means she adopted to display this amiable trait in her disposition, nor did people in general appreciate it as they surely ought to have done. Ill nature—and there is often a frightful preponderance of that quality in a small town—did not hesitate to assert that the widow Welborn's motive for pitching her tent amid scholastic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... her; another glow, warming her floating fancy, mingled with it, giving her quiet purpose the trait of heroism. The old spirit of the dead chivalry, of succor to the weak, life-long self-denial,—did it need the sand waste of Palestine or a tournament to call it into life? Down in that trading town, in the thick of its mills and drays, it could live, she thought. That very night, perhaps, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... the pseudo-Radical calumniators of Lavengro and its author; were the writer on his deathbed he would lay his hand on his heart and say, that he does not believe that there is one trait of exaggeration in the portrait which he has drawn. This is one of the pseudo-Radical calumniators of Lavengro and its author; and this is one of the genus, who, after having railed against jobbery ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... else; but the American, as a rule, is either too proud or too foolish to inquire into these details. At home he is beset by a hideous fear that some waiter will think he is of a mercenary nature; and when he is abroad this trait in him is accentuated. So, in his carefree American way, he orders a portion of a dish of an unspecified value; whereupon the head waiter slips out to the office and ascertains by private inquiry how large a letter of credit ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... will do my heroine the justice to remember that she set out with only three, consequently her wish that another had been added, arose from a motive purely affectionate and characteristic. This benevolent trait, ingeniously insinuated, excites the interest of the reader for her, and adds horror to ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... all about Theodosia. I like to think and speak of her. She is my life, my soul, my ambition, my joy. Theodosia has no fault that I can see, no trait which I do not admire and ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... blubber or raw seal's flesh dripping with oil and filth, as if inviting them to partake of it. Both the men and women were guilty of still more disgusting indecencies, which seemed to afford them amazing diversion. A worse trait even than all these was displayed by two women alongside the Hecla, who, in a manner too unequivocal to be misunderstood, offered to barter their children for some article of trifling value, beginning very ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... ready to dispute with every body—'sparing neither father nor mother, scarcely even the lower animals,' if they had but a voice to reply. They have always expected more from metaphysics than (except as a discipline) they will ever yield. He elsewhere, still more humorously describes the same trait. He compares then, to young dogs who are perpetually snapping at every thing about them:—Hoimai gar se ou lelethenai, hoti hoi meirakiskoi, hotan to proton logon geuontai, os paidia autois katachrontai, aei eis antilogian chromenoi kai mimoumenoi tous exelenchontas autoi ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... wonderful property for a plant to possess, but it is not half so strange as another trait of these same pretty green leaves. They will shut up when it is dark, and ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... flow, for it was in a broken and contrite voice the old man told her this unexpected trait in her Gerard. He continued, "And even with that he ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... by the clergy. In the preceding poem, Swift gives the same trait of his own character: "A clergyman of special note For shunning those of his own coat." His feeling towards his order was exactly the reverse of his celebrated misanthropical expression of hating mankind, but loving individuals. On the contrary, he loved ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... agreed. Ezram gave a great sigh of satisfaction. He had put through the deal: Ben's secret thought was that Ezram's curiosity—always a pronounced trait with the old—had mastered him, and he could not wait longer to explore the mine. Not one glimpse of the truth as to Ezram's real reason for desiring to push on alone as ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... adding the brilliant resourcefulness of the man, the complete ignorance of fear, one could perhaps understand why even his blood enemy, the impassive Ku Sui, a man otherwise devoid of every human trait, could not face Carse unmoved in his ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... trait in Jimmy which marked him off as a highly bred little fellow. For let me tell you, boys, respect for your elders is the first point of high breeding all ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... consciousness. Her phase of character, however, was one of the most hopeless. It was true that her vanity had grown to the proportions of a disease, but even this might be overcome. Her father's stern words had wounded it terribly, and she had experienced twinges of self-disgust. But another trait had become inwrought, by long habit, with every fibre of her soul—selfishness. It was almost impossible to give up her own way and wishes. Graydon Muir pleased her fancy, and she was bent on marrying him. Her father's ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... Boston contemporaries, he was not English in feeling or in sympathies. Perhaps a hundred years of acute hostility to England had something to do with this family trait; but in his case it went further and became indifference to social distinction. Never once in forty years of intimacy did his son notice in him a trace of snobbishness. He was one of the exceedingly small number of Americans to whom an English duke or duchess seemed to be indifferent, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... an entire consciousness that he had never seen any society that deserved the name before this very night, but he was supported in giving his opinions by that secret sense of his qualifications to fill any station, which formed so conspicuous a trait in his character, and his answer was given with an aplomb that would have added weight to the opinion of the veriest ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... a bit of conduct, a bit of adjustment, that characterizes the Chinese cook. Not only that, but, in a general way, it is peculiar to all Chinese, and hence may be called a national trait. We might call it a vigorous national prejudice in favor of precedent. But whatever we call it, it is a very dominant force in Chinese life. It is the trait that, perhaps more than any other, distinguishes Chinese conduct from European or American conduct. Now ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... my father, your lordship," said I amiably, "despite your trying hard to forget him, you will remember that he had a certain native wit which on occasion led him to be able to frustrate his enemies. It must have been a family trait, for I seem to have it. You are an evil old man! You ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... expected war. The British agent, Colonel Dixon, was holding talks with, and making presents to the different tribes. I had not made up my mind whether to join the British or remain neutral. I had not discovered yet one good trait in the character of the Americans who had come to the country. They made fair promises but never fulfilled them, while the British made but few, and we could always rely implicitly ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... October, 1797, the month after her death, is friendly, but there are limitations to its praise. The following is the sentence it passed upon her: "Her manners were gentle, easy, and elegant; her conversation intelligent and amusing, without the least trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness of powers above the level of her sex; and, for fondness of understanding and sensibility of heart, she was, perhaps, never equalled. Her practical skill in education was ever superior to her ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Annie could sit up; could walk about her room; she gained in flesh and color and strength so rapidly that it was a marvel. She was gentle and gay and loving; her old rare, sweet self in every little way and trait and expression; not a look, not a smile, not a tone was wanting; but it was the Annie of last year, and not of this. She made no allusion to her wedding, the day for which had now passed. She did not ask for George. The whole ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... visit) repairing a bridge we had to cross! They did it in style, and naturally had no cheer-leader; time was kept by beating on the floor of the bridge with tools. For this uttering of a shout of welcome or of other emotion in unison is a characteristic trait of the Ifugaos, like their using spoons, and can be likened to nothing else in the world but our American ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... It is too plain he has betray'd his country; And we're the wretched tools by him mark'd out To seal its ruins—tear up the ancient forms, And every vestige treacherously destroy, Nor leave a trait of freedom in the land. Nor did I think hard fate wou'd call me up From drudging o'er my acres, Treading the glade, and sweating at the plough, To dangle at the tables of the great; At bowls and cards to spend my frozen years; To sell my friends, my country, and my conscience; ...
— The Group - A Farce • Mercy Warren
... a panel in the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened at meal times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth, and joined her at table. At the word of command or a signal from her ladyship, they retired again to their native obscurity—a trait of good sense in the character and habits of the animals which, it is hardly necessary to remark, patrons do not ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... appearance of verdure, without affording either coolness or shade. Before our guide had walked a league, he began to sit down every moment, and at length he wished to repose under the shade of a fine tamarind tree near Casas de la Vela, to await the approach of night. This characteristic trait, which we observed every time we travelled with Indians, has given rise to very erroneous ideas of the physical constitutions of the different races of men. The copper-coloured native, more accustomed to the burning heat of the climate, than the European traveller, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... that Lovin Child revealed a primitive human trait. He would not give up the gold. He held fast to one big nugget, spread his fat legs over the remaining heap of them, and fought Bud's hand away with ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... Intellectualism is the term that best describes this attitude. It had its basis in psychology, and from there succeeded in establishing itself as the ruling principle in ethics and metaphysics. As reason and intellect is the distinguishing trait of man—the part of man which raises him above the beast—and as the soul is the form of the living body, its essence and actuating principle, it was argued that the most important part of man is his rational soul or intellect, and immortality was made dependent upon ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... dear fellow, Aglaya is such an extraordinary, such a self-willed, fantastical little creature, you wouldn't believe it! Every high quality, every brilliant trait of heart and mind, are to be found in her, and, with it all, so much caprice and mockery, such wild fancies—indeed, a little devil! She has just been laughing at her mother to her very face, and at her sisters, and at Prince S., and everybody—and of course she always laughs at me! You know ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Uneducated, homely, narrow enough in much of his thinking, the manufacturer of oil-cloth must have had singular possibilities in his nature to renew himself in a youth so apt for modern culture as Walter was; thinking back in his maturity, the latter remembered many a noteworthy trait in his father, and wished the old man could have lived yet a few more years to see his son's work really beginning. And Egremont often felt lonely. Possibly he had relatives living, but he knew of none; in any case they could not now be ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... and Pompadourism, can make a Jeanne Phlipon, and nourish her to clear perennial Womanhood, though but on Logics, Encyclopedies, and the Gospel according to Jean-Jacques! Biography will long remember that trait of asking for a pen "to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her." It is as a little light-beam, shedding softness, and a kind of sacredness, over all that preceded: so in her too there was an Unnameable; she too was a Daughter of the Infinite; there ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... is all that is required. But the negation of letting alone is seldom accepted as a means of doing good, in the place of the active and the positive forms of treatment. This is in accordance with a trait of human nature which is universal, and is unlimited in its applications; hence something must be done. In mild cases of shoulder lameness, then, the indications are water, either in the cold douche or by showering, or by warm fomentations. Warm, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Simpson. This letter is a naive expression of a fundamental trait in Grant's character, belief in the essential honesty ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... this island before; and now that he had seen signs of others having landed, he began to feel doubly anxious. Perhaps it was the "call of the wild" in his composition; or possibly he had inherited some trait bordering on a love of adventure, handed down from some remote ancestor who may have roamed the ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... period when the theatres were closed, Dryden seems to have written and published the "Annus Mirabilis" of which we spoke at the close of the last Section. But he was also then labouring upon his "Essay of Dramatic Poesy." It was a singular trait in the character of our author, that by whatever motive he was directed in his choice of a subject, and his manner of treating it, he was upon all occasions, alike anxious to persuade the public, that ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... the doctor's face looked hard. Was it, he seemed to be turning over in his mind, that she loved him a little in the depths of her heart? That was an irritating trait of feminine stupidity. But one intelligent glance at her calm face rendered that supposition impossible. She was merely largely human, with a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... cet enfant de Guide Fripon ruse, volage et seducteur; Qui par les yeux d'une beaute timide, D'un trait de feu veut nous frapper au coeur. Du sentimens que sa fleche fit naitre, Et que la mort peut seul aneantir, Eternissons le ravissant bien-etre, En ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... purpose and makes them contribute to it. In selecting the character he wishes to reveal he has wide choice. "Human nature is the same, wherever you find it," we are fond of saying. So he may choose a character that is quite common, some one he knows; and, having made much of some one trait and ignored or subordinated others, bring him before us at some moment of decision or in some strange, perhaps hostile, environment. Or the author may take some character quite out of the ordinary: the village miser, the recluse, or a person ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... sympathy even when they lead their possessor to destruction. The psychology implied in Jonson's treating of 'humour' is another phase of the same sentiment. The side by which energetic characters lend themselves to comedy is the exaggeration of some special trait which determines their course as tyrannically as ambition governs the character ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Indeed, the dominant trait with her throughout her long life was loyalty to her family and their interests,—a loyalty fine in the abstract, but which was to lead her along many doubtful and devious ways. It caused her to match prince against prince, party against party, religion against religion, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... father's relation to his child. The book does not change, and, whatever it fortunes, it remains to the end what its author made it. The son is an evolution out of a long line of ancestry, and one's responsibility of this or that trait is often very slight; but the book is an actual transcript of his mind, and is wise or foolish according as he made it so. Hence I trust my reader will pardon me if I shrink from any discussion of the merits or demerits of these intellectual ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... them to pitiful calculation of the sordid gain to be derived from their Government's maintenance. It undermines the self-reliance of our people and substitutes in its place dependence upon governmental favoritism. It stifles the spirit of true Americanism and stupefies every ennobling trait of American citizenship. ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... proposal would doubtless have been strangled with red tape; but, fortunately, the Secretary at that time was Mr. John Y. Mason, of Virginia. Mr. Mason was famous for his good nature. Both at Washington and at Paris, where he was afterward minister, this predominant trait has left a multitude of amusing traditions; it was of him that Senator Benton said, "To be supremely happy he must have his paunch full of oysters and his hands ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... 1876, which remains to be mentioned is "Dandelion Clocks," a short tale; but it will need rather a long introduction, as it opens out into a fresh trait of my sister's character, ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... we get used to our surroundings—to our clothing, our shoes, and gloves; to the atmosphere as long as it is fairly equable; to our daily associates, etc. Conformity to the environment, a change wrought in the organism without reference to ability to modify surroundings, is a marked trait of such habituations. Aside from the fact that we are not entitled to carry over the traits of such adjustments (which might well be called accommodations, to mark them off from active adjustments) into habits of active use of our surroundings, two features of habituations are worth ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... to nine. He was named after the Presbyterian minister who was his father's predecessor. The first name soon dropped out of use, and from childhood he went by his middle name, a practice of which the Clevelands supply so many instances that it seems to be quite a family trait. ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... there was something—a suspicion of coarseness, a possibility of weakness—which in the eyes of some, and of his sister among them, marred the grace and beauty of his features. Yet, as he was wont himself to say, when one thinks that each poor mortal is heir to a legacy of every evil trait or bodily taint of so vast a line of ancestors, lucky indeed is the man who does not find that Nature has scored up some long-owing ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fruit, reminds me of a pleasant trait on the part of a Grecian of the name of Le Grice. He was the maddest of all the great boys in my time; clever, full of address, and not hampered with modesty. Remote rumors, not lightly to be heard, fell ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... with being a reactionary, a friend of the "bosses" and with using the patronage in order to secure a renomination. And he grated on the sensibilities of the nation by referring to his influence in getting Taft elected in 1908 and remarking, "it is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you." The result of the presidential preference primaries in the few states that held them was overwhelmingly in favor of Roosevelt; in the states where conventions chose the delegates, Taft ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... an Irishman, who had a bandage tied round his head, but who did not appear to be much, if at all, the worse of the accident. "It's a disgrace intirely that the railways should be allowed to trait us in this fashion. If they'd only go to the trouble an' expense of havin' proper signals on lines, there would be nothing o' this kind. And if Government would make a law to have an arm-chair fitted up in front of every locomotive and a director made to travel with sich train, we'd hear ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... broadest sense, of books, scientific discoveries, his travels, and the travels of others. He read whole volumes of poetry to her. He discoursed by the hour on the manly character, its faults, merits, peculiarities, and possibilities, and then contrasted it with the womanly one, trait for trait, and it seemed to her that women had never been praised so eloquently, enthusiastically, copiously. At no time was he in the least choked by his feelings or at a loss for a fresh word or sentiment. Such romance, such ideality, such universality, as it were, she had never ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... morning, therefore, I found him gone, the strollers looking glum, and the good-wife and her girl between tears and reproaches. I could not but feel, on my part, that I had somewhat stooped in the night's diversion; but before I had time to reflect much on that an unexpected trait in the strollers' conduct reconciled me to this odd experience. They proposed to leave when I did; but a little before the start they came to me, and set before me very ingenuously that the woman of the house might suffer through our jest; if I would help her therefore, they would ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... trait, but they also have courage when desperation drives them. Now they are holed up in their strongholds, waiting developments. They will only come out to fight if they see an opportunity to crush their opposition, or if they are ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... native "land o'cakes and brither Scots," had the reputation of being "heady," strong-minded, proud of their ancestral descent, and were regarded, at times, as being rather "rebellious"—a trait of character which, in this last respect, some of their descendants strongly manifested in the late Confederate struggle, but in accordance with the most honorable and ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... amiable qualities, though the peculiar trait in his character, which we have already mentioned, in a great measure threw a shade over them. He was beloved for his humanity and benevolence by all who knew him, but he was easy and unsuspicious himself, and became a dupe to ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... enthusiasm. That he had some acquaintance with the subject may be presumed from this, that, at so early a stage of such inquiries, he had published a work on human craniology, supported by measurement of heads selected from all varieties of the human species. Meantime, as it would grieve me that any trait of what might seem vanity should creep into this record, I will admit that my sister died of hydrocephalus; and it has been often supposed that the premature expansion of the intellect in cases of that class is altogether morbid— ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Perishability of Capital Goods does not put Capital out of Existence.—Perishability is the most striking trait of capital goods. Each particular one comes and goes, but there is always a stock of them on hand; for when one is on the point of going, another is ready to take its place and keep up the succession. New tools replace old ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... third act, when Sardanapalus calls for a mirror to look at himself in his armour, recollect to quote the Latin passage from Juvenal upon Otho (a similar character, who did the same thing): Gifford will help you to it. The trait is perhaps too familiar, but it is historical, (of Otho, at least,) and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... time to good advantage. She straightened out her bureau drawers and mended all her clothes and stockings. When everything was in order she viewed the result with a happy feeling at the pleasure it would give her mother when she saw it. Hinpoha's most prominent trait in times past had not ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... barbarism. They used torture for the extraction of answers from reluctant persons, employed the scourge to punish trifling offences, and, in certain cases, condescended to mutilate the bodies of their dead enemies. Their addiction to intemperance is also a barbaric trait. They were, no doubt, on the whole, less civilized than either the Greeks or Romans; but the difference does not seem to have been so great as represented ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... girl do when her guardian was gone? She desired her mother to give her the written paper, saying to me, 'Dear Mozart, I require no written contract from you. I rely on your promise.' She tore up the paper. This trait endeared Constanze ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... had acquired. It may be that he had no desire to perpetuate the power in his family; and it is certain that this could not have been accomplished. Sulla had only one son, and he was now a child. But it is certainly a striking trait in this man's character that he descended to a private station from the possession of unlimited power, and after, as Appian observes, having caused the death of more than one hundred thousand men in his Italian wars, besides ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... be owned that Pichegru was far from exciting the same interest as Moreau. The public, and more especially the army, never pardoned him for his negotiations with the Prince de Conde prior to the 18th Fructidor. However, I became acquainted with a trait respecting him while he was in Paris which I think does him much honour. A son of M. Lagrenee, formerly director of the French Academy at Rome, had been one of Pichegru's aides de camp. This young man, though he had obtained the rank ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... that," answered Col. Zane. "It is a good joke to say he gets it all from the Zanes. How about the McCollochs? What have you to say of your father and the Major and John McColloch? They are not anything if not the fighting kind. It's the best trait the youngster could have, out here on the border. He'll need it all. Don't worry about ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Governor. "The Marquis de Montcalm has not the honor of being consulted; and it is generally through public rumor that he first hears of Monsieur de Vaudreuil's military plans." He calls the Governor "a timid man, who can neither make a resolution nor keep one;" and he gives another trait of him, illustrating it, after his usual way, by a parallel from the classics: "When V. produces an idea he falls in love with it, as Pygmalion did with his statue. I can forgive Pygmalion, for what he ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... inflict the whole penalty upon his beloved son; and his high regard for the demands of public justice would not permit him to set at naught the authority of the law: and but for the possession and manifestation of this last trait of character, the mighty strugglings and yearnings of the first could not have burst forth and appeared with such overwhelming power and transcendent lustre. Hence, every system of redemption which, like that of the Socinian, leaves out of view the administrative justice ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... towards the end of my second week at Greenton, that I noticed what was probably not a new trait—Mr. Jaffrey's curious sensitiveness to atmospherical changes. He was as sensitive as a barometer. The approach of a storm sent his mercury down instantly. When the weather was fair he was hopeful and sunny, and Andy's prospects were brilliant. When the weather was overcast and threatening he grew ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... society there is nothing of this detraction in order to get the first place at the crib, or the farther stall in the stable. If the question arises, the cows turn in, horns and all, and settle it with one square fight, and that ends it. I have often admired this trait in COWS. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... interesting details about Kossuth. Mr. Brace made a tour in Europe, chiefly on foot, during the spring of 1851, and met Kossuth in Pesth; his mother was then living there. "To say that Kossuth is beloved here seems hardly necessary after what I have seen. He is idolized. Every word and trait of his character is remembered with an indescribable affection ..."; but they all acknowledged, he added, that he did not possess the necessary gifts for a revolutionary leader. Still, he moved his countrymen in so stirring a manner that they would have followed him anywhere. "He 'agitated' ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... surprised at himself. If she had loved another, the wound of loneliness must have bled inwardly until it sapped his life. Oh, how daintily sweet she was! Every day he found some new trait. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... circling in a stream which should be progressive and adaptive: Don Quixote grows at length to be a man out of his wits; his understanding is deranged; and hence without the least deviation from the truth of nature, without losing the least trait of personal individuality, he becomes a substantial living allegory, or personification of the reason and the moral sense, divested of the judgment and the understanding. Sancho is the converse. He is the common sense without ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... quickly in China, never be in a hurry. Appear unconscious of all that is passing; never be irritated by any delay, and assume complete indifference, even when you are really anxious to push on. Emulate, too, that leading trait in the Chinese character, and never understand anything which you do not wish to understand. No man on earth can be denser than a ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... The trait in Browning which appeals to the largest number of readers is his strenuous optimism. He will admit no evil or sorrow too great to be borne, too irrational to have some ultimate purpose of beneficence. "There shall never be one lost good," ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamore, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more, Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe,— Not that she is truly so, But no other way they know A contentment to express, Borders so upon excess That they do not rightly wot Whether ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... It is a significant trait of history that the times and nations most distinguished for piety are also most distinguished for backwardness. Czarist Russia, and contemporary Spain are near examples, but illustrations may be drawn from any part of the world; the Southern States of the United States of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... sometime become celebrated for preeminence in some virtue. Why, I have known young fellows in my office that I have believed unmatched for some fine trait or noble quality. You have ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... turned up at the Conference. This time she was recommending her late cook for the post of librarian, alleging on her behalf the same strange trait of character—her fondness for reading. Here, of course, one recalls Mark Pattison's famous dictum, 'The librarian who reads is lost,' about which there is much to be said, both pro and con; but we must not be put off our inquiry, which is: Who ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... "boarder" cows from their herds and that if they breed from a scrub sire they will have scrub stock; but if the boarder cow was also inclined to become vicious and to corrupt the habits of the rest of the herd and the farmer knew this trait to be hereditary, he would invariably send such a cow to the butcher. I believe that as soon as farmers appreciate the biological significance of feeble-mindedness they will insist upon reasonable legislation ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... any longer with that old bush," as he went back to Peter's rose. "It is not a trait of yours to be persistent about trifles. Or stay: give me a bud for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... that thoughtful, wise, spiritual look into life, which met one in Dolly's serious hazel orbs; not often that sweetness and character speak so early in the lines of the lips; utterly childish in their soft, free mobility, and yet revealing continually a trait of thoughtfulness or of strength, along with the happy play of an unqualified tender disposition. "You are lovely! you are lovely!" was Mrs. Eberstein's inner cry; and she had to guard herself that the thought did ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... agreeable, uniformly good-tempered, and cheerful women whom one could possibly meet. Anything attractive and genuinely happy delighted her. Even the faculty of being pleased with the sight of young people enjoying themselves (it is only in the best-natured of elderly folk that one meets with that TRAIT) she possessed to the full. On the other hand, her daughter was of a grave turn of mind. Rather, she was of that peculiarly careless, absent-minded, gratuitously distant bearing which commonly distinguishes unmarried beauties. Whenever she tried to be gay, her gaiety somehow seemed to be ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... not pause to reflect that some of the merit involved in this amiable trait of character might have been referable to the fact, that he had never happened to fall upon a state of society in which a comfortable living was to be made by the hurting of worms. He thought only of the story he had heard about Philip Sheldon; and he told himself that not in the direst necessity ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... The distinguishing trait of people accustomed to good society is a calm, imperturbable quiet which pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least. They eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... were seldom the best. He flattered them to their faces and sneered at them in his heart. Therefore his attentions were merely of a nature to excite their vanity, stimulated by much incense from other sources. He saw this plainly manifested trait, which he contributed to develop, and despised it. He also saw that many were as eager for a good match as ever the adored Miss Bently had been, and that, while they liked his compliments, they cared not for him. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... some transient trait of pity Was shown, and some more noble heart broke through Its bloody bond, and saved perhaps some pretty Child, or an aged, helpless man or two— What 's this in one annihilated city, Where thousand loves, and ties, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... peculiarly appropriate to royalty. His exclamation at the battle of La Hogue, when he beheld the English sailors scrambling up the sides of the French ships from their boats—"None but my brave English could do this!" was one trait of a character neither devoid of sensibility, nor destitute of certain emotions which appear incompatible with the royal patron of Judge Jeffries, and with the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... much awry on the right; and then, to punish the offending and displacing hand, he would commence gnawing off the nails of his fingers, rich with the moisture from above. We have recorded this little personal trait, because it may be valuable to the gentleman's future biographers; and also because it is a convincing proof to the illiterate and the leveller, that head-work is not such easy, sofa-enjoyed labour, as is commonly supposed; and, finally, that the great writer's habit, vivos ungues rodere, proves ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... human being so strange and mysterious, such an unknown quantity, to Caleb Thayer as his own son. He had not one trait of character in common with him—at least, not one so translated into his own vernacular that he could comprehend it. It was to Caleb as if he looked in a glass expecting to see his own face, and saw therein the face of ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Dieu!" cried Paragot, banging the marble table, with his fist, "Do you see in what a vice he held me? He was a devil, that man! The only human trait about him was a passion for rare apes of which he had a collection at Nevers. Thank Heaven they are dead! Thank Heaven he is dead! Thank Heaven he lost most of the money for which he preyed on his kind. He was a vulture, a scaly-headed vulture. He was the carrion kite above every rotten financial ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... heroines in European fairy tales, with stars on their foreheads, are given with some copiousness in Stokes, l. c., pp. 242-3. This is an essentially Indian trait; almost all Hindus have some tribal or caste mark on their bodies or faces. The choice of the hero disguised as a menial is also common property of Indian and European fairy tales: see Stokes, l. c., p. 231, and my List of Incidents ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... the hospitality which is so marked a trait among our North American Indians had its source in a law, the invariable practice of which has had a marked effect in retarding the acquisition by the Indian of the virtue of providence. As is well known, the basis of the Indian social organization ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... of expense, one would suppose, must be neither more nor less than the actual marriage fee. I have never seen this remark of Oswald's adequately explained, either as a matter of economic fact, or as a trait of character. Another blemish, of somewhat greater moment, is the inconceivable facility with which, in the third act, Manders suffers himself to be victimised by Engstrand. All these little things, taken together, detract, as it seems to me, from ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... and circulate the spirit of liberty." He made it a point to speak on every question that came up, whether interested in it or not, as a means of exercising and training his faculties, for he was bent on making himself a powerful debater. His love of argument was perhaps the most striking trait of his character, and "he rose," said Mr. Burke, "by slow degrees to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw." There was nothing strained or unnatural in his most vehement bursts of passion, "his feeling," says Coleridge, "was all intellect, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... like a governess, and brimful of laughter and small jokes. So is the bishop indeed, and our luncheon party went off merrily - far more merrily than many a German spread, though with so much less liquor. One trait was delicious. With a complete ignorance of the Protestant that I would scarce have imagined, he related to us (as news) little stories from the gospels, and got the names all wrong! His comments were delicious, and to our ears a thought irreverent. 'AH! ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... But this trait of Ann's flattered and delighted Truedale; often he was amused, but he knew that it was the one thing above all else in the little girl that endeared ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... wind, and your son is shown to be a most admirable fellow. To put his own discovery to the credit of his old professor so as to obtain for him the recognition and favor of the authorities—upon my word, in all antiquity I don't know a finer trait!" ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Novels," and was called "Alamance; or, the Great and Final Experiment," and it was about the life of some sort of community in North Carolina. It bewitched them, and though my boy could not afterwards recall a single fact or figure in it, he could bring before his mind's eye every trait of its outward aspect. It was at this time that his father bought an English-Spanish grammar from a returned volunteer, who had picked it up in the city of Mexico, and gave it to the boy. He must have expected him to learn Spanish from it; but the boy did not know even the parts of speech ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... Although, however, he declined to accept the post, he enjoyed all its authority and prerogative. Frederick always consulted him in filling up vacancies and making appointments. It is a magnanimous trait in D'Alembert's history that he should have procured for Lagrange a position and livelihood at Berlin, warmly commending him as a man of rare and superior genius, although Lagrange had vigorously ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... hair, before it turned gray," Hilary said, "so that must be a family trait; your chin's like his, Paul, too,—so ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... have been that in the appearance and action of Bippo and Pedros which excited the latent mirth of the Murhapas, for say what we may, the trait exists in a greater or less degree in all human beings. One of them reached forward with his javelin and gave Bippo a sharp prick. With a howl, he leaped several feet in air and yelled that he ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis |
