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More "Versatile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... connection with Punch began with the first Almanac, while he was, with James Hannay, in residence in the "Fleet." The doctor, as one of the most versatile writers of the day, was looked upon by the "Punchites" as useful for their purpose as he was for any of the rival papers with which he was connected. "He would write a leader for the 'Standard' one ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... our economic assets are more than equal to the task. Our independent farmers produce an abundance of food and fibre. Our free workers are versatile, intelligent, and hardworking. Our businessmen are imaginative and resourceful. The productivity, the adaptability of the American economy is the solid foundation-stone of our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... him and his two disciples to the flames, decided that his confession should not be read aloud at the stake, according to custom, feeling certain that an this occasion also he would give it the lie, and that publicly, which, as anyone must see who knew the versatile spirit of the public, would be a most ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... captain," said the versatile agent; "but, my dear fellow, do try to get it into your head that these things have to go through many intricate stages. First, the trouble which ought to have been foreseen takes place; then weeks are occupied in transfixed amazement without doing anything; then a council is held to consider why ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... my dark heart. Yet I look up, I trust singly, to Him from whom it came yesterday; and thither may I look till again the day break. Can I say, in full sincerity, "more than they that watch for the morning"? Alas that I am so versatile! Christian and worldling within a day. Oh for a deeper sense that I am not my own,—that I have no right to disturb the sanctuary of my own spirit when God has made it such,—that there is no ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... lived very much as a recluse in his chambers, and was thought to be reserved, and what those who disliked him called arrogant. But Bacon was ambitious—ambitious, in the first place, of the Queen's notice and favour. He was versatile, brilliant, courtly, besides being his father's son; and considering how rapidly bold and brilliant men were able to push their way and take the Queen's favour by storm, it seems strange that Bacon should have remained fixedly in the shade. Something must ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... light of a more or less connected tradition, it is impossible not be struck by the originality and diversity of the various forms which it assumed. Though as a literary kind it never rivalled its Italian model in fertility, it evinced an individual and versatile quality which we seek in vain in other countries. To substantiate this claim and to show how far the vitality of the English pastoral was due to its hybrid origin will be my chief aim in this chapter. When I come to deal with the main subject of this inquiry it will be necessary to determine ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... immense popularity, and within the last few months have appeared two volumes which fully confirm the views of their forerunners—M. Hallays' impressions of many wayfarings and Apres quarante ans by M. Jules Claretie, the versatile, brilliant and much respected administrator-general of ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... versatile genius. Born in 1608, he was practically contemporary with Francesco Lana, and there is evidence that he either knew or was in correspondence with many prominent members of the Royal Society of Great Britain, more especially with John Collins, Dr ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... man, and in mediaeval culture, and his work is generally romantic both in style and in spirit. The same conflict between the classic and romantic schools, and the triumph of Romanticism, is shown clearly in the most versatile of Gray's ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... be treated with such distance and pride by the youngest earl but one in all Scotland?" They were better friends afterwards, and Robert found him a kind patron when his professional merit was made known to him. Lord Bute was a worthy and virtuous man, but he was not versatile enough for a Prime Minister; and though personally brave, was void of that political firmness which is necessary to stand the storms of state. We returned to Scotland by Oxford, Warwick, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and is swayed by the spoken word. As inevitably, the range and purposes of science daily more and more transcend the comprehension—even the educated comprehension—of the vulgar, who will of course elevate the nimble and versatile, speaking a familiar language, above dull and inarticulate ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... conforms to that local good-breeding of the place which he is at. A conformity and flexibility of manners is necessary in the course of the world; that is, with regard to all things which are not wrong in themselves. The 'versatile ingenium' is the most useful of all. It can turn itself instantly from one object to another, assuming the proper manner for each. It can be serious with the grave, cheerful with the gay, and trifling with the frivolous. Endeavor ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Amory, "I simply state that I'm a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation—with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals. Even if, deep in my heart, I thought we were all blind atoms in a world as limited as a stroke of a pendulum, I and my sort would struggle against ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... more concerned with the literary labors of this versatile and indefatigable genius. These, in the midst of his multifarious commercial and diplomatic concerns, he never intermitted. All the time the Review continued to give a brilliant support to the Ministry. The French expedition had lent a new interest to the affairs ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... of my versatile guest was his fly-catching. It is already notorious that the golden-wing is giving up the profession of woodpecker and becoming a ground bird; it is equally patent to one who observes him that the red-head is learning the trade of fly-catching. Frequently, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... a big hit. The audience cheered and applauded; which gave me greater confidence in my ability to get through the performance all right. Buntline, who is a very versatile man, saw that it would be a good plan to follow this ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... the celebrated Florentine artist, architect, painter and poet, once gave a public opera in Rome, for which he painted the scenes, composed the music, wrote the poem, carved the statues, invented the engines, and built the theater. Because of his versatile talents the man Bernini has passed into history. Of almost equal versatility were the women of the equal-rights movement, since in many instances their names appear and reaeppear in the records we have consulted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of Satan because he persecuted his Protestant subjects. When he died, his brother, [Sidenote: April, 1539] the Protestant Henry the Pious, succeeded and introduced the Reform amid general acclamation. Two years later this duke was followed by his son, the versatile but treacherous Maurice. In the year 1539 a still greater acquisition came to the Schmalkaldic League in the conversion of Brandenburg and its ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... inherited his father's vices, purged of their vulgarity and grossness, without a single particle of his uncertain and capricious good nature. In his manners he appeared more of the gentleman; was lively, shallow, and versatile; but having been educated at an English school and an English college, he felt, or affected to feel, all the fashionable prejudices of the day and of his class against his native country. He was an absentee ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... of the queen and his own continuance in office, for the sake of what appeared to him the cause of religion and his country. On the whole, however, moderation and prudence were the governing principles of his mind and actions. The intellect of Burleigh was more versatile and acute, that of Bacon more profound; and their parts in the great drama of public life were cast accordingly: Burleigh had most of the alertness of observation, the fertility of expedient, the rapid calculation of contingencies, required ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the pearls found in Jones' possession are identical with those stolen from the Austrian lady, he fails to allow for climatic or other changes and cannot be accurate enough to convince anyone who knows the versatile characteristics of these gems." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... man, that was all. But a generous sub-editorial fraternity understood the speech differently; and newspaper readers doubtless came to the conclusion that oratory must now be added to the other accomplishments of the versatile R.N.W.M.P. ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... creature, animate and inanimate, with one exception, namely, the hypocrite, ever alike "spiacente a Dio e ai nemici sui;" and therefore intolerable to Robert Burns's honesty, whether he be fighting for or against the cause of right. Again we say, there are evidences of a versatile and manifold faculty in this man, which, with a stronger will and a larger education, might have placed him as an equal by the side of those great names which we mentioned together with his at the ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... is no place in the United States, so far as I know, where the cow is more versatile or ambidextrous, if I may be allowed the use of a term that is far above my station in life, than here in the mountains of North Carolina, where the obese 'possum and the anonymous distiller have ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... settlement in the South, narrated in the tale with all the art of a practiced writer. A very charming love romance runs through the story. This new and tasteful edition of "Nick of the Woods" will be certain to make many new admirers for this enchanting story from Dr. Bird's clever and versatile pen. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... that is, of the upper crust (the Kidds and Flints and Morgans)—and at first this was a knotty problem. But he obtained a number of old stockings—stockings, of course, beyond the skill of that versatile person who mends the gaps—and he has wound them on wires, curling them upward at the end and tieing them with bits of ribbon. The pirate captain is allowed an extra inch of pigtail to exalt him above his ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... to ride round and see the Sheridans, Sylvia was painting. She was an adept at every variety of artistic work. Of any of the arts she might have made a success had she been content to devote her talent solely to that one; but she was too versatile to be completely successful, and while everything was good, ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... forms assumed by the various decorative motives, however derived. Thus stone, clay, wood, bone, and copper, although they readily borrow from nature and from each other, necessarily show different decorative results. Stone is massive and takes form slowly and by peculiar processes. Clay is more versatile and decoration may be scratched, incised, painted, or modeled in relief with equal facility, while wood and metal engender details having characters peculiar to themselves, producing different results ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... recovery of the Palatinate. Both were young and inexperienced. But Charles, obstinate when his mind was made up, was sluggish in action and without fertility in ideas, and he had long submitted his mind to the versatile and brilliant favourite, who was never at a loss what to do next, and who unrolled before his eyes visions of endless possibilities in the future. Buckingham was sent over to Paris to urge upon the French court ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... definition of wit and humor unless he himself be lacking in all appreciation of them, and, if he be so lacking, no amount of explanation will avail to give him understanding. Borrow, in one of his sermons, declared concerning wit: "It is, indeed, a thing so versatile, multiform, appearing in so many shapes and garbs, so variously apprehended of several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting wind." Nor ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... his life at Wildtree Towers. As the afternoons became shorter, and out-of-door occupations in consequence became limited, he found Percy unexpectedly amenable to a quiet course of study, which greatly improved the tone of that versatile young gentleman's mind. Percy still resolutely set his face against a return to school, and offered no encouragement to his perplexed parents in their various schemes for the advancement of his education. Consequently they were fain to be thankful, until some ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Chinese language, literature, and religions from ten to twelve centuries ago, was not occasioned by a military occupancy of Japanese soil by invaders from China. It was due absolutely to the free choice of their versatile people, as free and voluntary as was the adoption by Rome of Greek literature and standards of learning. The modern choice of Western material civilization no doubt had elements of fear as motive power. But impulsion ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... volume—especially welcome as an evidence of female genius and accomplishment—but it is hardly less disappointing than extraordinary. Miss Barrett's genius is of a high order; active, vigorous, and versatile, but unaccompanied by discriminating taste. A thousand strange and beautiful views flit across her mind, but she cannot look on them with steady gaze; her descriptions, therefore, are often shadowy and indistinct, and her language wanting in ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... practice had been mainly in matters of legislation. He was, in 1876, a man of venerable appearance, with white hair, worn long, and a patriarchal beard. He was a familiar figure in Washington, and well known among the public men of his day. A versatile and entertaining companion, by turns prosperous and impecunious, and an optimist always, Gardiner Hubbard became a really indispensable factor as the first advance agent ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... the episode of Highland Mary, Burns gave vent to his own dark feelings in some of the saddest strains that ever fell from him—the lines on The Mountain Daisy, The Lament, the Odes to Despondency and to Ruin. And yet so various were his moods, so versatile his powers, that it was during that same interval that he composed, in a very different vein, The Twa Dogs, and probably also his satire of The Holy Fair. The following is the account the poet gives of these transactions in the autobiographical sketch of himself ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... the cricket world remembers. One had not to be a cricketer oneself to appreciate his perfect command of pitch and break, his beautifully easy action, which never varied with the varying pace, his great ball on the leg-stump—his dropping head-ball—in a word, the infinite ingenuity of that versatile attack. It was no mere exhibition of athletic prowess, it was an intellectual treat, and one with a special significance in my eyes. I saw the "affinity between the two things," saw it in that afternoon's tireless warfare against ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... profound analyst of society on its human side; he is a gifted critic of public institutions; even his absurd perversity in trying to invent a constructive, motherhood-endowing Toryism is the perversity of a versatile and clever man whose action is precipitated by ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... This was Dr. Bell, a retired army surgeon, who had long resided near Stamford, and was on good terms with many of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. While serving in His Majesty's forces abroad, Dr. Bell became the intimate friend of a versatile colleague, Dr. Wolcot, subsequently known as Peter Pindar, who inspired him with a taste for literature, to which he devoted himself with a real passion after his retirement from the army. Though not a writer himself, he brought out several books, among them ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... "for purposes of study," whereat we all smiled, for Ken, so far as we knew him, was more likely to do anything else than to study. He was a young fellow of buoyant temperament, lively and social in his habits, of a brilliant and versatile mind, and possessing an income of twelve or fifteen thousand dollars a year; he could sing, play, scribble, and paint very cleverly, and some of his heads and figure- pieces were really well done, considering that he never had any regular training in art; but ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... a good Irish scholar, and from Celtic MSS. had elicited some cross-lights upon his subject—not very bright or steady, I allow—but enough to delight the rector, and inspire him with a tender reverence for the indefatigable and versatile youth, who was devoting to the successful equitation of their hobby so many of his hours, and so much of his languages, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and versatile, And moods must change and tranquil breezes veer, And o'er this blissful hour there came a chill And sullen shadows slowly creeping near In lengthening lines, and murkier dusk took form Of all things ominous, disastrous, ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... but I will always remember with what pleasure I listened to a distinguished Irishman of another type, Samuel Lover, when he was travelling with an entertainment consisting of sketches from his own works and selections from his songs. Few men were more versatile than Lover, for he was a painter, musician, composer, novelist, poet, and dramatist. When I saw him in one of the public halls he sang his own songs, told his own stories, and was ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... different from missing a mark at archery, where the whole horizon, one point alone excepted, will alike serve the shooter's purpose; but to move the Frank as is desired, requires a perfect knowledge of his temper and disposition, great caution and presence of mind, and the most versatile readiness in changing from one subject to another. Had I not myself been, somewhat alert, I might have paid the penalty of a false step in your Majesty's service, by being flung into my own cascade by the virago ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Bulgaria, with Turkey, and enabling Italy to return to normal life? Why should time and opportunity be given to the Turks and Kurds for the massacre of Armenian men, women, and children? This candid reminder is said to have had a sobering effect on the versatile delegates yearning for a holiday. The situation that evoked it will arouse the passing wonder ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... repeat—that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would rather be a man—a man of restless and versatile intellect—who, not content with (an equivocal[1]) success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... whistled and sang one song with a desperate intentness. That song was "The Rosary." The fish had presumed too far. "This," I shrewdly told myself, "is almost certainly a dream." The soundless words were magic. Gorge and stream vanished, the versatile fish faded to blue sky showing through the green needles of a jack pine. It was a sane world again and still, I thought, with the shadows of ranch house, stable, hay barn, corral, and bunk house going long to the east. I stretched in the hammock, I tingled with a lazy well-being. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... the critics are not to blame. I have read the expostulations of Mr. Finck about the untilled fields of Chopin. Yet his favorite Paderewski plays season in and season out a selection from the scheme I have just given, with possibly a few additions. The most versatile—and—also delightful—Chopinist is Pachmann. From his very first afternoon recital at old Chickering Hall, New York, in 1890, he gave a taste of the unfamiliar Chopin. Joseffy, thrice wonderful wizard, who has attained to the height ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... silent, unobtrusive beings who want little from others in the way of favor or condescension, and perhaps on that very account scrutinize those others' behavior too closely. He was not versatile, but one in whom a hope or belief which had once had its rise, meridian, and decline seldom again exactly recurred, as in the breasts of more sanguine mortals. He had once worshipped her, laid out his life ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... energies effectively, the young proselyte, who has embraced the new religion only that he may follow progress, tries to get a position as a school-teacher. But the apostleship of learning cannot satisfy his versatile mind: he continues to flit from one thing to another, like a gypsophilia, driven by the wind across the entire stretch of ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... this language "as in ductile play." The use of the language, so lucid and so nice in its discriminations, was itself an education for the young who grew up to hear it and to speak it. In a genial yet invigorating climate, in a land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity, the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made them the principal source of modern ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... themselves into the upper air, and the atmosphere was so clear that the road leading to the mountain could be followed by the eye, save where it ran under the masses of foliage; and it seemed to be a most devious and versatile road, turning back on itself at one moment only to plunge boldly forward the next. Nor was it lacking in color. On the levels it was of dazzling whiteness, shining like a pool of water; but at points where it made a visible descent it was alternately red and gray. ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... acquaintance of Lady Essex with Mrs Turner was of long standing or not, it was to the versatile Anne that her ladyship turned as confidante. The hint regarding Anne's skill in divination will be remembered. Having regard to the period, and to the alchemistic nature of the goods that composed so much of Anne's stock-in-trade at the sign of the Golden Distaff, in Paternoster Row, it may ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... opponent for a generation was Benjamin Disraeli, the young Jewish novelist, who had first won a following in the House of Commons by voicing the venom of the old-line protectionist Tories against the recreant Peel. Versatile, shifty, brilliant, this adventurous politician made himself indispensable to the Conservatives, and overcame by political moves which were little short of genius, the leadership of the opposition. Indeed, he may be said to have transformed Conservatism, giving ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... "O thrice-versatile Chou-hu!" exclaimed Tsae-che, whose eyes had reflected an ever-increasing sparkle of admiration as Yan unfolded the details of his scheme, "how insignificant are the minds of others compared with yours! Assuredly you have been drinking at some magic well ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... husband. Geyer was a man of many virtues—amiable, hopeful, kind. He had the artistic temperament without its faults. To writers of novels, in search of a very choice central character, Ludwig Geyer affords great possibilities. He was as hopeful as Triplett and a deal more versatile. The histrionic art afforded him his income of eleven dollars a week; but painting was his forte—if he only had time to devote to the technique! Yet all the arts being one he had written a play; he also modeled in clay and sang tenor parts as understudy to the great Schudenfeldt. Hope, good-cheer ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... new philosophy which was beginning to shine—though very feebly and intermittingly—in England. When he had returned he began to read Kant and Schelling, or rather to mix excursions into their books with the miscellaneous inquiries to which his versatile ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... this, the whole garrison of Barinas assailed the governor with reproaches, impetuously demanding that the guerilla chief should be arrested and confined in irons. The versatile governor again gave way, and that night the Paez mansion was entered and he taken from his bed, put in irons, and locked up in prison. It was no more than he might have expected, if he had known as much of the Spanish character then as ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... not appear that the Reverend Mr. Colburn remained for a long time in this school, for at the close of the session in 1866 we have a record of an exhibition in Bank Hall under the charge of T. J. Ferguson. Ferguson was a versatile character among the Negroes at that time, participating extensively in politics during the reconstruction period, and contending for the enlargement of freedom and opportunity for their race. The ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... that the wheels of his mind, keep way with the wheels of his fortune. For so Livy (after he had described Cato Major in these words, In illo viro tantum robur corporis et animi fuit, ut quocunque loco natus esset, fortunam sibi facturus videretur) falleth upon that, that he had versatile ingenium. Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune: for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible. The way of fortune, is like the Milken Way in the sky; which is a meeting or knot of a number of small ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... the most vigorous, versatile, and highly endowed of the present-day writers of fiction, was born in Bombay, India, December 30, 1865. His place of birth and extensive travelling make him more Anglo-Saxon than British. His father was for many years connected with the schools of art at Bombay and ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Papacy was a perpetual source of weakness. But many of the causes which ruined Athens were in full operation at Florence. First and foremost was the petulant and variable temper of a democracy, so well described by Plato, and so ably analyzed by Machiavelli. The want of agreement among the versatile Florentines, fertile in plans but incapable of concerted action, was a chief source of political debility. Varchi and Segni both relate how, in spite of wealth, ability, and formidable forces, the Florentine ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... less like a church than a collection of large churches enclosed under one gigantic roof.... One is lost in it. It is a city of columns, sculptures, and mosaics." So says the clever, versatile Willis, in his "Pencillings by the Way," and it would certainly take months to examine minutely all that is worthy of attention in this vast pile. Our time, unfortunately, was limited, and we were only ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... he wrote for himself were often so much alike from play to play that he called them by the same conventional theatric name of Mascarille or Sganarelle, and played them, doubtless, with the same costume and make-up. Later on, when he became more versatile as an actor, he wrote for himself a wider range of parts and individualised them in name as well as in nature. His growth in depicting the characters of young women is curiously coincident with the growth of his wife as an actress for whom to ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... Jester," he has introduced to us studies of a novel and intensely dramatic kind. As for the lighter order, the greater including the less, our best Hamlet should be the best "walking gentleman," if he elect to assume that versatile personage's offices. We know also that Booth's Shylock should be a masterly performance, since his voice, complexion, eyes, and inherited powers of scorn, all lend their aid to his mental appreciation of the part. But it is not our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... fell in alignment behind him; he caught the angry glare of two brown eyes from a bench, and realized that Eileen's versatile professor was not yet pacified. At Professor Hodgson's side, with her back toward Peter, was a young woman attired in Quaker costume. Her head was not intimately close to that of the young professor; ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... not succeed in either robbing or murdering us, is due to the brave fellow who will bear this letter to you—the sailor of whom I spoke. He can give you all the particulars of the last, and latest, encounter with the versatile individuals, who claim acquaintance with you. You may rely on his truthfulness. I have no time to ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... known as a skilful, able, and versatile artist, and her remarkable success there is an illustration of 'the American invasion.' Little has been written in America, especially in the South, of what this talented Southern woman has accomplished. She has never sought personal advertisement; on the contrary, she has ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... the most curious and suggestive things in living nature. It shows how plastic and versatile life is, and how utterly unmechanical. Life plays so many and such various tunes upon the same instruments; or rather, the living organism is like many instruments in one; the tones of all instruments slumber in it to be awakened when the right performer ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... and saw a good deal of the world. He traveled East and West, North and South. He was in Canada and down in Mexico; he visited London, Berlin, Paris, New York and San Francisco. His money all gone, he drifted for a time, trying his versatile hand at everything that offered itself. He went to sea and sailed around the Horn before the mast, he enlisted in the army and saw active service in the Philippines. He was cowboy for a Western cattle king, and there he learned to break wild bronchos without ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... Angel, with a wave of the hand, "but our little friends below stairs. Our neighbour is blessed with five charming little olive-branches, who have versatile tastes in athletics, and are bubbling over with animal spirits. We think privately that they are the meanest little devils that ever cursed an apartment-house, but their noise is dear to their parents, and they would not allow it when we fain would boil the children alive ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... resource. Having a family of active young sons, he secured the boating of "the Beach" as well as the other thing. But his untold riches of experience seemed never to condescend to develop into riches of mere money—and perhaps without one pang of regret to his versatile and resourceful mind. ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... the river in the boat with me," wrote Seward from New York on November 16, 1848. "The versatile people were full of demonstrations of affection to the Vice President, and Mr. Collier divided the honours. The politicians of New York are engaged in plans to take possession of General Taylor before he comes to Washington. Weed is to be supplanted, and that not for his own sake but ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Finneymore (a man of versatile gifts, with a leaning towards paint and varnish) sitting, white-aproned and shirt-sleeved, on a chair in his garden, smoking his pipe with a complacent eye on his dahlias. There at an open window a young man, with a brush in ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... flatter themselves that their mere glimpse of country life—their mere snatch at its midsummer beauty, the one free-drawn breath of their wearied spirit—is acquaintance with it. As well might one who had seen Rosalind, the most versatile of Shakspeare's heroines, only in her court-dress at her uncle the duke's ball, guess at her infinite variety of charm in the Forest of Ardennes. Nature holds her drawing-room in July and August. She wears her fullest and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in their applause, as long as they did not know that Andersen was its author. Less pronounced was the success of the lyrical drama "Little Kirsten" (1846); and the somewhat ambitious epic "Ahasverus" comes very near being a failure. The next ventures of the versatile and indefatigable poet were the novel "The Two Baronesses" (1849), and the fairy comedies "More than Pearls and Gold" (1849), adapted from a German original, "The Sandman"[23] (1850), and "The Elder Tree Mother" (1851). The comedies "He ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... "Gentlemen of the jury," continued the learned counsel, "it must appear to you, that on the part of the plaintiff this is not an affair of the heart, but a matter of the breeches' pocket. He leaves his wife—a fascinating, versatile creature—with my client, I confess it, an acknowledged man of gallantry. Well, the result is—what was to be expected. My learned friend has dwelt, with his accustomed eloquence, on his client's broken heart. I will not speak ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Vinci seems to present in his own person a resume of all the characteristics of the age in which he lived. He was the miracle of that age of miracles. Ardent and versatile as youth; patient and persevering as age; a most profound and original thinker; the greatest mathematician and most ingenious mechanic of his time; architect, chemist, engineer, musician, poet, painter—we are not only astounded by the variety of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... had for some time occupied much of the attention of the British Parliament. Towards the close of the American war, two committees of the Commons sat on Eastern affairs. In one Edmund Burke took the lead. The other was under the presidency of the able and versatile Henry Dundas, then Lord Advocate of Scotland. Great as are the changes which, during the last sixty years, have taken place in our Asiatic dominions, the reports which those committees laid on the table of the House will still be found most ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... George had one son who was named Clement. He was exactly my own age, and naturally we were constant companions. We went to the same school. He never distinguished himself at his books, but he was chief among us. He had a versatile talent for almost every accomplishment in which we delighted, but he was not supreme in any one of them. There were better cricketers, better football players, better hands at setting a night-line, better swimmers than Clem, but he ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... resounding agitation had resulted in the sending of inspectors to investigate the charges against the local officials. The first of these inspectors, a rather precise and formal youth fresh from Eastern training, was easily handled by the versatile Erbe. His report, voluminous as a tariff speech, and couched in very official language, exonerated Thorne and Orde of dishonesty, of course, but it emphasized their "lack of tact and business ability," and condemned strongly ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... the Transcendental group worthy of mention here is George William Curtis, a versatile and charming personality, not a genius in any sense, but a writer of pleasant and amusing prose, an orator of no small ability, and one of the truest patriots who ever loved and labored for his country. It is in this latter aspect, rather than ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... also descended to him the wonderful beauty, the matchless grace, of his ill-fated father. Great abilities, courage, fascination of manners, were also his; but he had not been endowed with firmness of character, and was at once energetic and versatile. Even at this age, the qualities which became his ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... numerous in the imperial city, could only superficially observe that the Jew was unsocial, narrow in his prejudices and obstinate in his superstitions, while the Greek was as devoid of principle as he was brilliantly versatile. The Jew and Greek whom he saw were those of a demoralised period; but in any case the Roman did not understand either; he did not know that each was the representative of a certain important set of principles carried to excess. He would hardly have thought it worth his while ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... faculty of transforming himself at will into whatever he chose: his originality was the power of seeing every object from the exact point of view in which others would see it. He was the Proteus of human intellect. Genius in ordinary is a more obstinate and less versatile thing. It is sufficiently exclusive and self-willed, quaint and peculiar. It does some one thing by virtue of doing nothing else: it excels in some one pursuit by being blind to all excellence but its own. It is just the reverse ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... used to govern Athens by sheer force of character and eloquence, and required no tricks of manner or plausible speeches to gain him credit with the populace; but Nikias had no natural gifts of this sort, and owed his position merely to his wealth. As he could not vie with Kleon in the versatile and humorous power of speech by which the latter swayed the Athenian masses, he endeavoured to gain the favour of the people by supplying choruses for the public dramatic performances and instituting athletic sports on a scale of lavish ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... society,—without the education and powerful assistance which it furnishes,—the finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary capacities in the very respect in which it ought to shine. The more extensive a man's knowledge, the more luxuriant his imagination, the more versatile his talent,—the more costly has his education been, the more remarkable and numerous were his teachers and his models, and the greater is his debt. The farmer produces from the time that he leaves his cradle ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... life, Dodington was so selfish, obsequious, and versatile as to incur universal opprobrium; he had also another misfortune for a man of society,—he became fat and lethargic. 'My brother Ned' Horace Walpole remarks, 'says he is grown of less consequence, though more weight.' And on another occasion, speaking of a majority in the House of Lords, he adds, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... Lord Mar's only recreation; architecture was his delight, and he introduced into London the celebrated Gibbs, who, out of gratitude, eventually bequeathed a large portion of his fortune to the children of the Earl.[20] It is refreshing to view this busy and versatile politician in this light before we plunge into the depths of those intricate politics which form the principal features of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... the brother, oddly enough, of the brilliant but infidel Lord Herbert of Cherbury; which lord was a versatile man of talent, but not a man of genius like the humble rustic—his ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... sight of it must, I think, be admitted to have been a cheap twenty-five cents' worth. The Cincinnati world of hard upon half a century ago judged it to be so, and flocked to the exhibition in crowds. But very soon the versatile and indefatigable artist devised new means of still further stimulating the curiosity and excitement of his public. A bar ran across the exhibition-room, dividing the space allotted to the spectators from that occupied by the scenery and objects provided for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... this eloquent preface, which was, indeed, characteristic of the fair creature, Aurora told Aunt Eliza of the bassoon, and as she spoke of his versatile accomplishments and admirable qualities her eyes glowed with an unwonted animation, and a carmine hue suffused her beautiful cheeks. It was plain that Aurora was deeply in love, and Aunt ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... sold in Hamburg at a very high price. The consular report on Samoa published in February, 1903, states that "the mainstay of Samoa is cocoa," and it will be interesting to follow the progress of an industry of which the versatile Scotchman was an ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... love, from which as from their source thou bring'st All good deeds and their opposite." He then: "To what I now disclose be thy clear ken Directed, and thou plainly shalt behold How much those blind have err'd, who make themselves The guides of men. The soul, created apt To love, moves versatile which way soe'er Aught pleasing prompts her, soon as she is wak'd By pleasure into act. Of substance true Your apprehension forms its counterfeit, And in you the ideal shape presenting Attracts the soul's ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... she was an inexpressible comfort. I have written her name Maria, but she was also called Mar-i-a, Mari-a-a-a, Mari-uh, and oh-h-h, M-a-r-i-a. These names she was called from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof. I don't think I have ever known a more versatile genius than Maria. At times she was a steamboat, with loud blowing of the whistle; at other times she was a bear and devoured other children with grunts and growls of great ferocity; at other times, she was a horse of such high mettle and spirit as could only find vent in chewing ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... marriage with several of the best families in the land. Money had not been stinted in his education, and his capabilities were as great as his advantages. He was one of the bravest, fairest, most generous natures I ever came in contact with; was versatile as a Yankee Crichton; had ridden his own horse in a trotting match and beaten Bill Woodruff; had carried his own little 30-ton schooner from the Chesapeake to the Golden Gate through the Straits of Magellan; had swum with the Navigators' Islanders, shot buffalo, hunted ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. But although his whole mind had apparently been given up to the turf, it was not actually so. He had been a member of parliament ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... myself of my old friend and fellow-student, John Thorndyke, now an eminent authority on Medical Jurisprudence. I had been associated with him temporarily in one case as his assistant, and had then been deeply impressed by his versatile learning, his acuteness and his marvellous resourcefulness. Thorndyke was a barrister in extensive practice, and so would be able to tell me at once what was my duty from a legal point of view; and, as he was also a doctor of medicine, he would understand ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... very indifferent plays, which, although published under a nom de guerre (St. Remy), he depended upon the servility of the Parisian press to carry through. He was not a deep thinker, nor was his intellectual horizon a broad one; but his views were liberal, his shallow mind was brilliant and versatile, and to the graceful frivolity of a man of the world he united a taste for the serious financial and political problems of his time. He belonged to that set of bright young politicians who, toward the end of the reign of Louis-Philippe, passed, as was cleverly said, ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... must not suppose that he is always singing comic songs. He is one of those versatile people who ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... the middle year of the nineteenth century, and fated unfortunately never to see its close, Guy de Maupassant was probably the most versatile and brilliant among the galaxy of novelists who enriched French literature between the years 1800 and 1900. Poetry, drama, prose of short and sustained effort, and volumes of travel and description, each sparkling with the same minuteness of detail and brilliancy of style, flowed ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... they did to him, or as he did to the Secretary of War." In this way the magazine obtained some interesting and valuable biographical notes of military and naval officers. Dr. Caldwell employed as assistant editor the famous and versatile THOMAS COOPER. Cooper was an Englishman, who was born in London in 1759, and had been a member of the National Assembly of France. He quarrelled with Robespierre, and challenged him to a duel. Robespierre swore revenge, and Cooper, knowing that flight alone could save him from the ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... and evaporation of Dr. Fortescue-Langley (with whom were amalgamated the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, Mr. Higginson the courier, and whatever else that versatile gentleman chose to call himself) entailed ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... on a Luria or a Colombe? Perhaps even in such a case not wholly valueless. The self-pleased, keen-sighted Legate might after all have applauded a moral heroism or a high-hearted gallantry which would ill accord with his own ingenious and versatile spirit. Bishop Blougram—sleek, ecclesiastical opportunist—was not insensible to the superior merits of "rough, grand, old ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... fruit of his own brine! Well may you remark, 'Your Gracious Goodness'"—(your natural astonishment having escaped you in the shape of this invocation)—"for in your goodness and in your graciousness rests my sole remaining 'ope. I was endowed from an early age with a fertile and versatile imagination, and creative powers which, without vanity, I may say, were of a rather superior class. The one thing I lacked was inflooence, and in the world of letters, Madam, as I am sure you do not need to be informed, without inflooence Genius is denied a suitable ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... of actors were certainly very clever, but their talent was not very versatile. For this reason we were not able to remain long in the same town. Three days after our arrival in Ussel we were on our way again. Where were we going? I had grown bold enough to put this question to ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... the life is singularly varied, the character is also singularly full and versatile. In this respect, too, he is most unlike the other leading figures of Old Testament history. Contrast him, for example, with the stern majesty of Moses, austere and simple as the tables of stone; or ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... both men as uncanny. Persons of minute significance in Parliament were not unknown to him, and he was ready with a theory or an explanation on the most recondite matters. But coffee and cigars found him a different man. He ceased to be the enthusiast, the omnivorous and versatile inquirer, and relapsed into the ordinary good fellow, who is no cleverer than ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... how to charm," he replied. But, seeing her stiffen, he resumed, "With your voice. That is enough. It would be a mistake for you to be versatile. Versatility is for the amateur. The artist is ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... proverb, sahib, that the ruler and the ruled are one. That has many sides to it of which one is this: India having many moods and minds, the British are versatile. Not altogether wise, for who is? When, for instance, did India make an end of wooing foolishness? Since the British rule India, they may wear her flowers, but they drink her dregs. They may bear her honors, but her blame as well. As the head is to the body, ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... Kenelm Digby's philosophic reputation his name has not become obscure. It stands, vaguely perhaps, but permanently, for something versatile and brilliant and romantic. He remains a perpetual type of the hero of romance, the double hero, in the field of action and the realm of the spirit. Had he lived in an earlier age he would now be a mythological personage; ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... imagination against the polished common sense of the great Queen Anne school, which had for more than a quarter of a century such influence in Europe.[335] It is a little odd that Voltaire, the most brilliant and versatile branch of this stock, should have broken so energetically away from it, and that he should have done so, shows how open and how strong was the feeling in him for reality and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... truth, I don't know what deductions to draw, I confess myself at fault; and cannot account for the fellow's movements; though I take you'll all acknowledge they were odd. As I've said, M. Dupre, I didn't from the first like your man of versatile talents; and I'm now more than ever distrustful of him. Still I profess myself unable to guess what he was after last night. Can any ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... The result flattered him in spite of himself. To others she was courteous, affable and sublimely indifferent. When he approached it seemed almost as if a film passed from her eyes, that she awakened into a fuller life and became an enchantress in her versatile powers. He responded with as fine a courtesy as her own, although quite different, but there was a cool, steady self-restraint in eyes and manner which ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... number may greatly differ in different individuals," replied Paul. "In individuals of many-sided minds and versatile dispositions, there are, perhaps, more distinct personalities than constitute an individual of less complex character. But how many in either case only God can tell. Who can say? It may be that with every breath which ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... of your versatile nature, Solomon. Must I regard you as a personally emancipated moral influence, not committed to the straight and narrow path yourself, but still close enough to it to keep my feet from straying?" ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... December 9.—There is no place in the United States, so far as I know, where the cow is more versatile or ambidextrous, if I may be allowed the use of a term that is far above my station in life, than here in the mountains of North Carolina, where the obese 'possum and the ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... this versatile John Brooks close the pre-Chabert record and turn our attention to the fire-eaters of Chabert's day. Imitation may be the sincerest flattery, but in most cases the victim of the imitation, it is safe to say, will gladly dispense with that form of adulation. When Chabert first came to America ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... Fontainebleau, feasted at the Louvre, and attended with as much patience as he could assume at the constant performances of the vapid and tedious dramas with which the Cardinal-Duke, who aspired to be esteemed a poet, incessantly taxed the forbearance of the monarch and his Court, the active and versatile pen of the minister was at the same time spreading desolation and death ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the style is the man; justified, in very great varieties, by the simple consideration of what he himself has to say, quite independently of any real or supposed connection with this or that literary age or school. Let us close with the words of a most [16] versatile master of English—happily not yet included in Mr. Saintsbury's book—a writer who has dealt with all the perturbing influences of our century in a manner as classical, as idiomatic, as easy ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... have hitherto acted as foremen: while large numbers of them are to be found in relatively light, but monotonous work in large cities. They may lack the resolute will which put many British, German and Scandinavian immigrants on terms of equality with native Americans. But they are quick withal, versatile; and as a rule, easily molded; they take readily to the use of machinery; and they have no tradition that could prevent them from doing their best in using semi-automatic machines, which are simple of handling, while doing complex work. Thus America has obtained a plentiful supply of people ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... parts were set in motion by the action upon them of exterior circumstances; whether, in fact, man was not a kind of toy-mouse in the shape of a man, only capable of going for seventy or eighty years, instead of half as many seconds, and as much more versatile as he is more durable? Of course I had an uneasy feeling that if I thus made all plants and men into machines, these machines must have what all other machines have if they are machines at all—a designer, and some one ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... very smoothly for Mr. Sheldon's family. Georgy was very happy in the society of a companion who seemed really to have a natural taste for the manufacture of pretty little head-dresses from the merest fragments of material in the way of lace and ribbon. Diana had all that versatile cleverness and capacity for expedients which is likely to be acquired in a wandering and troubled life. She had learned more in her three years of discomfort with her father than in all the undeviating course of the Hyde-Lodge studies; ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the college should have larger equipment and a more versatile staff. The larger institutions can prepare for specialized sections nearly as easily and cheaply as for duplicate sections; and institutions having only a few students or meager financial support should not offer ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... to the success of which he devoted himself with untiring energy and unwearied industry. The idea of the fetes originated at the "Woodman" on an evening in the spring of 1856. The room, on this occasion, was nearly full; Walsh occupied the principal seat. Not far from him was the versatile, erudite, somewhat dogmatic, but always courteous and polite, John Cornforth. There too, was Ambrose Biggs, who since, as Mayor, so fully justified the choice the Corporation made when they elected him to be their head. Nearly opposite was seen the gentlemanlike ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... as a recluse in his chambers, and was thought to be reserved, and what those who disliked him called arrogant. But Bacon was ambitious—ambitious, in the first place, of the Queen's notice and favour. He was versatile, brilliant, courtly, besides being his father's son; and considering how rapidly bold and brilliant men were able to push their way and take the Queen's favour by storm, it seems strange that Bacon should have remained fixedly in the shade. ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... of society against red revolution. But vanity lay at the root of all these manifestations, and he took himself not less seriously as an arbiter of letters, art, and religion than as a divinely appointed ruler of the State. The many parts he played were signs of versatile emotion rather than of power; and his significance in history is that he was the crest of a wave, its superficial froth and foam without its massive strength. A little man in a great position, he was powerless to ride the whirlwind or direct the storm, and he figured largely in the public eye ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... The author of that versatile little book of short stories, "The Lower Bureau Drawer" is Emma Upton Vaughn, a Kansas City, Kansas teacher. These heart stories, showing keen insight of human nature—especially woman nature—deal with every ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker
... in all Scotland?" They were better friends afterwards, and Robert found him a kind patron when his professional merit was made known to him. Lord Bute was a worthy and virtuous man, but he was not versatile enough for a Prime Minister; and though personally brave, was void of that political firmness which is necessary to stand the storms of state. We returned to Scotland ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... College, Tullabeg, King's County, and joined the British Army as an ensign in the 69th Regiment in 1858. In 1877 he married Miss Thompson, the celebrated painter of "The Roll Call." Sir William Butler is a versatile writer, his works embracing records of travel, histories of military campaigns, biographies, and fiction. His first book was "The Great Lone Land," published in 1872. Half the volume is devoted to a sketch of the early history of the northwest regions of Canada, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... full operation at Florence. First and foremost was the petulant and variable temper of a democracy, so well described by Plato, and so ably analyzed by Machiavelli. The want of agreement among the versatile Florentines, fertile in plans but incapable of concerted action, was a chief source of political debility. Varchi and Segni both relate how, in spite of wealth, ability, and formidable forces, the Florentine exiles under the guidance of Filippo Strozzi (1533-37) ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... Murray Islanders. Some of them had large bushy whiskers, with no hair on their chins or upper lips, having the appearance of being regularly shaved. It would be almost impossible for any class of men to excel these fellows in the scheming and versatile cunning with which they strove to disguise their meditated treachery. In fine weather I always had our firearms standing out for them to see, and once or twice every night I fired off a pistol, ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... language, so lucid and so nice in its discriminations, was itself an education for the young who grew up to hear it and to speak it. In a genial yet invigorating climate, in a land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity, the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... reclaimed in large numbers, it is most likely they will become extinct as a race; but there is less difficulty with regard to the Mamelucos, who, even when the proportion of white blood is small, sometimes become enterprising and versatile people.Many of the Ega Indians, including all the domestic servants, are savages who have been brought from the neighbouring rivers— the Japura, the Issa, and the Solimoens. I saw here individuals ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... July is of especial interest as the first paper to print an account of the Rocky Mount convention. This description, from the facile and versatile pen of Miss von der Heide, is of distinctly informal character, yet is none the less interesting as an animated chronicle of an enjoyable event. Rheinhart Kleiner's account of the National convention is more dignified, and may be considered ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... children into the Pontine Marshes, not for a single day, not for their weight in gold. The father is quite an uncommon creature. I look at him and ask myself; where have I seen that face before, so classic and sinewy and versatile? I have seen it on Greek vases, and among the sailors of the Cyclades and on the Bosphorus. It is a non-Latin face, with sparkling eyes, brown hair, rounded forehead and crisply curling beard; a legendary face. How came ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... argument for their crimes of neglecting church-going, using bad language, hanging about bar-rooms, and loose living. They were not brilliant wrongdoers and made no attempt at defending themselves or pretending that they did not know they were going to perdition. The New England mind is not broad or versatile, and, having begun life in a Puritan atmosphere, it is not quick to escape its influence. Society at the Mills recognised no social distinction which was not founded upon the respectability of church-going and the observance of social laws made by church-goers; it recognised ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he came down looking so like a chimney-sweep that Constance, whose versatile moods changed with the rapidity of lightning, flung herself on the bed in fits of laughter. The interrupted preparations were quickly resumed and completed; and when all was ready, and the boatman waiting at the Castle pier, Le Despenser went into ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... name, and Jeanne, when she departed for London, left a miniature of herself which is still in the possession of the English family. Which tale is true and who was the unknown friend that suborned the versatile soldier, and sent in not only gilt-edged paper and a suit of male attire, but money for Jeanne's journey? Only the Liberals in France had an interest in Jeanne's escape; she might exude more useful venom against the Queen in books or pamphlets, and she did, while giving the ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... have read, is that contained in an ever-memorable letter from a Mr Tomkins to a Mrs Jenkins, attributed (with what justice, deponent knoweth not) to a noble and learned lord, supreme in natural theology and excitability, remarkable for versatile nose and talents, and distinguished for chequered fortunes, and "inexpressibles" to match. This learned lord, or Tomkins aforesaid, or whoever may have been the inditer of the epistle ad Jenkins, is eloquent exceedingly upon the narcotine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... applause, as long as they did not know that Andersen was its author. Less pronounced was the success of the lyrical drama "Little Kirsten" (1846); and the somewhat ambitious epic "Ahasverus" comes very near being a failure. The next ventures of the versatile and indefatigable poet were the novel "The Two Baronesses" (1849), and the fairy comedies "More than Pearls and Gold" (1849), adapted from a German original, "The Sandman"[23] (1850), and "The Elder Tree Mother" (1851). The ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... he was dissatisfied with his surroundings and a tentative partnership agreement was entered into for the next season. However, the arrangements went no further as Mr. Rankin's health failed him rapidly and it was not long until minstrelsy lost one of the most versatile performers that ever ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... grades of society; indeed, they were general favourites. Even Queerface and Polly and Nelly came in for some share of the favour they enjoyed, for although neither monkeys nor parrots can be said to be scarce in Africa, their talents were so great and of so versatile a character, that their society was welcomed almost, Adair declared, as much as that of their masters. Queerface more than once, however, got into disgrace. The three midshipmen were spending the day at the house of a kind old gentleman a short distance ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... now had the opportunity. The result flattered him in spite of himself. To others she was courteous, affable and sublimely indifferent. When he approached it seemed almost as if a film passed from her eyes, that she awakened into a fuller life and became an enchantress in her versatile powers. He responded with as fine a courtesy as her own, although quite different, but there was a cool, steady self-restraint in eyes and manner ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Transcendental group worthy of mention here is George William Curtis, a versatile and charming personality, not a genius in any sense, but a writer of pleasant and amusing prose, an orator of no small ability, and one of the truest patriots who ever loved and labored for his country. It is in this latter aspect, rather than as ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... be counterbalanced by studies of a strictly positive nature; a tutor was engaged to ground young Wilfrid in mathematics and the physical sciences. The result was that the tutor's enthusiasm for these pursuits communicated itself after a brief repugnance to the versatile pupil; instincts of mastery became as vivid in the study of Euclid and the chemical elements as formerly in the humaner paths of learning; the plan had failed. In the upshot Wilfrid was sent to school; if that did not develop the ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... futile attempt to resist the passage of the Military Service Bill was chiefly remarkable for his epigrammatic description of the present SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR—"a man of great capacity, a man of most restless and versatile energy and unconquerable will, and of the most vivid and most illimitable and elusive vision of any politician of recent time." Several public schoolmasters, I understand, have already noted its possibilities as a suitable extract for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... thus disposed of his affairs, he thought of letting the enemy win the field, or of flying through Media and Armenia and seizing Cappadocia, but came to no resolution while his friends stayed with him. After turning to many expedients in his mind, which his changeable fortune had made versatile, he at last put his men in array, and encouraged the Greeks and barbarians; as for the phalanx and the Argyraspids, they encouraged him, and bade him be of good heart; for the enemy would never be able to stand them. For indeed ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... critic, whose versatile pen it is not easy to mistake, recalls, a-propos of the above, the following passage from Moliere, which shows that Chairmen are much the same ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... although much engrossed with the cares of State, seemed for the time to lay them all aside, and gave me his undivided attention. Certainly if "all the world's a stage, and men and women merely players," this versatile gentleman appeared as well in the role of courtier as in that of ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... Salvini. Virginia Marini is well considered in Italy, and used to be the leading lady in the Salvini troupe. She now directs a company of her own, and has been succeeded in her former position by the estimable Signora Piamonti, whom Salvini declares to be one of the most versatile artistes he has ever known, equally good in the highest tragedy or the liveliest farce. Her Dalilla in Samson was much admired in America, but her rendering of the role of Francesca di Rimini in the tragedy of that name is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... therefore, we abandon the sublime, and offer our art services for anything that may present itself. A bona fide painter is a rarity in the town I am describing, so Nicasio and I are comparatively alone in the fine art field. Our patrons are numerous, but we are expected by them to be as versatile as the ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... pigtails—pirates, that is, of the upper crust (the Kidds and Flints and Morgans)—and at first this was a knotty problem. But he obtained a number of old stockings—stockings, of course, beyond the skill of that versatile person who mends the gaps—and he has wound them on wires, curling them upward at the end and tieing them with bits of ribbon. The pirate captain is allowed an extra inch of pigtail to exalt him above his fellows. When he first adjusted this pigtail ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... The incessant manual labour which the ancients relegated to slaves will in course of time be more and more largely performed by inanimate machinery. Unskilled labour will for the most part disappear. Skilled labour will consist in the guiding of implements contrived with versatile cunning for the relief of human nerve and muscle. Ultimately there will be no unsettled land to fill, no frontier life, no savage races to be assimilated or extirpated, no extensive migration. Thus life will again become comparatively stationary. The chances for ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... has lagged behing Bradford in the production of dialect literature, the Yorkshire Songs of J. H. Eccles, published in 1862, is a notable contribution to the movement whose history is here being recorded. In John Hartley, Halifax possessed the most versatile dialect-writer that Yorkshire has so far produced. For fifty years this writer, who died in 1915, poured forth lyric song and prose tale in unstinted measure. Most of his dialect work found a place in the Original ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... tastes and manner—want of colour in character and costume.' Such are your own and your friends' impressions; and behold! there starts up a little man, differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with being too airy and cheery—too volatile and versatile—too flowery and coloury. This harsh little man—this pitiless censor—gathers up all your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of rose- colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon, your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... a gentleman-like way, like Hirtius and Appius, and the accomplished literary critic and patron of the day—himself of no mean reputation as poet, orator, and historian—Caius Asinius Pollio. Cicero's versatile powers found no difficulty in suiting the contents of his own letters to the various tastes and interests of his friends. Sometimes he sends to his correspondent what was in fact a political journal of ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... almost every country, and merely local; and every man of sense imitates and conforms to that local good-breeding of the place which he is at. A conformity and flexibility of manners is necessary in the course of the world; that is, with regard to all things which are not wrong in themselves. The 'versatile ingenium' is the most useful of all. It can turn itself instantly from one object to another, assuming the proper manner for each. It can be serious with the grave, cheerful with the gay, and trifling with the frivolous. Endeavor by all ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... sake of what appeared to him the cause of religion and his country. On the whole, however, moderation and prudence were the governing principles of his mind and actions. The intellect of Burleigh was more versatile and acute, that of Bacon more profound; and their parts in the great drama of public life were cast accordingly: Burleigh had most of the alertness of observation, the fertility of expedient, the rapid calculation of contingencies, required in the minister ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... meeting all the notables; the special pet of Dr. Johnson, Davy Garrick, and Horace Walpole, who called her his "holy Hannah," but admired and honored her, corresponding with her through a long life. She was then full of spirit and humor and versatile talent. An extract from her sister's lively letter shows that Hannah could hold her own with ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... personal magnetism and of most of the arts deemed essential to the professional diplomatist, he is a man of culture, eminent talents, fervid zeal for the public welfare, steady moral courage, and rare personal integrity. Pitted against the supple and versatile Buelow, his influence might be likened to that of the austere philosopher gazing at the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... politician, so given to raising storms and creating scenes in that most remarkable of parliaments, the South African Union Assembly, forgot his pet injustices and prejudices, and was quickly the versatile, virile, engaging social man. Meryl sat a little apart, with some dainty crochet-work in her delicate fingers, and though the visitor chatted with Diana, his eyes were almost always ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... accessories of the essay. Indeed this frequently happens with Du Bois-Reymond's articles, for he knows too well how to conceal the weakness of his argument and evidence, and the shallowness of his thought, by striking images and flowery metaphors, and by all the phraseology of rhetoric in which the versatile French nature is so superior to our sober German one. It is all the more important that we should not let ourselves be dazzled by these seductive tricks, and particularly by adduced facts which bear upon the most important and fundamental questions of human ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... had accurately described a certain class of that versatile nation, the French, which are often met with in every country, wanderers or exiles from home. While we write, we have one in our own mind, well known to our good citizens who is familiarly designated by ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... see just how versatile Young Allison is. Years ago—twenty-six to be exact—he took the dry old subject of insurance and week in and out made it sparkle with such wit and brilliancy that every-day editorials became literary ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... a versatile individual for he is steward, doctor, postman, purveyor of news, and dictator in general. He alone makes the schedule of each trip, arriving and departing at will. Time in the Congo counts for naught. It is in truth the land of leisure. For the man ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... number is a rich song from the same fertile and versatile pen, which was sung at one of our Red Lion meetings. That is why I want you to look at it, not that you will understand it, because it is full of allusions to occurrences known only in the scientific circles. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... uniformity of excellence in the Duveneck room forbids any attempt at picking out individual works; however, Duveneck's equally great accomplishments on another wall, in the field of etching, are apt to be easily overlooked. The sarcophagus of his wife, done by his versatile hand, increases the admiration that we, must hold for this liberal genius. Duveneck's art, no matter how much it is rooted in foreign soil, will forever make its influence felt for ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... friend and fellow-student, John Thorndyke, now an eminent authority on Medical Jurisprudence. I had been associated with him temporarily in one case as his assistant, and had then been deeply impressed by his versatile learning, his acuteness and his marvellous resourcefulness. Thorndyke was a barrister in extensive practice, and so would be able to tell me at once what was my duty from a legal point of view; and, as he was also a doctor of medicine, ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... zoological gardens, and is of the same species as one we formerly observed in our archipelago. Note, too, the brisk cat-and-dog encounter below. Steps descend in wide flights down the hillside into Blue End. The two couchant lions on either side of the steps are in plasticine, and were executed by that versatile artist, who is also mayor of Red End, G. P. W. He is present. Our photographer has hit upon a happy moment in the history of this town, and a conversation of the two mayors is going on upon the terrace before the palace. F. R. W., mayor of Blue End, stands on the steps in the costume ...
— Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" • H. G. Wells
... of destiny, which the events of the Mexican War had set to roaring over the land. Young America, in the person of Douglas, faced the hierarchy of the earlier republic; and Seward of New York, older than Douglas by some twelve years, but less versatile and attractive, stood now as a spokesman ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... for its power of being at once turned to any purpose which the author desired, has seldom been matched." It is difficult for those who knew him before he had, by pure hard work, won his way to fame, to realise how one physically so fragile, of so light-somely versatile and whimsical a nature, apparently so ready to be diverted from the main high-road by a desire to explore any brambly lane, had in him the deliberate goal-winning gait of the tortoise. His stubborn ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... than thought were worth running; for the inspectors, like the teachers and the children, were ever tending to become creatures of routine, and the vagaries of those who had the reputation of being tiresomely versatile could be provided against—largely, if not wholly—by increased ingenuity on the part of the teacher, and increased attention to tricky by-rules on ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... among them are: "Boreen," "Holsteiner's Band," "The Hoodoo," "Jay Bird," "The Man in the Moon's Ball," "Mrs. Craigin's Daughter," "O'Grady's Goat," "The Party at Odd Fellows' Hall," "The Phantom Band," "Romeo and Juliette," "Schneider's Band," and "The Versatile Baby." The book is full of the rollicking college spirit, and college men and their sweethearts will find it an unfailing source of delight. It is adapted either for glee club or home use, ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... B.C. the celebrated Philo of Larissa, then head of the Academic school, came to Rome, one of a number of eminent Greeks who fled from Athens on the approach of its siege during the Mithridatic war. Philo, like Diodotus, was a man of versatile genius: unlike the Stoic philosopher, he was a perfect master both of the theory and the practice of oratory. Cicero had scarcely heard him before all inclination for Epicureanism was swept from his mind, and he surrendered ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... out their faces?" I asked, having a good time all to myself; for here was my chance to return an obligation in the matter of courtships which, if not cancelled, would furnish the versatile Tommy with an anecdote I ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the tribune. The last memorial he addressed to the king, which the Iron Chest has surrendered to us, together with the secret of his venality, testify the failure and dejection of his mind. His counsels are versatile, incoherent, and almost childish:—now he will arrest the Revolution with a grain of sand—now he places the salvation of the Monarchy in a proclamation of the crown and a regal ceremony which shall revive the popularity of the king,—.and now he is ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... worth of these hypotheses to blend the wide array of technology available to the total joint force and according to bold new concepts. The results will determine the worth of Rapid Dominance concepts by judging whether they will permit even more balanced, versatile, and lethal combinations to fit known and anticipated ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... Prayer-book of Edward VI. The translations of the Bible made no great advance on Wiclif. In the realm of verse, John Skelton was a powerful satirist with a unique manipulation of doggerel which has permanently associated a particular type of rhyme with his name; an original and versatile writer was Skelton, but without that new critical sense of style which was to become so marked a feature of the great literary outburst under Elizabeth. Herein, two minor poets alone, Surrey and Wyatt, appear as harbingers ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... the American quilt at its best is found in the "Indiana Wreath." Its pleasing design, harmonious colours, and exquisite workmanship reveal to us the quilter's art in its greatest perfection. This quilt was made by Miss E. J. Hart, a most versatile and skilful needlewoman, in 1858, as shown by the small precise figures below the large wreath. The design is exceedingly well balanced in that the entire quilt surface is uniformly covered and no one feature is emphasized to the detriment of any other. The design element ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... reading it. Tom Peregrine declares that when he first gave it at a penny reading some years ago, one or two of the audience had to be carried out in hysterics—they laughed so much; and another man fell backwards off his chair, owing to the extreme comicality of it. The truth is, our versatile keeper is a wonderful reader, and speaking as he does the true Gloucestershire accent, in the same way as some of the squires spoke it a century or more ago, it is extremely amusing to hear him copying the still broader dialect of the labouring class. He has a tremendous ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... all their days on the island, and, incidentally, of Louis Satanette's frequent comings. The Frenchman was a beautiful, versatile fellow. He sailed a boat, he swam, he fished knowingly, he sang like an angel, leaning his head back against a tree to let the moonlight touch up his ivory face and silky moustache and eyebrows. He had firm, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... Welles Smith as he was called in his boyhood, was born February 20, 1822, in Hanover, New Hampshire. His father, William Smith, "was a lawyer of limited means, but versatile mind and genial disposition." His mother, Harriet Fowle Smith of Watertown, Massachusetts, was one of five sisters renowned for their beauty and amiability; she was, we are told, intelligent as well as beautiful, "a great reader, and a devoted Christian ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... hack. For Bentley and Hatchard, alike with Rivington and Frazer, for Colburn and Nisbet, as well as Knight, Tilt, Tyas, Moxon, and Murray, I seem to be gratuitously pouring out in equal measure my versatile meditations; at this sign all customers may be suited; only, shop-lifters will be visited with the utmost rigour of that obnoxious monosyllable.—Well, poor Epic, good night to you, and my benison on ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to extract a good deal of information from the Treasury Bench. This afternoon he learned from Mr. LONG that the Board of Admiralty was not created solely for the purpose of satisfying his curiosity; and from Mr. KELLAWAY that the equipment of even the most versatile Under-Secretary does not include the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... younger friend, now full of the importance of nineteen years, and being the successor to the great Reinhard Keiser, is not disposed to yield the clavecin, even to his versatile friend. A quarrel that narrowly escapes ruining the melodious swan-song of Cleopatra, is postponed till after the final curtain. Then it takes the form of a duel. The composer manages at last to elude ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... very time a change began to be perceptible in the conduct of this versatile and ambitious prelate. The Cardinal was supposed to have himself aspired to the office of presiding legate, and, though he had missed this place of honor and power, the condition of things in France was such as naturally to incline him in the direction ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... and their opposite." He then: "To what I now disclose be thy clear ken Directed, and thou plainly shalt behold How much those blind have err'd, who make themselves The guides of men. The soul, created apt To love, moves versatile which way soe'er Aught pleasing prompts her, soon as she is wak'd By pleasure into act. Of substance true Your apprehension forms its counterfeit, And in you the ideal shape presenting Attracts the soul's regard. If she, thus drawn, incline toward it, love is that ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... opening scene of 'Norma' in the dim druidical wood bears the true character of ancient sylvan antiquity. There is daybreak again—a fresh tone of reveille—in the prelude to 'I Puritani.' If Bellini's genius was not versatile in its means of expression, if it had not gathered all the appliances by which science fertilizes Nature, it beyond all doubt included appreciation of truth, no less ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... exercising his power of graphic portraiture. His elixir vitae—animal spirits—humanized his effort, and, as Sir Robert Peel played upon the House of Commons "as on an old fiddle," so John B. Gough (for it was the versatile comic singer, actor and speaker) sounded the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... of a soft and dreamy boy into the keenest, boldest, sternest of poets, the free and mighty leader of European song, was, what is not ordinarily held to be a source of poetical inspiration—the political life. The boy had sensibility, high aspirations, and a versatile and passionate nature; the student added to this energy, various learning, gifts of language, and noble ideas on the capacities and ends of man. But it was the factions of Florence which made Dante ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... one of the most versatile, prolific, and popular of American authors, was born at Charleston, South Carolina. His family was poor, and his means of education were limited, yet he managed to prepare himself for the bar, to which he was admitted when twenty-one ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... qualification must be made. We feel some doubts as to his being a poet at all. He has indeed that amazing vitality with which Disraeli endows all his favourite heroes, and in which we may recognise the effervescence of youthful genius. But his genius is so versatile that we doubt its true destination. His first literary performance is to write a version of 'Vivian Grey,' a reckless and successful satire; his most remarkable escapade is to put himself at the head of a band of students, apparently inspired by Schiller's ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... once. For Mr. Bellingham was a professed Buddhist and a profound student of Eastern moralities, and he was a thorough scholar in certain branches of the classics. The combination of these qualities, with the tact and versatile fluency of a man of the world, was a rare one, and was a source of unceasing surprise to his intimates. At the present moment he was a diplomatist, since he could not be a diplomat, and to his energetic suggestion and furtherance of the plan he had devised the results ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... a never-varying countenance concealed a busy, ardent soul, which never ruffled even the veil behind which it worked, and was alike inaccessible to artifice and love; a versatile, formidable, indefatigable mind, soft, and ductile enough to be instantaneously moulded into all forms; guarded enough to lose itself in none; and strong enough to endure every vicissitude of fortune. A greater master in reading and in winning men's hearts ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... more nimble and versatile tongue as well as wit. In the older fiction and drama apparitions spoke seldom, and then merely as ghosts, not as individuals. And ghosts, like kings in drama, were of a dignity and must preserve it in their speech. Or perhaps the authors were doubtful as to the dialogue ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... the facile Alfred Noyes, the romantic Rupert Brooke (who owes less to Masefield and his immediate predecessors than he does to the passionately intellectual Donne), the introspective D. H. Lawrence and the versatile J. C. Squire, are perhaps ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... James, and his struggle for freedom from the Kirk, was perturbed by a long series of intrigues of which the details are too obscure and complex for presentation here. His chief Minister was now John Maitland, a brother of Lethington, and as versatile, unscrupulous, and intelligent as the rest of that House. Maitland had actually been present, as Lethington's representative, at the tragedy of the Kirk-o'-Field. He was Protestant, and favoured the party of England. In the State the chief ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... world, the Bibliotheque Imperiale of Paris, (it has been successively, like the adventurous and versatile throne of France, Royale, Nationale, and Imperiale,) contains very nearly one million of books, the collected fruits of all time. Consider an average book in that collection: how much human labor does it stand for? How much capital was invested originally in its production, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... formerly and latterly, the attempt has been made to cast suspicion on our friend's character from these very writings. A large number of men are even yet in error regarding him, since they fancy that the man of many sides must be indifferent, and the versatile man must be wavering; it is forgotten that character is concerned simply and solely with the practical. Only in that which a man does and continues to do, and in that to which he is constant, does he reveal his character, and in this sense there has been no more steadfast ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... New England had for a time relieved him of domestic troubles; but with the failure of Sir William Phipps, his clerical enemies at Quebec once more began their machinations, in spite of which the versatile old Governor still contrived to hold his way and course. Politically, the city was divided on the question of keeping control of the far west; for while some saw danger in dissipating the strength of the colony, and therefore advised the maintenance of a smaller but more compact territory, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... century fiction. Throughout his life, in spite of political and social distractions and of matrimonial disaster, he continued to engage with unwearying industry in literary work. He was not a man of genius in whom the creative impulse found its own expression, but a versatile and accomplished gentleman who could direct his talents into any channel he pleased. Essays, translations, verses, plays, novels flowed from his pen in rapid succession, and he won his meed of applause and fame, as well as his share of execration and derision, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... even insult from those who, both socially and intellectually, were inferior to himself. Add to this, that he thoroughly understood the Irish character, which had many points in common with his own impulsive versatile nature, and it may be conceived how influential he was in his remote curacy. Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, all gathered round him and often filled his little church, listening to his concise, plain-spoken sermons, which far ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... movement of insurrectionary thought was Denis Diderot. Diderot (1713-1784) was born to be an encyclopaedist, and a captain of encyclopaedists. Force inexhaustible, and inexhaustible willingness to give out force; unappeasable curiosity to know; irresistible impulse to impart knowledge; versatile capacity to do every thing, carried to the verge, if not carried beyond the verge, of incapacity to do any thing thoroughly well; quenchless zeal and quenchless hope; levity enough of temper to keep its subject free from those depressions of spirit and those cares ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... G. ERVINE is a versatile author who exhibits that unevenness of quality which is generally the besetting sin of versatile authors. When he is good he is very good indeed, and in The Foolish Lovers (COLLINS) he is at his best. The Ulsterman is seldom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would be a man, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... of significance, The Essay on Man, a professedly philosophical poem by an author who knew little of philosophy, was published in four epistles, in 1733-4. Bolingbroke's brilliant, versatile, and shallow intellect had strongly impressed Swift, and had also fascinated Pope. It has been commonly supposed that the Essay owes its existence to his suggestion and guidance. The poet believed in his philosophy, and had ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... Ukami, Ukwere, Kingaru, Ukwenni, and Kiranga-Wanna, for his kidnapping propensities. Kisabengo was another Theodore on a small scale. Sprung from humble ancestry, he acquired distinction for his personal strength, his powers of harangue, and his amusing and versatile address, by which he gained great ascendency over fugitive slaves, and was chosen a leader among them. Fleeing from justice, which awaited him at the hands of the Zanzibar Sultan, he arrived in ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... experience. After all, he had had no grounds for his passionate belief in Miss Tancred beyond the argument from defect, the vague feeling that Destiny owed him amends for her intolerable shortcomings. But Durant's mind was too sane and versatile to be long concerned with passion yet unborn. He was not one of those pitiable sentimentalists who imagine that every petticoat, or at any rate every well-cut skirt, conceals a probable ideal. Some women of his acquaintance had defined, not to say denounced, him ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... Dodington had lately resigned his post of one of the lords of the treasury, and gone again into opposition. [In Walpole's copy of the celebrated Diary of this versatile politician, he had written a "Brief account of George Bubb Doddington, Lord Melcombe," which the noble editor of the "Memoires" has inserted. It describes him, "as his Diary shows, vain, fickle, ambitious, and corrupt,' ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... interest. To say that Mr Lamond successfully avoided moments that might at times, in these works, have inclined to comparative disinterestedness, would be but a moderate way of expressing the remarkable fascination with which his versatile playing endowed them, but at the same time two of the sonatas given included a similar form of composition, and no matter how intellectually brilliant may be the interpretation, the extravagant use of a certain mode is bound in ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... listen at the telephone, as we turn the button of an incandescent lamp or travel in an electromobile, we are partakers in a revolution more swift and profound than has ever before been enacted upon earth. Until the nineteenth century fire was justly accounted the most useful and versatile servant of man. To-day electricity is doing all that fire ever did, and doing it better, while it accomplishes uncounted tasks far beyond the reach of flame, however ingeniously applied. We may thus observe under our eyes ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... agents, country drummers and country circuses, medicine men who shouted the versatile merits of corn salve by the light of flaring torches, eccentric orators of eccentric theology, tent-shows of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," with real bloodhounds and unreal painted ice, gypsies who were always expected to steal some one's children and never did, peddlers with creaking, clinking ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... the Speaker's committees; it was well that they could not go back to Ripton into the offices on the square, earlier in December, where Mr. Hamilton Tooting was writing the noble part of that inaugural from memoranda given him by the Honourable Hilary Vane. Yes, the versatile Mr. Tooting, and none other, doomed forever to hide the light of his genius under a bushel! The financial part was written by the Governor-general himself—the Honourable Hilary Vane. And when it was all finished and revised, it was put into a long envelope which bore this printed address: ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with all my heart and soul!" the choir boy was declaring in large red letters, which was rather versatile of him considering that his lips were pressed firmly upon the blonde lady's. The placard further announced that he was embracing "America's foremost romantic actress Edwina Ely" and though there was ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... although published under a nom de guerre (St. Remy), he depended upon the servility of the Parisian press to carry through. He was not a deep thinker, nor was his intellectual horizon a broad one; but his views were liberal, his shallow mind was brilliant and versatile, and to the graceful frivolity of a man of the world he united a taste for the serious financial and political problems of his time. He belonged to that set of bright young politicians who, toward the end of the reign of Louis-Philippe, passed, as was cleverly said, "from a jockey club ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... ever ready to show their discontent, that Margaret (in revenge on the hierarchy) would extend the protection they had never found in the previous sway of her husband and Henry V. Possessed of extraordinary craft, and even cunning in secular intrigues, energetic, versatile, bold, indefatigable, and, above all, marvellously gifted with the arts that inflame, stir up, and guide the physical force of masses, Robert Hilyard had been, indeed, the soul and life of the present revolt; and his prudent moderation in resigning ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in whose memory certain enormities of Dunshie had rankled ever since that versatile individual had abandoned the veterinary profession, owing to the most excusable intervention of a pack-mule's off hind leg, was not far out in his surmise, as subsequent history may some day reveal. But the telling of that story is still a ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... Yet how versatile and fleeting is thought! In this long letter I have not put down one thing that I intended. I meant not to repeat what has been so often said before, and especially I meant not to revolve, if I could help it, any ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... the journey was a versatile young Dutchman who spoke many languages and proved to be very good company. This gentleman apparently had no great admiration for his fellow-countrymen, as he saw them in Java. He abused with equal impartiality the food ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... Lover, born at Dublin on February 24, 1797, was the most versatile man of his age. He was a song-writer, a novelist, a painter, a dramatist, and an entertainer; and in each of these parts he was remarkably successful. In 1835 he came to London, and set up as a miniature painter; then he turned to literature, and in "Rory O'More," ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... remembers. One had not to be a cricketer oneself to appreciate his perfect command of pitch and break, his beautifully easy action, which never varied with the varying pace, his great ball on the leg-stump—his dropping head-ball—in a word, the infinite ingenuity of that versatile attack. It was no mere exhibition of athletic prowess, it was an intellectual treat, and one with a special significance in my eyes. I saw the "affinity between the two things," saw it in that afternoon's ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... so versatile that he can read his newspaper with one set of brain-cells while he carries on a conversation with his wife ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... not been usual to put Thomas Middleton in the front rank among the dramatists immediately second to Shakespere; but I have myself no hesitation in doing so. If he is not such a poet as Webster, he is even a better, and certainly a more versatile, dramatist; and if his plays are inferior as plays to those of Fletcher and Massinger, he has a mastery of the very highest tragedy, which neither of them could attain. Except the best scenes of The White Devil, and The Duchess of ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
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