"Versatility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remarkable bird, from the versatility of its talents for imitation, has by some been ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... offer of the chair of philosophy in the university in 1723, but accepted, in 1727, the sinecure office of librarian to the city of his adoption. Here he died at a good old age, in 1767. Abauzit was a man of great learning and of wonderful versatility. Whatever chanced to be discussed,it used to be said of Abauzit, as of Professor W. Whewell of more modern times, that he seemed to have made it a subject of particular study. Rousseau, who was jealously sparing of his praises, addressed to him, in his Nouvelle Heloise, a fine panegyric; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... short essays it is only possible to take a few, but care has been taken to attempt to show the enormous versatility of Chesterton's mind. It has been said quite wrongly that Chesterton cannot describe pathos. This is certainly untrue. He can so admirably describe humour that he cannot help knowing the pathetic, which is often so akin to humour. I am not sure that this ability to describe the melancholy is not ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... of the historical Jesus with this Logos. By its aid Tertullian united the scientific, idealistic cosmology with the utterances of early Christian tradition about Jesus in such a way as to make the two, as it were, appear the totally dissimilar wings of one and the same building,[548] With peculiar versatility he contrived to make himself at home ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... all and every part By turns—with that vivacious versatility, Which many people take for want of heart. They err—'t is merely what is call'd mobility, A thing of temperament and not of art, Though seeming so, from its supposed facility; And false—though true; for ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... what is still more strange, Hippias, it is not only the same old talk but about the same old subjects. Now you, I daresay, through versatility of knowledge, (14) never say the same thing twice over ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... Silas told me you fell down the creek hill; Sam said you tried to drive his team over the bluff, and so on. We are happy to see you get back your old time spirits, but could you not be a little more careful? Your versatility is bewildering. We do not know what to look for next. I fully expect to see you brought to the house some day maimed for life, or all that beautiful black hair gone to decorate some ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... we are sure, be a consolation to Mr. BURGIN, to whose agility and versatility we desire to render our homage, to learn that he is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... release, and, by the exertions of his personal enemies, particularly of our quondam sovereign, Andre Dumont, (now a member of the Committee of General Safety,) an examination into the atrocities committed by Le Bon is decreed.—But, amidst these appearances of justice, a versatility of principle, or rather an evident tendency to the decried system, is perceptible. Upon the slightest allusion to the revolutionary government, the whole Convention rise in a mass to vociferate their adherence to it:* the tribunal, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... versatility has produced all the evils which have devastated France; your wickedness, which you call wisdom, has overflowed my native land with blood; and posterity will ask, with wonder, 'What was the political opinion of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... publication. If the book was meant to be considered as a serious contribution to mental science, the manuscripts might as well have remained where their author threw them. If, on the other hand, it was intended only to show the versatility, adroitness, and plausibility of a young man in need of money, nothing could have better illustrated those aspects of Sydney Smith's character and career. He is thirty-three years old, married, with an increasing family, and no means of subsistence ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... alludes to the Master's return as the great thing to look forward to, as distinctly at the close as at the beginning of his ministry. The book of Revelation is distinctly a kingdom book, and however it may, with the versatility of Scripture to serve a double purpose, foreshadow the characteristics of history for the centuries since its writing, plainly its first meaning has to do with the time when "the kingdom of the world ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... due to female versatility or impressibility that it is possible for me to experience mentally the emotions attributable to either sex, according to the age and temperament of my companion; for instance, with one older than myself, possessing well-marked male characteristics, I ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... is a native of Cambridge and a graduate of Harvard in the class of '29; a class whose anniversary reunions he has celebrated in something like forty distinct poems and songs. For sheer cleverness and versatility Dr. Holmes is, perhaps, unrivaled among American men of letters. He has been poet, wit, humorist, novelist, essayist, and a college lecturer and writer on medical topics. In all of these departments ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... to impart itself to her work, and she has the gift to make friends as well as to call forms out of clay—the success of friendship being one even more permanently satisfying. In her early life as a girl hardly more than twenty, she sought Rome, living with art as her chaperon. Her versatility, her picturesque individuality, and her imaginative power all combined to win sympathetic recognition. Gibson, whose guidance was particularly well adapted to develop her gifts, received her into ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... August to February, 1785. During that brief period he began to write his "History of Geneva," and he showed his versatility by composing for a young refugee clergyman a sermon on the immortality of the soul. By the gift of this sermon he drew the exiled preacher from poverty, for it was the means of obtaining for him a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... del Sarto, p. 134) dates these works 1523; the style, which is very much that of Piero di Cosimo, would seem to place them earlier.] represented as a medieval Italian castle, the dresses are all Italian, and as an instance of Andrea's versatility of talent ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... Such was the versatility, and such the many-sided energy, of the Greek as he appears in the Iliad and Odyssey. And as these two poems contain the elements of all subsequent thought and progress in the Greek nation, so in the typical character of Odysseus are concentrated all the qualities which distinguish ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... lies in the contrasts of his character; his versatility and cosmopolitan sympathies attract us now as they attracted in his lifetime men very different in habits, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... old Doge Barbarigo and the patron saints kneeling among bright birds, and a garden and mediaeval townlet filling up the background, for which, by the way, he uses the same sketch as in the Pesaro picture. It says much for his versatility that he could within a short time produce three ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... poet, or, more frequently, in the mouth of a woman. There is little evidence that Burns would have been capable of sustained dramatic composition; on the other hand, he was far from being limited to purely personal lyric utterance. His versatility in giving expression to the amorous moods of the other sex is almost as great as in direct confession. A group of these dramatic lyrics will ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... architects, but this is without exception the finest contemporary administrative building in America; a noble building rich in glorious memories; nobler even than the Bulfinch State House at Boston or the Maryland State House at Annapolis. It is an enduring monument to Hamilton's versatility, showing that with his genius he might have won distinction as an architect no less than as a barrister. His sense of design, mass and proportion, his appreciation of the relative value and most effective uses of classic detail and his ability to harmonize the exigencies of the floor plan with attractive ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... superficially acquired, by men whose lives were not devoted to its pursuit, and subjects as far apart as the controversies of Scripture, history, and physical science might be respectably discussed by a single writer. No such shallow versatility is possible now. The new accuracy and certainty of criticism have made science unattainable except by those who devote themselves systematically to its study. The training of a skilled labourer has become indispensable for the scholar, and science yields ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... be dismayed by all that versatility. Munich streets, like London streets, change their names every two or three blocks. Once you arrive between the two mediaeval arches of the Karlsthor and the Sparkasse, you are in the Neuhauserstrasse, whatever the name on the street sign, and if you move westward toward the Karlsthor you will ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... the essays which has some bearing on the question of the place of acting in the hierarchy of the arts. Garrick clearly was the greatest actor of his century; but in speaking of Barry, Mr Irving says: "He had not Garrick's fire or versatility; he had no gift for comedy; but in such parts as Othello, Romeo and Alexander the Great his superior physique, his stately grace, his charming pathos gave him the victory." His superior physique is a phrase which explains the reluctance ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... Reflections, so eminently pious, moral, and unpretending, so obviously the outcome of a wise, simple, ingenuous nature, we can better understand the fury with which Mist turned upon Defoe when at last he discovered his treachery. They are of use also in throwing light upon the prodigious versatility which could dash off a masterpiece in fiction, and, before the printer's ink was dry, be already at work making it a subordinate instrument in a much wider and more wonderful scheme of ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... a wide field. A few of them may be mentioned here, in addition to those to which allusion has been made already. It will be seen that even those which failed of commercial success generally contained the germs of future mechanical progress, and bore witness to the extraordinary vigor and versatility of his genius. ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... but very few (and I confess that I am not one of these select few) who can accept Goethe in all his many-sidedness. We ordinary mortals are incapable of such Protean versatility and are sure to find points, often many and important points, where we are strongly repelled by his teachings and his personality. The idealist is scandalized by his vigorous realism, the realist and materialist ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... To show the versatility of Booth it need only be mentioned that his parts (among many not herein named) included the Ghost, Laertes, Horatio and the Prince in "Hamlet," Dick in "The Confederacy," Captain Worthy in the "Fair Quaker of Deal," Pyrrhus, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... symmetry and all perfection. She was past mistress in all manner of arts and accomplishments and endowed with [many] excellences, surpassing all the folk of her age and time. She was grown more notorious than a way-mark,[FN206] for the versatility of her genius, and outdid the fair both in theory and practice and elegant and flexile grace, more by token that she was five feet high and in conjunction with fair fortune, with strait arched brows, as they were the crescent moon of Shaaban,[FN207] and eyes like those of gazelles, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... villages and smaller cities the commercial banks perform a number of functions, in the larger cities they usually specialize in a far greater degree. The trust companies, however, with their greater versatility, are increasing in number. The income of banks is derived from discounts, interest on their own capital, charges for exchange and collection, dividends, interest and rents on investments, and profit from their bank notes. The capital with which a bank starts ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... This versatility of mood, the despair, which he had felt to be real, followed by a light-heartedness which he felt to be equally sincere; all ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... as this in working out elaborately the figure often given in barest hint strengthens the imagination and gives to thought the versatility that makes reading a delight and an inspiration. Till the imagination is furnished material and given freedom, literature is as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... more remarkably than at any other during his life, the unparalleled versatility of his genius was unfolding itself, those quick, chameleon-like changes of which his character, too, was capable, were, during the same time, most vividly and in strongest contrast, drawn out. To the world, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... could not be so soon consoled. Mary wondered at her, as the Anglo-Saxon constitution, with its strong, firm intensity, its singleness of nature, wonders at the mobile, many-sided existence of warmer races, whose versatility of emotion on the surface is not incompatible with the most ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... an introduction to America, through Mr. Emil Paur, by Theodor Leschetizky, couched in the most glowing terms, and is called by him "an artist of the very first rank and of inconceivable versatility." ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... accountants being cited as proof. I talked with several persons who had ground for their belief, and the consensus of opinion exonerated the Japanese from so serious a charge. One said the Japanese, with all their versatility, have little aptitude for figures and realize it; another said that a descendant of the old samurai would scorn to take the position of a bookkeeper, considering the position beneath him. Everywhere ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... against the honest attack of Helvidius Priscus, and the burning rebukes of the intrepid Vocula to his cowardly and treacherous followers—all these, in the Histories, show no ordinary degree of rhetorical skill and versatility. Indeed, the entire body of his works is animated with the spirit of the orator, as it is tinged also with the coloring of the poet. For this reason, they are doubtless deficient in the noble simplicity of the earlier classical histories; but for the same reason they ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... that his love of excitement, versatility, and daring demanded a livelier outlet than the slow toil of deep-sea fishing. To the most patient, persevering, and long-suffering of the arts, Robin Lyth did not take kindly, although he was so handy with a boat. Old Robin vainly strove to cast his angling mantle over him. The gifts of the youth ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the most difficult causes of misfits to overcome is versatility. He who can do many things well seems always to have great difficulty in fixing upon any one thing and doing that supremely well. The versatile man is usually fond of variety, changeable, fickle; he loves to have ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... pathos; hence, he introduced a series of droll and comical pieces, in the rendition of which he is acknowledged to have no equal. As a mimic and ventriloquist he stands preeminent, and his entertainment is so varied with pathos, wit, and humor, that an evening's amusement of wonderful versatility ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... to notice such versatility of invention, such readiness of resource, such familiarity with divers nooks and crannies in the practical experience of life, in a man now so hard put to it for a livelihood. There are persons, however, who might have a good stock of talent, if they ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that it must be reformed, and shorn of its excrescences. Until then we must use the French, which is to-day the language of the world, and in which one can render all the master-works of the Greeks and the Latins, with the same versatility, delicacy, and subtlety, as the original. You pretend that one can well read Tacitus in a German translation, but I do not think the language capable of rendering the Latin authors with the same ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... all nationalities of adopting Italian stage names has confused the public on the subject. And, finally, I could name a dozen German singers who have won first-class honors in Italian opera; but where is there an Italian Tannhaeuser or Bruennhilde or Wotan? All honor, therefore, to the versatility of German singers, who, like Lilli Lehmann, for instance, can sing Norma and Isolde ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... companionship never ceased until death, and after his parents died Albrecht wrote in a touching manner of their death, describing his love for them, and their many virtues. He was an author and a poet as well as a painter, and only Leonardo da Vinci matched him for greatness and versatility. We may know what Durer's father looked like, since the son made two portraits of him; one is to be seen in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence and the other belongs to the Duke of Northumberland's collection. The latter portrait ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... poetry; on nouns of action; on rajaz verses; on the palm-tree; on plants; on homonymous terms; on the obscure expressions met with in the Traditions; on the witticisms of the desert Arabs." Ibn closes the list with the word "etc." The late John Timbs could hardly beat this record of industry and versatility. ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... His versatility knows almost no limit. His wealth of theatrical experience runs the gamut from his own first appearance as an amateur actor and coach to a succession of triumphs as producing director of the most gorgeous theatrical presentations both here ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... like the Siamese twins. And the man whom he thought worth catching was clever indeed if he could extricate himself from the meshes which encircled him. He was altogether a wonderful fellow. Of athletic build, striking beauty, great agility and versatility in all bodily exercises, an unrivalled fencer, and a perfect marksman. What a soldier he would have made! But Mr. Schmerling knew a good many fine tricks, and one of the prettiest was the prevention of Hungarian youths from entering the army. He took ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... great painters or poets as ideals because they seemed to illustrate that canon, has passed away. We are beginning to feel that art is a part of history and of physiology. That is to say, the artist's work can only be rightly understood by studying his age and temperament. Goldoni's versatility and want of depth induced him to write sparkling comedies. The merry life men passed at Venice in its years of decadence proved favourable to his genius. Alfieri's melancholy and passionate qualities, fostered in solitude, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... generally falls to newspaper men who persistently print the truth. Brann was an intellectual giant. The rarest accomplishments possible for a human mind to acquire were not too intricate for him to master. His versatility was as boundless as his originality was unique. Absolutely fearless and utterly indifferent regarding his personal safety, he dared to expose the charlatan and the trickster in whatever walk of life he chanced ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... beauty and a joy forever, the poet puts it. But diversion if you like. What greater test of charming versatility for a woman than that she remain a diversion to her husband, unstaled by ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... work, the History of the World, which was never finished. His life and adventures belong to the sixteenth; his works to the seventeenth century. Raleigh was probably the most dazzling figure of his time; and is "in a singular degree the representative of the vigorous versatility of the Elizabethan period." Spenser, whose neighbour he was for some time in Ireland, thought highly of his poetry, calls him "the summer's ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... As illustrating the versatility of the dance, its wide capacities of adaptation to human emotional needs, I may mention here the procession of women to the tomb of a friend or relative Punishing the tambourine or dara booka drum, and bearing branches of palm or other symbolic vegetables, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... poets, novelists or essayists; but the common ambition is to unite these titles and add a few others—to enjoy, in fact, a free range over the whole field of literature, exclusive only of the most arid or least attractive portions. Taylor's versatility exceeded that of all his competitors: he attempted a greater variety of tasks than any of them, and he failed in none. And his writings, while so diverse, have a distinct and pervading flavor. Though he travelled so extensively, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... papers, inkstand, and pens, occupied the middle of the room; but all round, on desks, on easels, on stands, were an opera commenced, a half-finished drawing, a chemical retort, etc. The regent, with a strange versatility of mind, passed in an instant from the deepest problems of politics to the most capricious fancies of painting, and from the most delicate calculations of chemistry to the somber or joyous inspirations of music. The regent feared nothing but ennui, that enemy against whom he struggled unceasingly, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... symmetry, repeated the tint of her cheeks artistically. She was fond of weaving bright bits of color into the two long braids of black hair, and decorating in many different ways her fur parkies and mukluks. She was proud of keeping her house and person as tidy as possible, while her versatility allowed her the use of many English words ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... manifestation, and his love is the more warm and constant for being discriminative and refined. Through variety of knowledge, with intellectual keenness, he enjoys excellence in the diversified forms that literature assumes. His pages abound in illustrations of his versatility, which is nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in the contrast between two successive papers (both equally admirable) in the very first volume of the "Causeries du Lundi," the one on Madame Recamier, the other on Napoleon. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... decided intellectual characteristics was her versatility, or, to give it a harder name, what Johnson called her "instability of attention." Dulness was, in her code, the unpardonable sin. Variety was the charm of life, and of books. She never dwelt long on one idea. Her letters and her books are pieces ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... They also established a monarchy, but, being a people more capable of progress, this later evolved into a democracy. The people of Attica were in consequence a somewhat mixed race, which possibly in part accounts for their greater intellectual ability and versatility. [4] ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... First, the versatility and fickleness which in a greater or less degree beset all human minds, particularly in the season of early youth. However docile we may be, and willing to learn, there will be periods, when either some other object powerfully ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... though van Hert laughingly told his host he had been undergoing a regular hoarding hustling. Then he told them of a few happenings since they went away, and because he was as glad as he could be to see them back again, all his natural versatility came uppermost, and one could easily perceive why he was a leader of men, and ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... thorough-bred sailor is a special calling, as much of a regular trade as a carpenter's or locksmith's. Indeed, it requires considerably more adroitness, and far more versatility of talent. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Marlowe, Fletcher and Burbage gazed with astonishment at the versatility of his poetic and dramatic creations, and while pangs of jealousy shot athwart their envious souls, they knew that the Divine Bard was soaring above the alpine crags of thought, leaving them at ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... become for the rest of the evening the helpless prey of her sister who had fawned and scolded and wheedled and threatened in a way that outraged all Rita's feelings. Seizing this unexpected occasion Therese had displayed a distracting versatility of sentiment: rapacity, virtue, piety, spite, and false tenderness—while, characteristically enough, she unpacked the dressing-bag, helped the sinner to get ready for bed, brushed her hair, and finally, as a climax, kissed her hands, partly by surprise and partly ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... of the old harper, as well as the famous critique of Hamlet. The height of Goethe's superb prose style was reached in "Dichtung und Wahrheit," which stands as one of the most charming autobiographies of all times. Goethe's versatility as a writer and man was shown not only by his free use of all literary forms, but also by his essays on such abstruse subjects as astrology, optics, the theory of color, comparative anatomy and botany. Shortly before his death, the poet finished the greatest of his works, the tragedy ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... undirected imagination; delighting in brightness and colour, in beautiful material, in changeful form everywhere, in poetry, in philosophy, even in architecture and its subordinate crafts. In the social and political order it rejoices in the freest action of local and personal influences; its restless versatility drives it towards the assertion of the principles of separatism, of individualism—the separation of state from state, the maintenance of local religions, the development of the individual in that which is most peculiar and individual in him. Its ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... and I may say versatility, of the mind of this great man is amazing. One day when I came in to pay my respects to him before dinner, I found him in much agitation, with a circle of his nobles around him, and a Corsican standing before him like ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... height through the giddiness of vanity; and when the same high authority kept on assuring the world, on the word of a critic, that Maurice Durant was branded with the curse of cleverness, that he was the victim of his own versatility, and that he had just missed greatness, Maurice merely remarked that he was glad to hear it, for he was sure that ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... the centre of a literary and philosophical Society, which united all the wits of Florence and the visitors who crowded to the capital of culture. Vespasiano states that "he was always the father and benefactor of those who showed any excellence." Distinguished by versatility of tastes and comprehensive intellect, he formed his own opinion of the men of eminence with whom he came in contact, and conversed with each upon his special subject. When giving audience to the scholars, he discoursed concerning ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... never known a man like this man. His talents, his rapid changes of mood, as sense or conscience got the upper hand, and his versatility charmed her imagination and excited her interest; and he had, besides, that magnetic power over her by which it is given to some men to compel people of certain temperaments to their will. While she was with him he could have made her believe that black was white, and not only believe it, ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... new and a bolder departure. Most of my readers have seen that remarkable little lay written by Mr. Gilbert for Miss Anderson to display the range and variety of her powers—"Comedy and Tragedy." Mr. Gladstone gave proof of powers of equally wide versatility; and all at the expense of poor Joe. First for the Comedy. I must quote the passage of the speech to explain what ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... talked with facile ease, with wonderful expressiveness of face. He was a finished product of courteous generations. Moreover, he had been everywhere, done a little of everything, acquired in his manner something of the versatility of his experience. Physically he was fit as any logger in the camps, a big, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... earliest of the juriconsults who took pupils.] was in like manner surnamed The Wise, but both of them were so called for other reasons than those which have given you this name,—Atilius, for his reputation as an adept in municipal law, Cato, for the versatility of his endowments for there were reported to his honor many measures wisely planned and vigorously carried through in the Senate, and many cases skilfully defended in the courts, so that in his old age The Wise was generally ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... affection of a parent, and the reverence of a son. Nor did it give me less pleasure to see her sweet mind cleared of all its latent prejudices, and left at liberty to admire and applaud that force of thought and versatility of genius, that comprehensive soul and benevolent heart, which attracted and commanded veneration from all, but inspired peculiar sensations of delight mixed with reverence in those who, like her, had the ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of detached and unrelated acts, since neither can the whole material of life be ever given while we still live, nor can that which is given be impartially retained in the human memory. When omniscience was denied us, we were endowed with versatility. The picturesqueness of human thought may console ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... a woman of genius and versatility and had more than one art at her fingers' ends—those skinny and claw-shaped fingers, the nails whereof were not always clean. She took charge of her customer's figures, and made their corsets, and lectured them if they allowed nature to get the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... marvellously developed among his contemporaries,—a defect, as we shall presently see, sufficient of itself to disqualify him for the duties of Court Poet. But, what was still worse, his mind was not gifted with facility and versatility of invention, two equally essential requisites; and to install him in a position where such faculties were hourly called into play would have been to put the wrong man in the worst possible place. Drayton was accordingly a court-pensioner, but not a court-poet. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... natural advantages in every possible way. Chang Yu says: "Every kind of ground is characterized by certain natural features, and also gives scope for a certain variability of plan. How it is possible to turn these natural features to account unless topographical knowledge is supplemented by versatility ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... the soft silk rug that lay over him. "Poverty and that sort of versatility are often bedfellows, eh?... Tell me, Mr. Moriway, these lost ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... for a negro to strike or insult a white person—committing murder on a duck—endeavoring to get up a fandango among the yard niggers, and trying the qualities of cold steel, in a prisoner's hand, thus exhibiting all the versatility of a Frenchman's genius with a youthful sang-froid, he was considered decidedly dangerous, and locked up for formal reform. Here he remained until the seventeenth of August, when it was announced that the good barque Nouvelle Amelie, Captain Gilliet, was ready for sea, and he was forthwith led ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... pertnesses. I do not doubt but that you are improved in your manners by the short visit which you have made at Dresden; and the other courts, which I intend that you shall be better acquainted with, will gradually smooth you up to the highest polish. In courts, a versatility of genius and softness of manners are absolutely necessary; which some people mistake for abject flattery, and having no opinion of one's own; whereas it is only the decent and genteel manner of maintaining your own opinion, and possibly of bringing other people to it. The manner of doing things ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... had something of his brother's versatility and shared his love for architecture, and the two now became deeply interested in the various schemes which were mooted for the completion of the Louvre. Bernini was summoned by the King from Rome, and entrusted with the task; but the brothers Perrault ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... without blemish or reproach. His ability is marked and is now recognized by all parties, I may say, in all parts of the world. He has the lawyer's habit of taking the opposite side of a question, but before he acts he is apt to be on the right side. When in the Senate he did not show the versatility of talent he has exhibited as President. All his utterances have been marked with dignity suited to his high position, yet with delicate appropriateness and precision that will admit no criticism. I have no ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... extract from "King Lear," commencing with the line "No, I will be the pattern of all patience." Guy Trevelyan's voice was full, soft and musical, having the power of soothing the listener; but when required for dramatic readings, could command a versatility that was surprising. Miss Douglas archly proposed to Lady Douglas her wish to join in a game of whist. Thus engaged, the remainder of the evening passed quickly away. Mary Douglas still retaining her gallant partner, having secured the rubber against Mr. Howe and Miss Douglas, warmly congratulated ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... is the sign of every circumference; because a circle of 360 degrees is equal to 9, that is to say, 3609. Nevertheless, the ancients regarded this number with a sort of terror: they considered it a bad presage; as the symbol of versatility, of change, and the emblem of the frailty of human affairs. Wherefore they avoided all numbers where nine appears, and chiefly 81, the product of 9 multiplied by itself, and the addition whereof, 81, again ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... apparent consciousness of these manifold and varied interests. He never affected to conceal from himself his superiority to other men in his aims and in the grasp of his intelligence. But there is no trace that he prided himself on the variety and versatility of these powers, or that he even distinctly realized to himself that it was anything remarkable that he should have so many dissimilar objects and be able so readily to pursue them ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... than by occupying a conspicuous post somewhere in Europe. It is not the fashion for ex-Canadians who have had political or other experiences abroad to come back here for anything but speeches and banquets. Sir Herbert may be permitted to change the fashion. With his versatility in French, his knowledge of Europe, his acquaintance with large public questions of finance and his general savoir faire, he seems to be just the kind of man who could head ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... great versatility and learning, but his writings are tinctured with bitterness and satire. He has been described as restless, ambitious, enthusiastic, and credulous, a dupe himself and a deceiver of others. His career was a continuous series ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... in that branch of literature was peculiar—as I may say it has been in most others to which I have applied myself. My first stories were written for "The Young Lady's Favourite," and most remarkable productions they were, I promise you. That was fifteen years ago, in the days of my versatility. I could throw off my supplemental novelette of fifteen thousand words without turning a hair, and immediately after it fall to, fresh as a daisy, on the "Illustrated History of the United States," which I was then doing for Edward Coghlan. But ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... meditated for some time, and if with any other sensation than that of grasping avarice, and all its accompanying hopes and fears, it was with that of admiration for the Greek's daring and versatility of talent. He was thinking of the value of which they ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... together, and they made up to his perception one of the little magnified embroilments which do duty for the real in superficial lives. It was worse to provoke Julia than not, and Peter thought Nick's doing so not particularly characteristic of his versatility for good. He might wonder why she didn't marry the member for Harsh if the subject had pressingly come up between them; but he wondered still more why Nick didn't marry that gentleman's great backer. Julia ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... by the publication of his great series of novels, called The Book of the Thorn-Rose (1832-1835). The career so begun developed with extraordinary rapidity; few writers have equalled Almqvist in productiveness and versatility; lyrical, epic and dramatic poems; romances; lectures; philosophical, aesthetical, moral, political and educational treatises; works of religious edification, studies in lexicography and history, in mathematics ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... not to be denied that the ingenuity and versatility of Americans have caused them to excel other nations in many lines of manufacture. The public opinion of Europe regards their triumphs in agricultural implements as the most remarkable; but the nation which made the machine-tools ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... Henley and I chanced to fall in talk about James Payn himself. I am wishing you could have heard that talk! I think that would make you smile. We had mixed you up with John Payne, for one thing, and stood amazed at your extraordinary, even painful, versatility; and for another, we found ourselves each students so well prepared for examinations on the novels of the real Mackay. Perhaps, after all, this is worth something in life - to have given so much pleasure to a pair so different in every way as were Henley and I, and to be talked of with so much interest ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prize poem was 'Alaric'; that of the essay, 'Trades Unionism'. So it was probable that John Edward Earwaker did not lack versatility of intellect. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... proud and, no matter how poor, usually keeps two, an extravagance for which he was rebuked by successive Intendants under the French regime. In recent times the French Canadian farmer has been making great progress. He is pre-eminently a handy man. Though his versatility is lessening, to this day, in some of the remoter villages, he buys almost nothing; he is carpenter, farmer, blacksmith, shoemaker; and, if not he, his wife is weaver and tailor. The waggon he drives is his handiwork; so is the harness; the home-spun cloth of his suit is made ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... comedian of his day," says Mr. Hervey, and we fully coincide in the verdict. Bouffe, is one of the most intelligent, accomplished, and agreeable actors we ever saw; subtle and delicate in his conceptions of character, energetic without rant, ever true to Nature, and of a rare versatility of talent. We have known several persons who fancied, partly perhaps on account of his name, that he only acted comic parts: they should see him obtain a succes de larmes, throw a whole theatre into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... Ghirlandaio could not do in his fresco of the birth of the Virgin Herself. It was Orcagna's habit to sign his sculpture "Andrea di Cione, painter," and his paintings "Andrea di Cione, sculptor," and thus point his versatility. By this tabernacle, by his Pisan fresco, and by the designs of the Loggia de' Lanzi and the Bigallo (which are usually given to him), he takes his place among the most interesting and various of the ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... upon us? Take the works of any of the abovenamed distinguished individuals previous to their thirty-eighth year, and shall we perceive that flexibility of the English language to the extent that Byron has left behind him? His versatility was, indeed, astonishing and triumphant. His Childe Harold, the Bride of Abydos, the Corsair, and Don Juan, (though somewhat too freely written,) are established proofs of his unequalled energy of mind. His power was unlimited; not only eloquent, but the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... made me the listener to, and eventually the actor in some strange drama, it is only natural that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures. And this not so much for the sake of his reputation, for indeed it was when he was at his wits' end that his energy and his versatility were most admirable, but because where he failed it happened too often that no one else succeeded, and that the tale was left for ever without a conclusion. Now and again, however, it chanced that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... conversation with Don Juan upon the terrace. They had been exchanging locks of hair, and vows of eternal fidelity. Margaret's approaching step was heard just in time to resume an appearance of courteous composure; and Don Juan, who was possessed of remarkable versatility, observed as she came ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... wide range and seemed almost equally at home in many places. The real and the ideal both interested him and were cherished by him. Science and art, philosophy and poetry, engaged his attention and were enriched by his handiwork. In this versatility of his power and the manifoldness of their application he was remarkable. Out of this breadth of study came varied and large thoughts of the world and of human life. He had the faculties with which nature and humanity and divine ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... reader, and declared that he had never found a book that did not contain something of value. With a ready adaptability to the ideas of others he combined a remarkable power of transformative appropriation; he read into books more than stood written in them. The versatility of his genius was unlimited: jurist, historian, diplomat, mathematician, physical scientist, and philosopher, and in addition almost a theologian and a philologist—he is not only at home in all these departments, because versed in them, but ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... had their share in the versatility of Diderot's genius as well as in the variety of his labors. Son of a cutler at Langres, a strict and virtuous man, Denys Diderot, born in 1715, had at first been intended by his father for the church. He was educated at Harcourt College, and he entered an attorney's office. The young ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... pictorial painting, the want of such a school having been long a source of opprobrium among foreign writers on England. The Shakespeare Gallery was sufficient to convince the world that English genius only needed encouragement to obtain a facility, versatility, and independence of thought unknown to the Italian, Flemish, or French schools. That Gallery he had long hoped to have left to a generous public, but the recent Vandalic revolution in France had cut up his revenue by the roots, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... labyrinth of philosophical speculations it is interesting and refreshing to meet with an author who, though endowed with the mind of a philosopher, was content to pass for a poet, or even for an essayist. His was a mind of rare versatility. What he was not capable of putting his hand to scarcely deserved the name of study. In philosophy, practical religion, literature, church history, education and exegesis he labored with almost equal success. He ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... and shovels for fireplaces, together with a number of very respectable andirons. On each of these larger pieces of handiwork my patient had stamped his initials with a little steel die that was made for him. Each piece was his own, each piece was the product of his own versatility and his own strength. His pride and pleasure in this work were very great, and well they might be, for it is a fine thing to have learned to handle so intractable a material as iron. But in handling the iron patiently and consistently until ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... frescoed ceiling to the floor and reflected her gracious figure to advantage. She was listening with interested attention to Mr. Gillespie, the noted mathematician, whose talk was worth hearing in spite of the fact that he stammered badly. His subject tonight happened to be the versatility of ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... Gladstone, his wife, and a daughter. Mr. Gladstone made himself quite charming, spoke French fairly well, and knew more about every subject discussed than any one else in the room. He was certainly a wonderful man, such extraordinary versatility and such a memory. It was rather pretty to see Mrs. Gladstone when her husband was talking. She was quite absorbed by him, couldn't talk to her neighbours. They wanted very much to go to the Conciergerie to see the ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... Lorenzo's amazing versatility has been pronounced a fault by some who believed they detected in him the potential capacity of rivalling Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto on their own ground, had he only conserved his energies. This is a foolish supposition. Lorenzo's many-sidedness was but the reflection ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the calm flow of an untroubled existence. There was no end to the work to be done upon the castle, and Greif entered upon it with boundless enthusiasm, while Rex helped him at every turn with his extraordinary knowledge of all matters in which exactness was required. Hilda marvelled at his amazing versatility and at the apparent depth of his information upon so many matters. No question came amiss to him connected with the restoration, from the customs and mode of life of the mediaeval Germans to the calculation of a Gothic arch or a ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... all contemporary evidence shows that his grandest efforts were dogged by the inevitable fate of the man who, not content with excellence in one or two departments, aims at the highest point in all. In reading his speeches, while one admires the versatility, one is haunted by that fatal sense of superficiality which gave rise to the saying that "if the Lord Chancellor only knew a little law he ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... rested on a misconception; the limitary idea of knowledge was confounded with the infinite idea of power. To have a quickness in copying or mimicking other men, and in learning to do dexterously what they did clumsily,—ostentatiously to keep glittering before men's eyes a thaumaturgic versatility such as that of a rope-dancer, or of an Indian juggler, in petty accomplishments,—was a mode of the very vulgarest ambition: one effort of productive power,—a little book, for instance, which should impress or should agitate several successive ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Thus were they tossed about on the battledores of philanthropy, often reverting to their starting-point, to the disgust of the charitable committees. Yet Moses always made loyal efforts to find work. His versatility was marvellous. There was nothing he could not do badly. He had been glazier, synagogue beadle, picture-frame manufacturer, cantor, peddler, shoemaker in all branches, coat-seller, official executioner of fowls and cattle, Hebrew teacher, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... in every company of master workmen met for council he is at most a tolerated guest. The judgment upon him—not my judgment, but the judgment which the days thrust in his face—is this: that when there is important work to be done he cannot do it. He is full of versatility. He knows the alphabet of everything—chemistry, engineering, business, law, what not. But with all these he cannot bridge the Mississippi. He cannot make the steel for the bridge, nor calculate the strength of it, nor find ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... Expedition comfortably installed in the "Golden Gate Hotel" than it was besieged by the usual reporters. The rapidity with which the interviews were published would have done credit to a London evening paper, and I could only admire the versatility of the gentleman who, only four hours after our arrival, brought out a special edition of the Nome Nugget, containing a portrait of His Royal Highness the Duke of the Abruzzi in full naval uniform, which was described as his humble servant: ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... want to lull me asleep on my feet. I admire, as I tread the lava pavements of the strada, those porters and fishermen who move by me chatting, singing, smoking, gesticulating, quarrelling, and embracing each other the next moment with astonishing versatility of mood. They live through all their sense at the same time; and, being philosophers without knowing it, keep the measure of their desires in accordance with the brevity of life. I approach a much-patronised tavern, and see inscribed above the entrance this quatrain ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... application. House privileged to see PREMIER in Three Pieces. For some weeks he has appeared at Question time in dual character as Prime Minister and Secretary of State for War. To-night takes on duties of absent CHANCELLOR OF DUCHY OF LANCASTER. His versatility as marvellous as his industry. In response to group of five questions addressed to him "as representing the CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER," bristles with minute information respecting number of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... novel, and while it illustrates once more the author's unusual versatility, it also shows that he has not been tempted into careless writing by the vogue of his earlier books. . . . There is nothing weak or small or frivolous in the story. The author deals with tremendous passions working at the height of their energy. His characters are stern, rugged, determined men ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... note: in which the reader will be interested to observe the limits originally placed to the proposal. The first Readings were to comprise only the Carol, and for others a new story was to be written. He had not yet the full confidence in his power or versatility as an actor which subsequent experience gave him. "I propose to announce in a short and plain advertisement (what is quite true) that I cannot so much as answer the numerous applications that are made to me to ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the brave like to give the fair. Notwithstanding this, Mr. Stanhope King could not say the day was dull. After a morning presumably spent over works of a religious character, some of the young ladies, who had been the life of the excursion the day before, showed their versatility by devising serious amusements befitting the day, such as twenty questions on Scriptural subjects, palmistry, which on another day is an aid to mild flirtation, and an exhibition of mind-reading, not public—oh, dear, no—but ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... many-sided, that it would be presumptuous in me to attempt to describe him, except under those aspects in which he came before me. Nor have I here to speak of the gentleness and tenderness of nature, the playfulness, the free elastic force and graceful versatility of mind, and the patient winning considerateness in discussion, which endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart; for I am all along engaged upon matters of belief and opinion, and am introducing others into my narrative, not for their own sake, or because I love and have ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Uniacke, William Young, John Hamilton Gray and Charles Fisher, all names familiar to students of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick history, surpassed Mr. Wilmot in that magnetic eloquence which carries an audience off its feet, in versatility of knowledge, in humorous sarcasm, and in conversational gifts, which made him a most interesting personality in social life. He impressed his strong individuality upon his countrymen until the latest hour of ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... altered so far as might be found necessary, and the union was to be a voluntary one. The King in order to carry out this policy appointed as one of his Ministers Herr von Radowitz. He was a man of the highest character and extreme ability. An officer by profession, he was distinguished by the versatility of his interests and his great learning. The King found in him a man who shared his own enthusiasm for letters. He had been a member of the Parliament at Frankfort, and had taken a leading part among the extreme ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... decency, and an affected dignity of manners, will even keep such a man the longer from sinking. If, therefore, you should unfortunately have no intrinsic merit of your own, keep up, if possible, the appearance of it; and the world will possibly give you credit for the rest. A versatility of manner is as necessary in social life, as a versatility of parts in political. This is no way blameable, if not used with an ill design. We must, like the cameleon, then, put on the hue of the persons we wish to be well with; ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... with the fickle crowd who follow a reigning fashion, and who unfortunately help to swell the units of a paying community. To the last she gave of her best; but it is the misfortune of distinctive and original work, that, while the public resents versatility in its favourites, it wearies unreasonably of what had pleased it at first—especially if the note be made tedious by imitation. Miss Greenaway's old vogue was in some measure revived by her too-early ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... primary school for boys. We have come to the conclusion that the work of teaching will never be rightly done till it passes into female hands. This is especially true with regard to boys. To govern boys by moral influences requires tact and talent and versatility; it requires also the same division of labor that female education does. But men of tact, versatility, talent, and piety will not devote their lives to teaching. They must be ministers and missionaries, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... cannot but think that Mr. Seeley has achieved considerable success in the difficult task he has undertaken in the later and more valuable portion of his book. Fully admitting, as he does, Napoleon's extraordinary military talents, his astonishing versatility and fruitfulness of resource, the promptitude, rapidity, and unerring precision of his movements, Mr. Seeley maintains that what is really marvellous is the remarkable combination of favorable circumstances which ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... Pacuvius, and the others who had written in his own tongue. As he was acquainted with the poets and rhetoricians, so also was he acquainted with those writers who have handled philosophy. His incredible versatility was never at fault. He knew them all from the beginning, and could interest himself in their doctrines. He had been in the schools at Athens, and had learned it all. In one sense he believed in it. There was a ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... peculiar method of realising his original intention. In the short period of four weeks, he produced imitations of the more conspicuous bards, which speedily appeared in a volume entitled "The Poetic Mirror." This work, singularly illustrative of the versatility of his genius, was eminently successful, the first edition disappearing in the course of six weeks. The imitations of the bards were pronounced perfect, only that of Wordsworth was intentionally a caricature; the Shepherd had been provoked to it by a conceived slight ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... detective to come and run their men down for them. To me the private detective is not the most inspiring and heroic figure on our modern scene; but that is neither here nor there. One of these detectives evidently has not only ability but versatility, and in an interesting manner combines the occupation of a detective with the profession of an evangelist. It was not, however, he who worked the old panel game—much as a black paramour might work it down ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... In speaking of the versatility of the Emperor, something should be said of him as a sportsman. He has given a splendid example to the Germans. He has tried to introduce baseball, football and polo, three American games. This may be traced to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... variety, the latter showed its body and appearance all bright and spotted, while the tawny skin of the former was dirty and not pleasant to look at. Then the fox said, "Look inside me, sir judge, and you will see that I am more full of variety than my opponent," referring to his trickiness and versatility in shifts. Let us similarly say to ourselves, Many diseases and disorders, good sir, thy body naturally produces of itself, many also it receives from without; but if thou lookest at thyself within thou wilt find, to borrow the language ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the best that has ever been written since.[C] "The Invasion," "The Rivals," "The Duke of Monmouth," and others which he wrote subsequently, are all far inferior when placed side by side with this great master-piece of fiction. In it may be seen to best advantage the wonderful power and versatility of Griffin's genius as a great novelist, for within its single compass he has touched with a master hand the whole gamut of human passion and human affections. As a literary artist of the "dark and touching mode of ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... all his father's proposed arrangements for his domestic comforts and matrimonial alliance. He wanders in his own capricious fancy, like a fly in summer, over the fields of feminine beauty and loveliness; yet he declares there is so much versatility and instability about the fair sex, that they are unworthy his professions of regard; and, perhaps, in his whole composition, there is nothing deserving of serious notice but his good-nature. Thus you have a short sketch of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... so nearly with the noblest house of scenic artists that ever shook the hearts of nations, nobler than ever raised undying echoes amidst the mighty walls of Athens, of Rome, of Paris, of London,—himself a man of talents almost unparalleled for versatility,— why should not Mr. Murray, always so liberal in an age so ungrateful to his profession, have sacrificed something to this occasion? He, that sacrifices so much, why not sacrifice to the grandeur of the Antique? I was then in Edinburgh, or in its neighborhood; and one ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... many-sided poet, whose sympathies are wide, and whose moods are varied, will touch with a certain suggestiveness; he will flash a ray of cheerfulness into the haunts of pessimism, or throw a new pathos into common situations. And Mr. Davidson possesses a large measure of this many-sidedness, this versatility of sympathy. He appears a very human man, a man unfettered by cant or creed, observing men and things from various sides, and entering into their circumstance. Is he without a creed? From his verses on the Making of a ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... licentious age[4]. The character of the Spanish Friar was not, however, forgotten, when Dryden became a convert to the Roman Catholic persuasion; and, in many instances, as well as in that just quoted, it was assumed as the means of fixing upon him a charge of inconsistency in politics, and versatility in religion[5]. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... been characteristic of Buonaparte: his escapades and disobedience had savored rather of recklessness. Like scores of others in his class, he had fully exploited the looseness of royal and early republican administration; his madcap and hotspur versatility distinguished him from his comrades not in the kind but in the degree of his bold effrontery. The whole outlook having changed since his final flight to France, his conduct now began to reveal a definite plan—to be marked by punctilious obedience, sometimes even by an almost puerile ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... in the life-history of his wife's brother, Bertie Baxter, the deeper did the iron become embedded in his soul. Bertie was one of Nature's touchers. This is the age of the specialist, Bertie's speciality was borrowing money. He was a man of almost eerie versatility in this direction. Time could not wither nor custom stale his infinite variety. He could borrow with a breezy bluffness which made the thing practically a hold-up. And anon, when his victim had steeled himself against this method, he could extract ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... of persons of high position; and had Joan been less ignorant of things belonging to her proper station, she would have found yet more to interest her in him. But being a man of some insight, and possessed also of considerable versatility, so that, readily discovering any perculiarity, he was equally ready to meet it, he laid himself out to talk to her of the things, and in the ways, which he thought she would like. To discover, however, is ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the lovers of the drama may lament this diversion of his talents, and doubt whether even the chance of another School for Scandal were not worth more than all his subsequent career, yet to the individual himself, full of ambition, and conscious of versatility of powers, such an opening into a new course of action and fame, must have been like one of those sudden turnings of the road in a beautiful country, which dazzle the eyes of a traveller with new glories, and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... exclaimed. "You say you have not had an hour's training, and never saw a play. Such versatility. Your fortune would be made on the stage. It is a sin to have such exceptional talent wasting in the bush. I must take her to Sydney and put her under ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... to make that tasteful research to which he naturally inclined. He is now in the sunshine of his noonday fame; and we may estimate his measure of excellence by a review of those chosen and successful renderings, that seem most clearly to define his genius, and to mark the limits of height and versatility which he can attain. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... protection from his enemies, food from man's waste, and nesting sites on man's house. He has assumed a varied diet. The male has become handsome. He has given up migrating, and thus secured the best nesting sites. He has learned to produce many offspring. With all his versatility, ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... In the wonderful versatility of the human mind, the improvement, when made, will very probably be made by paths where it is least expected. The great inducement to Mr. Babbage to attempt the construction of an engine by which astronomical ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... he was much more than a soldier, a far-sighted statesman, an incomparable diplomat, and something of a scholar. Cool, cautious, secretive,—distrustful, yet generous,—stern, yet humane,—by the range and the versatility of his genius he might be not unfavourably contrasted with Julius Caesar. All that Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had wished to do, and failed to [278] do, Iyeyasu speedily accomplished. After fulfilling Hideyoshi's dying injunction, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... disgust at this employment than at the preceding one. So the epic stopped short, some hundred years before the Norman conquest. Difficulty, which quickens the ardor of industry, always damps, and generally extinguishes, the false zeal of caprice and versatility. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... poet" of Shakespere's Sonnets. But these are adventitious claims to fame. What is not subject to such deduction is the assertion that Chapman was a great Englishman who, while exemplifying the traditional claim of great Englishmen to originality, independence, and versatility of work, escaped at once the English tendency to lack of scholarship, and to ignorance of contemporary continental achievements, was entirely free from the fatal Philistinism in taste and in politics, and in other ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... history gives no record of a race, stripped and stranded so completely as these freedmen were in 1865, that has shown such marvelous progress in a quarter of a century. They have responded wonderfully to every effort made to elevate them, and have shown in themselves such versatility and vigor of intellect as give ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... little wine he had been suffered to imbibe), but still behaved as well as he knew how. Hargrave and Annabella, from different motives and in different ways, emulated me, and doubtless both surpassed me, the former in his discursive versatility and eloquence, the latter in boldness and animation at least. Milicent, delighted to see her husband, her brother, and her over-estimated friend acquitting themselves so well, was lively and gay too, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... one of the well-known type of Italian adventurers who appeared at foreign courts, and, with the versatility of their race, made themselves useful, and indeed indispensable, to their masters. He learned the languages of the East, and went upon missions for the Great Khan to all parts of his vast empire. When, in 1292, the Polos obtained permission to return home they followed the longest and most ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... and the younger Dryfoos, with the instruction simply to go ahead and not bother him about it. Fulkerson called that pretty tall for an old fellow who used to bewail the want of pigs and chickens to occupy his mind. He alleged it as another proof of the versatility of the American mind, and of the grandeur of institutions and opportunities that let every man grow to his full size, so that any man in America could run the concern if necessary. He believed that old Dryfoos could step into Bismarck's shoes and run the German Empire at ten days' notice, or about ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sufficient only to give occasion for considerable slaughter and plunder. The invaders, seeing no reason for returning to their famine-stricken fastnesses, settled themselves in the enjoyment of the abundance of the vanquished, who, in their turn, with their accustomed versatility, submitted patiently, and even cheerfully, to a yoke which, after the first onslaught was over, pressed lightly; the Voizins, to whom fighting was a pastime, bearing no malice, and passing ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... the Chamber and to have General Elections, in which for the first time the territories conquered in 1912-13 would participate. Meanwhile, the King called upon M. Gounaris, a statesman of considerable ability, though with none of the versatility of mind and audacity of character which distinguished his predecessor, to carry on the Government and to preside over the elections. Under ordinary circumstances these would have taken place at once. But owing to the need of preparing electoral ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... journalistic mentors, who thought the wisdom of a step immaterial provided it was taken at once. He had other qualities which disqualified him for popular favour in a time of popular passion. He was not emotional, and did not respond to the varying moods of the hour with the versatility demanded by the experts in daily sensation. He belonged to an older school of politicians who suffered, like our armies in the field, from the newer and possibly more scientific methods of their foes. He was scrupulous in his observance of accepted rules of conduct, and the charge which ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... ownership, came under the control of Lemuel and Josiah Pomeroy, and enjoyed the benefits of the tariffs of 1824 and following years. Other mills went gradually into operation. But in this instance Yankee ingenuity and versatility found a difficult foe to master. The proprietors were ambitious and determined to make their fabrics as firm and as heavy as the best imported goods. In this they succeeded, but by a clumsy, wasteful process, which destroyed all profit. Moreover, instead of making a single class of goods, each ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Amatory Triflings, Lines on the Copernican System, the Consuliad, Lines on Happiness, Resignation, The Art of Puffing, and Kew Gardens—to say nothing of his equally remarkable prose writings—attest the versatility of his powers, and the variety of his perception of men and manners. His knowledge of the world appears to have been almost intuitive; for surely no youth of his years ever displayed so much. Bristol, it is true, was, of all great towns in England, one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... Glaube, published in 1821, revised three years before his death in 1834, is his monumental work. His Ethik, his lectures upon many subjects, numerous volumes of sermons, all published after his death, witness his versatility. His sermons have the rare note which one finds in Robertson ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... few. Hence the spectacle in the new Spanish and Portuguese world, as in the old, of men and women who are at once journalists, novelists, dramatists, politicians, soldiers, poets and what not else. Such a versatility, often joined to a literary prolixity, no doubt serves to lower the artistic worth of works produced ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... occupy the place of Plechanov. He became one of the most influential leaders of the St. Petersburg Soviet, and was elected its president. In that capacity he labored with titanic energy and manifested great versatility, as organizer, writer, speaker, and arbiter of disputes among warring individuals and groups. When the end came he was arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained for twelve months. After that he was tried and sentenced to life-exile in northern Siberia. From this he managed to ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo |
