"Propensity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a resource; a resource against which neither modesty nor equity plead; a resource which, on the contrary, has every moral propensity, every divine obligation, in its favour: this ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney
... obliged to remain in the psycho-spiritual world. But man, by means of the Luciferian influence, drew them into his soul which was separated from his physical body during sleep. Thus he came in contact with beings whose influence was highly corrupting. They increased in his soul the propensity for error; especially the tendency to misuse the powers of growth and reproduction, which since the separation of the physical and etheric bodies were now under ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... wandered. That was how he had always put it. He had reckoned long ago with her propensity to wander. It was the way of her genius; it was part of her queerness, of the dangerous charm that had attracted him. He understood that sort of thing. It was his own comparative queerness, his perversity, that had made him fly in the face of his family's tradition. No ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... taught, it is utterly unintelligible, and owes all its proselytes to the propensity, so common among men, to mistake distinct images for clear conceptions, and, vice versa, to reject as inconceivable whatever from its own nature is unimaginable. If God grant health and permission, this subject ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... him before he had had a certain talk with Laura Waynefleet, he would have profited by it, but she had roused something that was latent in him, and at the same time endued him with a vague distrust of himself, the effect of which was largely beneficial. He had realized then his perilous propensity for what she had called drifting, and, after all, men of his kind are likely to drift fastest when everything is made pleasant for them. It was characteristic that he looked ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... Without any explanation as to the reason from his own pen, we are led to suppose that his studies on the invertebrates, his perception of the gradations in the animal scale from monad to man, together with his inherent propensity to inquire into the origin of things, also his studies on fossils, as well as the broadening nature of his zooelogical investigations and his meditations during the closing years of the eighteenth century, must gradually have led to ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... teeth, and so too the strong hempen ropes. Speedily off fell the box-lids, one here, one there,—crack went a rope on this side, another on that! The most splendid toys presently lay scattered about in confusion on the road, and some of the Rats fell to gratifying their nibbling propensity upon them. When Harlequin beheld this, he cried aloud to the Rats, "A good appetite to you, ye board-eaters! have you enough?" And so saying he jumped into the brook, and flung his legs and arms about him, till the water splashed over ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... such as I had read. Having, I suppose, a naturally restless mind and busy imagination, this soon became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately, my brothers were always fond of encouraging this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my maid, a still greater tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it, until Miss Shore, a Calvinistic governess, finding it out, lectured me severely and told me it was wicked. From that time forth, I considered that to invent ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... flash, and for a moment I thought that he was going to say something harsh, and that we were going to have a quarrel through Bob Chowne's propensity for saying disagreeable things; but just then I happened to turn my head and saw a boat coming round the western corner of the ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... the first day's march over, it was easy. As he had expected, the surface of the snow had been drifted quite hard, so that he could dispense with snow-shoes altogether, and the four dogs found the sledge so light that they felt disposed now and then to run away with it; but Nazinred checked this propensity by holding on to the tail-line, thus acting as a drag. Ere long the shore was left out of sight behind, and the first of the islets—a small group—also ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the City of Mexico, to have the Archbishop bless it in the cathedral before Santa Guadalupe. During the ceremony, it was said, there grew a fine head of flaxen hair on the image and it received beautiful blue eyes. And it had the miraculous propensity to ever after wink its eye in the presence of a priest and at the approach of a Christ-hating Jew, it would spit. This virtue saved much wealth for the family of Don Jose, as they were ever put on their guard ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... discipline of the service dependent on him for the expected support. If he could realize this, how much the quicker would others be to attach the blame to him! how much the more necessary must it be to lose no time in diverting suspicion elsewhere! The fatal propensity to distort or disobey, which perhaps he could have downed had Tintop or Riggs been there, he could not resist with Warren,—an envied contemporary, presumably new to his idiosyncrasies. Nor would he, of course, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... recollected that he is a friend of yours (tho not of mine), and that it would not be the handsome thing to dedicate to one friend anything containing such matters about another. However, I'll work the Laureate before I have done therefor. I like a row, and always did from a boy, in the course of which propensity, I must needs say, that I have found it the most easy of all to be gratified, personally and poetically. You disclaim "jealousies"; but I would ask, as Boswell did of Johnson, "of whom could you be jealous?"—of none of the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... the pure soul will after death return to pure and eternal natures; but that the impure soul, in consequence of being imbued with terrene affections, will be drawn down to a kindred nature, and be invested with a gross vehicle capable of being seen by the corporeal eye.* For while a propensity to body remains in the soul, it causes her to attract a certain vehicle to herself; either of an aerial nature, or composed from the spirit and vapours of her terrestrial body, or which is recently collected from surrounding air; for according to the arcana ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... me, there was nothing to steal; besides, the elevated notions I had imbibed ought to have rendered me in future above such meanness, and generally speaking they certainly did so; but this rather proceeded from my having learned to conquer temptations, than having succeeded in rooting out the propensity, and I should even now greatly dread stealing, as in my infancy, were I yet subject to the same inclinations. I had a proof of this at M. Malby's, when, though surrounded by a number of little things that I could easily ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... very pleasant vicinity, though I. "And, may I ask sir," said I, in a very mild and soothing tone of voice, "may I ask the reason for this singular propensity of yours?" ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... and loving care of his "other mother," the teacher. He is living, not simply preparing to live. All life should be joyous, spontaneous, natural. The Rousseau Idea, which was modified and refined by Froebel, is the utilization of the propensity to play. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... Sifat-el-Houkama it is said: "There is a great diversity of inclinations among men. Everyone has his own propensity. One is borne naturally toward riches, another toward patience and resignation, another toward study and good works. And in this world the humors of men are so varied that they all differ in nature. Among this infinite ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... here, and their allowance of rice and Indian meal would not be the worse for such additions. No day passes that I do not, in the course of my walk, put up a number of the land birds, and startle from among the gigantic sedges the long-necked water-fowl by dozens. It arouses the killing propensity in me most dreadfully, and I really entertain serious thoughts of learning to use a gun, for the mere pleasure of destroying these pretty birds as they whirr from their secret coverts close beside my path. How strong an instinct of animal ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." All attempts to correct the depravity of man, to stay the headlong propensity to vice, to abate the madness of ambition, will be found deplorably inefficient, unless we apply the restrictions and the tremendous sanctions of religion. A profound regard and deference for religion, a constant recognition of our dependence upon God, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... with which her uncle had told her that he had again made her his heir? And had she not always clearly in her mind the hang-dog look of that wretched man? She was strong-minded,—but yet a woman, with a woman's propensity to follow her feelings rather than either facts or reason. Her lover had told her that her uncle had been very feeble when those words had been spoken, with his mind probably vague and his thoughts wandering. It had, perhaps, been but a dream. Such words did not suffice as evidence ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... in Spain we are to consider the delicate situation in which they stand with France, the propensity of the former to peace, and the need that the latter has of their assistance. I should conceive it necessary, therefore, rather to submit with patience to their repeated delays than give a handle to the British party at ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... The former are inhabitants of warm climates, and from the ease with which they can adapt themselves to any positions, they may be troublesome visitors; they can run with ease about the walls and ceilings of rooms, like flies; and their propensity is to roam abroad in the darkness of the night. Their broad, ugly heads, and repulsive general appearance, have won for them the character of poisonous reptiles, but the truth is they are harmless. The ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... grateful for a beneficent change, and I have again and again made light of the wailings of persons who persist in chattering about the good old times. But I am talking now about the spirit of the gambler; and I cannot say that the human propensity to gamble has in any way died out. Its manifestations may in some respects be more decorous than they used to be; but the deep, masterful, subtle tendency is there, and its force is by no means diminished by the advance of a complicated civilisation. ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... those of a different stamp; and as we had yet some venereal complaints on board, I took all possible care to prevent the disorder being communicated to them. On most occasions they shewed a strong propensity to pilfering; in which they were full as expert ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... his manner dignified, though not gracious, his domestic life without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief cause of his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in truth, impelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It may seem strange that his conscience, which, on occasions of little moment, was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached him with this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was perfidious, not only from constitution and from habit, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... referring to the first indications of an appetite, which he considers one of the symptoms of a forming disease, says: "This early stage is marked by an occasional desire to drink, which recurs at shorter and shorter intervals, and a propensity, likewise, gradually increasing for a greater quantity at each time. This stage has long been believed to be one of voluntary indulgence, for which the subject of it was morally responsible. The drinker has been held as criminal for his occasional indulgence, and his ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... has much good sense, and the same friendly relations towards us as the deceased. She has no religion, but acts the devotee. The chancellor Bestuchef is her greatest favorite, and, as he has a strong propensity to guinees I flatter myself that I shall be able to retain the friendship of the court. The poor emperor wanted to imitate Peter I., but he had not the capacity ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... the making of designs. All that the son inherits is the natural faculties of the parent, but no more. Hence it follows that the son of a thief, on the supposition that thieving comes by habit and practice, does not by natural inheritance acquire the parent's criminal propensity. As far as his natural faculties are concerned he starts life free from the vicious habits of his parent, and should he in turn become a thief, as sometimes happens, it is not because he has inherited his father's thievish habits, but because ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... loss for contrivances, while swayed by the influences of love or benevolence. Both, in this instance, may have aided invention. Plunkett had three strong claims in his favour: he was a handsome man—a soldier—and an Irishman. The general propensity of the Quakers, in favor of the Royal cause, exempted the sect in a great measure from suspicion, in so great a degree indeed, that the barriers of the city were generally entrusted to the care of their members, as the best judges of the characters of those persons who ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... have been; that in this way it might operate even in favour of those who had never heard of it: as to those who did hear of it, the effect it should produce would be repentance and piety, by impressing upon the mind a just notion of sin: that original sin was the propensity to evil, which no doubt was occasioned by the fall. He presented this solemn subject in a new light to me, [Footnote: My worthy, intelligent, and candid friend, Dr Kippis, informs me, that several divines have thus explained the ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... R. Brash,[16] in a similar strain, comments on the sentiment which appears to have been common to human nature in all ages, and among all conditions of mankind, namely a desire to leave after him something to perpetuate his memory, something more durable than his frail humanity. This propensity doubtless led him in his earliest and rudest state to set on end in the earth the rough and unhewn pillar stone which he found lying prostrate on the surface, and these hoar memorials exist in almost ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... less inhuman), are such as to make the flesh creep. No language can be too strong in speaking of the horrors of such a state of society. But it would be unjust to confound these agrarian conspiracies with ordinary crime, or to suppose that they imply a propensity to ordinary crime either on the part of those who commit them, or on the part of the people who connive at and favour their commission. In the districts where agrarian conspiracy and outrage were most rife, the number of ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... mariners of England;"—as for "the force," the police, truly we eschew them and their deeds. They are a perverse, stiff-necked race, who wear two abominations, round hats and short coats, and they have a villanous propensity of following you home from your club of an evening, and inveigling you every now and then to Bow Street, thrusting a broken knocker or two into your pocket as you go along, and then pestering your bewildered memory with all sorts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... of the ward, better than his catechism; was alike active in his master's affairs, and in his own adventures of fun and mischief; and so managed matters, that the credit he acquired by the former bore him out, or at least served for his apology, when the latter propensity led him into scrapes, of which, however, it is but fair to state, that they had hitherto inferred nothing mean or discreditable. Some aberrations there were, which David Ramsay, his master, endeavoured to reduce to regular order when he discovered them, and others which he winked at—supposing ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... inexperience be directed by maturer advice, and in placing guard upon the avenues which lead to idleness and vice. The latter will approach like a thief, working upon your passions, encouraged, perhaps, by bad examples, the propensity to which will increase in proportion to the practice of it and your yielding. Virtue and vice cannot be allied, nor can idleness and industry; of course if you resolve to adhere to the former of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... fine old windows, and with a beautiful tone of faded red brick and rusty stone. It is a charming encounter for a provincial by- street; one of those accidents in the hope of which the traveller with a propensity for sketching (whether on a little paper block or on the tablets of his brain) decides to turn a corner at a venture. A brawny gen- darme, in his shirt-sleeves, was polishing his boots in the court; an ancient, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... are born into the world, and there is something within us, which, from the instant that we live, more and more thirsts after its likeness. It is probably in correspondence with this law that the infant drains milk from the bosom of its mother; this propensity develops itself with the development of our nature. We dimly see within our intellectual nature, a miniature as it were of our entire self, yet deprived of all that we condemn or despise, the ideal prototype of every thing excellent and lovely that we are capable of conceiving ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... said[4] that children often resemble their grandfathers or grandmothers more than their immediate parents, and that this propensity is termed atavism, this does not seem quite correct even etymologically, for atavus in Latin did not mean father or grandfather, but at first great-great-great-grandfather, and then only ancestors; and what should be made quite clear is that this mysterious atavism should not be used by careful speakers, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... that the empire was not to be judged by the examples of its predecessor. The First Empire had conquered most of the known universe by political intrigue and sheer military strength; it had fallen because that same propensity for political intrigue had gained over every other strength of the Empire, and the various branches and sectors of the First Empire had begun to ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... night-cap dragged out, but all the missing and not missing articles which the hedgehog had purloined; most of them were much torn, and it was supposed that the poor beast had taken possession of them to make a soft bed. I have not seen such a propensity noticed elsewhere, and it may be a useful hint to those who keep hedgehogs. All endeavours to make this animal friendly were unavailing; but I am told, that hedgehogs are frequently quite domesticated; and even shew a ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... labor, rightly mixed with the mental, eliminates draw-poker, highballs, brawls, broils, Harvard Beer, Yale Mixture, Princeton Pinochle, Chippee dances, hazing, roistering, rowdyism and the bulldog propensity. The Heidelberg article of cocked hat and insolent ways is not produced at Tuskegee. At Tuskegee there is no place for those who lie in wait for insults and regard scrapping as a fine art. As for college athletics at the Orthodox Universities, only one man out of ten ever does ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... time Sand's life remains apparently calm and equal; the inward storm is calmed; he rejoices in his application to work and his cheerful temper. However, from time to time, he makes great complaints to himself of his propensity to love dainty food, which he does not always find it possible to conquer. Then, in his self-contempt, he calls himself "fig-stomach" or "cake-stomach." But amid all this the religious and political exaltation ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... little or no education from his guardians, but was allowed to indulge in every vice, surrounded by minions and young profligates of the court. These not only assisted him in the pursuit of low vices, but encouraged his natural propensity to cruel diversions. He had no sooner secured his rights to the throne, and assumed the power of the state, than he showed the restless ambition of his family by an attack on the Yumila Raja, whom all the mountain chiefs acknowledged as their liege lord. The Yumila chief, although ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... reverent mind, and it sprang instinctively to the defense of ideas and institutions whose value had been tested. Unfortunately, in his "Life of Washington" Marshall seems to have given this propensity a somewhat undue scope. There were external difficulties in dealing with such a subject apart from those inherent in a great biography, and Marshall's volumes proved to be a general disappointment. Still hard pressed for funds wherewith to ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... of Ordinances.*—The administrative system of Italy is modelled, in the main, upon that of France. In the effort to achieve national homogeneity the founders of the kingdom indulged to excess their propensity for centralization, with the consequence that Italy has exhibited regularly an admixture of bureaucracy and liberalism even more confounding than that which prevails in the French Republic. In theory the administrative system is broadly democratic and tolerant; in ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... cruel, although they differ much in the propensity to annoy and reduce animals and each other under their individual control; the passive submit at once, but the energetic will not; it is then that the active assailant learns an important lesson, which can only be learned in society, and which ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... things; grown old, and when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had experience of every state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a man completely happy; I say, after all this, any one would have thought that the native propensity to rambling, which I gave an account of in my first setting out into the world to have been so predominant in my thoughts, should be worn out, the volatile part be fully evacuated, or at least condensed, and I might at sixty-one years of age have been a little inclined to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... The propensity of Campbell to adapt or imitate the thoughts and expressions of others has often struck me. Let me then suggest the following (taken at random) as further, and I believe hitherto ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... another would have thought it a mistake, a folly, to have wrested such great thoughts from their ordinary interpreters! How sincerely should we revere him for this devotion to the Beautiful for its own sake, which induced him not to yield to the general propensity to scatter each light spray of melody over a hundred orchestral desks, and enabled him to augment the resources of art, in teaching how they may be concentrated in a more limited space, elaborated at less expense of means, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... Eastman, with a cat-like propensity, always came down on his feet. He was now at the flood-tide of prosperity—on other people's money. Mrs. Eastman was regal in velvets, sables, and diamonds, queening it at St. Petersburg. Some day there might ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... of the "Naval department." The Company have a steamboat and several sailing vessels, for the purpose chiefly of trading with the natives along the coast. The primary object, however, is not so much the trade, as to keep brother Jonathan in check, (whose propensity for encroaching has of late been "pretty much" exhibited,) and to deter him from forming any establishments on the coasts; there being a just apprehension that if once a footing were obtained on the coast, an equal eagerness might be manifested for extending their locations ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... Dibdin, a convivial, but always a sober man, gives a delicate allusion to the drinking propensity, in the following toast:—"May the man who has a good wife, never be addicted to liquor ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... money. Then his luck turned; he lost everything, borrowed money and lost that, and was obliged to become the slave of his creditor till he had worked out the debt. He was a quick and active lad when he pleased, but was apt to be idle, and had such an incorrigible propensity for gambling, that it will very likely lead to his becoming a ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... intelligence. At this period, Pope's translation of Homer, and the more amusing songs in Ramsay's "Evergreen," were his favourite studies; and he took delight in reading aloud, with suitable emphasis, the more striking passages, or verses, to his mother, who sought every incentive to stimulate his native propensity. In 1778 he was sent to the High School, where he possessed the advantage of instruction under Mr Luke Fraser, an able scholar, and Dr Adam, the distinguished rector. His progress in scholarship was not equal to his talents; he was already a devotee to romance, and experienced ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... inasmuch as all which comes directly from the hands of the Creator may be said so far to exceed the power of human comprehension, as to be beyond comment; but the truth would show us that the cause of this neglect is rather a propensity to dwell on such interests as those over which we have a fancied control, than on those which confessedly transcend our understanding. Thus is it ever with men. The wonders of creation meet them at every turn, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... readily falls in with her humour, assuming the name of Montmorenci, and a suit of tin armour and a plumed helmet for her delight. Later, Cherubina is entertained by Lady Gwyn, who, for the amusement of her guests, heartlessly indulges her propensity for the romantic, and poses as her aunt. She is introduced in a gruesome scene, which recalls the fate of Agnes in Lewis's Monk, to her supposed mother, Lady Hysterica Belamour, whose memoirs, under the title ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... nor is there anything but our experience of the governing principles of human nature, which can give us any assurance of the veracity of men. But though experience be the true standard of this, as well as of all other judgments, we seldom regulate ourselves entirely by it; but have a remarkable propensity to believe whatever is reported, even concerning apparitions, enchantments, and prodigies, however contrary to daily experience and observation. The words or discourses of others have an intimate connexion with certain ideas ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... bestowed from this fond in the course of a single year." This lottery business shows the spirit of gambling so largely developed in nations of Spanish descent. The Mexicans are noted for it, and Santa Ana, who spent his exile in Cuba, and recently sailed from Havana for Vera Cruz, indulged in the propensity to a great extent. But he had two strings to his bow, and whilst playing his fighting cocks was also playing for an empire, and has won the game. How long he will hold it remains ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... the same propensity in mankind for investigating the motives, as there is for censuring the conduct, of public characters, it would be found that the censure so freely bestowed is oftentimes ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... place:—you may have a bath as hot as you please, as cold as you please, or you may have a mud douche, if you have that buffalo propensity; and then you will have to rough it, which is so delightful; you will find little or nothing to eat, and plenty of bedfellows in all their varieties, a burning sun, and a dense atmosphere, and you will be very delighted to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... editorial contributor and occasional "special correspondent" of a leading newspaper. He had seen much of life—tasted much of its pains and pleasures—perhaps thought more than either; and though with a little too much of a propensity for late hours and those long stories which would grow out of current events seen in the light of past experience, he was held to be a very pleasant companion by other ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... France, his mother was an Italian; and from her he inherited a certain combination of qualities and peculiarities that at once distinguished him from the majority of his countrymen. Full of poetic fire and inspiration, there was in Gerard at the same time a strong critical propensity, that showed itself in his caustic wit and, sometimes, not unmalicious remarks. There was also a perpetual struggle in his character between reflection and the first impulse, and sometimes the etourderie ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... also, shall not be allowed to suffer, Amy," said uncle Rutherford sympathetically; mindful, perhaps, of his own propensity for forcing things to ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... but that it is an art, and an art worth your Learning: the question wil rather be, whether you be capable of learning it? For he that learns it, must not onely bring an enquiring, searching, and discerning wit; but he must bring also that patience you talk of, and a love and propensity to the art itself: but having once got and practised it, then doubt not but the Art will (both for the pleasure and profit of it) prove like to Vertue, a reward to ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... lead us to suspect that he was also envious, malignant, and cruel. How far this will tend to confirm the assertion, that when a boy, he was an amateur of this royal sport, I do, says Mr. Ireland, not pretend to decide: but were a child, in whom I had any interest, cursed with such a propensity, my first object would be to correct it: if that were impracticable, and he retained a fondness for the cockpit, and the still more detestable amusement of Shrove Tuesday, I should hardly dare to flatter myself that he could become a merciful ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... tantalised by the promised revelation, which melts before us like a mirage. Once, indeed, on the sacred mountain of Sinai, a vision greets the weary pilgrim, in which a guardian angel talks in the best style of Sidonia or Disraeli. But we are constantly distracted by our guide's irresistible propensity for a little political satire. A Syrian Vivian Grey is introduced to us, whose intrigues are as audacious and futile as those of his English parallel, but whose office seems to be the purely satirical one of interpreting Tancred's ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... it was! The bite is always the biggest fish. There is something very charming—something of which the cynic knows nothing at all—about this propensity of ours to attribute superlative qualities to the unrealized. It is a species of philosophic chivalry. It is a courtesy that we extend to the unknown. We do not know whether the joys that never visited us were really ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... Tuna threw light on the etymology of the name of Daphne. Mangaian and Greek are not allied languages. Nor did I give the Tuna story as an explanation of the Daphne story. I gave it as one in a mass of illustrations of the savage mental propensity so copiously established by Dr. Tylor in Primitive Culture. The two alternative explanations which I gave of the Daphne story I have cited. No mention of ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... after a little silence in which Gerald had been thinking with a very sickness of sympathy of Brenda and the sinister propensity of the Fates for bringing to nothing the most valiant dreams and hopes; and Mrs. Hawthorne had been thinking entirely of Gerald, whose own heart was so much more certainly revealed by what he said ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... some people, who though very amiable in the main, and obliging in their offices to others, have yet that most unhappy propensity of being gloomy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... the time that brought about our meeting. Some of our islanders, in a fishing expedition, were driven by the wind on your island. At the entrance of a large bay, they found a small canoe of bark, carefully moored to a tree. Either their innate propensity for theft, or the notion that it had no owner, prevailed over them, and they brought it away. I was informed of this, and was curious to see it; I recognized at once that it was made by Europeans: the careful finish, the neat ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... strong also in Pennsylvania, so strong that an officer of the revolutionary army described that colony as 'the enemies' country.' 'New York and Pennsylvania,' wrote John Adams years afterwards, 'were so nearly divided—if their propensity was not against us—that if New England on one side and Virginia on the other had not kept them in awe, they would have joined the British.' In Georgia the Loyalists were in so large a majority that in 1781 that colony would probably have detached ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... to madness," exclaimed Arthur, rising and pacing the apartment with hurried steps, "when I reflect that that woman, knowing well his fatal propensity,—knowing, too, how powerful was her influence over him, for, poor fellow, I believe he would have laid down his life for her sake, was the immediate instrument of leading to destruction one who might,—had she encouraged ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... abnegation of the life of sense, and through the sacrifice, even though unnatural, of what is dearest to man, to appease a divinity who as lord and governor rules and subjects to himself the power of nature and every propensity ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... friend, are you forgotten, when my soul seeks communion with our common Father; and when I strive most earnestly to overcome some evil propensity, or to make some generous sacrifice, the thought of you gives me ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... as if to give to Fates a chance to keep him if they would. Yes, Sheila Melrose was a little idiot. Why couldn't she realize that she was but one of the hundreds with whom he flirted day by day? She was nothing to him but a pastime—a toy to amuse his wayward mood. He had outgrown his earlier propensity to break his toys when he had done with them. The sight of a broken toy revolted ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... His natural propensity for temporising asserted itself and his finger left the bell. ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Dedication of his Divine Legation to the Free-thinkers (vol. I. p. ii), says:—'Nothing, I believe, strikes the serious observer with more surprize, in this age of novelties, than that strange propensity to infidelity, so visible in men of almost every condition: amongst whom the advocates of Deism are received with all the applauses due to the inventers of the arts of life, or the deliverers of oppressed and injured nations.' See ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... long known her husband's propensity for night rambling and she knew it might be hours before he returned. Was he angry with her still that he had omitted the punctilious good-night he had never before forgotten? Her lips quivered like a disappointed child's as she turned back slowly into ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... gain the applause which lavish generosity brings; while, elsewhere, applause is sought with less eagerness. Notice should be taken of the connexion between this love of approbation and the social restraints; since it plays an important part in the maintenance of them. (d) The acquisitive propensity. This, too, is a character the degrees of which, and the relations of which to the social state, have to be especially noted. The desire for property grows along with the possibility of gratifying ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... utensil which he himself might be called upon to inspect, and perhaps to aid the shifting on and the shifting off, he did begin to think that that side of the Scylla gulf ought to be avoided if possible. And probably this propensity on his part, this feeling that he would like to reconsider the matter dispassionately before he gave himself up for good to his old love, may have been increased by Camilla's apparent withdrawal of her claims. He felt mildly grateful to the Heavitree household in general for accepting him in this ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... storm; and after a vain attempt to make Paula swallow some nourishment, Magdalen thought it kinder to let Agatha carry her off to bed, and then she confessed, what really gave a certain hope, that the pair had been in the habit of murmuring against "sister" so much that, considering poor Vera's propensity to strong language, it was quite possible that Hubert might think her cruelly oppressed, and for a freak carry her off to ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the other hand, valued this branch of knowledge, only on account of its uses with reference to that visible and tangible world which Plato so much despised. He speaks with scorn of the mystical arithmetic of the later Platonists, and laments the propensity of mankind to employ, on mere matters of curiosity, powers the whole exertion of which is required for purposes of solid advantage. He advises arithmeticians to leave these trifles, and to employ themselves in framing convenient expressions, which may be of use in physical ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is one of a small breed of dogs, named from their propensity to scratch the ground or earth in ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... a strong propensity which dances through every atom, and attracts the minutest particle to some peculiar object; search this universe from its base to its summit, from fire to air, from water to earth (the four elements!), from all below the moon to all ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... every way suitable for agriculturists. Great rocks rose here and there, but in their fissures rose stately trees, under whose umbrage nestled the villages of the people. We found the various village elders greedy for cloth, but the presence of the younger son of Nzogera's men restrained their propensity for extortion. Goats and sheep were remarkably cheap, and in good condition; and, consequently, to celebrate our arrival near the Malagarazi, a flock of eight goats was slaughtered, and distributed to ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... do him justice, he did not attempt to deny it: he ventured only to EXPLAIN it.) According to his version of the affair, the trouble began long before he took to wine and women. It began with his wife's propensity for nagging. Being a high-spirited, intelligent person with a mind of his own, Mr. Hooper didn't like being nagged, and as he rather harshly attempted to put a stop to it just as soon as it dawned upon him that he was being hen- ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... they taught him that it is human nature to gratify the uppermost passion: and is prudence the uppermost passion with slaveholders, and self-restraint their great characteristic? The strongest feeling of any moment is the sovereign of that moment, and rules. Is a propensity to practice economy the predominant feeling with slaveholders? Ridiculous! Every northerner knows that slaveholders are proverbial for lavish expenditures, never higgling about the price of a gratification. Human passions have not, like the tides, regular ebbs and flows, with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... wonderful similarity of disposition. The Mandingoes, in particular, are a very gentle race; cheerful in their disposition, inquisitive, incredulous, simple, and fond of flattery. Perhaps the most prominent defect in their character is the propensity to theft, which in their estimation is no crime. On the other hand, it is impossible for me to forget the disinterested charity and tender solicitude with which many of these poor heathens, from the sovereign of Sego to the poor women who received me at different times into their ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... The Orientals suppose that Bahram convened this assembly and proclaimed Chosroes; but Theophylact is, in this instance, more distinct and credible. * Note: Yet Theophylact seems to have seized the opportunity to indulge his propensity for writing orations; and the orations read rather like those of a Grecian sophist than of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... his master. 'Are you afraid of old Tom Hardesty? If you are, you needn't be; nobody need be afraid of such an old coward as I am—darned if they need!' And feeling that he was growing melancholy, he determined to subdue the propensity, and to that end commenced cutting the complicated figure entitled a pigeon-wing. This exhilarating sport soon restored the grocer's good humor, and he laughed heartily and made such a racket altogether, that the boy gradually ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... to inform the company that when Nature gave me a propensity to their way of life she had not left me altogether destitute of qualifications for it, though I could not deny that my talent was less respectable, and might be less profitable, than the meanest of theirs. My design, in short, was to imitate the story-tellers of ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... nuptial hut, the bridegroom draws forth his horsewhip and inflicts memorable chastisement upon the fair person of his bride, with the view of taming any lurking propensity to shrewishness." ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... is making. In the words of Santayana, "What had to be done was, by imaginative races, done imaginatively; what had to be spoken or made was spoken or made fitly, lovingly, beautifully.... The ceaseless experimentation and fermentation of ideas, in breeding what it had a propensity to breed, came sometimes on figments that gave it ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... conversation. 'Did you know,' said the one who had first spoken of Miss W., 'that she sometimes had seasons of bitter repentance for indulging in this unhappy propensity of hers? She would, at such times, resolve to be more on her guard, but, after all her good resolutions, she would yield to the slightest temptations. When she was expressing, and apparently really feeling sorrow for having wounded the feelings of others, those who knew her would not venture to ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... addicted to the eager perusal of works of fiction. I regard this fact as an indication of a want of her nature. Not, therefore, to eradicate but to control, and direct, and restrain, this propensity, would I make an endeavor. In the words of the afflicted Lady Russell, used on the anniversary of her husband's execution, I would say, "I do not contend with nature, but keep her as innocent as I can." Select only such ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Clara came into the world, yet he lived to see her very old, and the mother of eight sons and three daughters. He was a man of sound understanding, determined courage and resolution. In his younger days, he had contracted infirmities by intemperance, and by indulging his too great propensity to anger; but when he perceived the ill consequence of his irregularities, he had command enough of himself to subdue his passion and inordinate appetites. By means of great sobriety, and a strict regimen in his diet, he recovered his health and ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... the exquisite flavor and perfume of the field-berry. It rarely fails to give us fruit in May, and my children, with the unerring taste of connoisseurs, follow it up until the last berry is picked. It would run all over the garden unchecked; and this propensity must be severely curbed to render a bed productive. Keeping earliness and high flavor in view, I would next recommend the Black Defiance. It is not remarkably productive on many soils, but the fruit is so delicious that it well deserves a place. The Duchess and Bidwell follow ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... Therefore, they must be guarded with care and ruled in wisdom. Many people stumble at and reject the doctrine of entire sanctification, because they do not understand these things. They mistake that which is natural and essential to a human being for the diseased and abnormal propensity caused by sin, and so miss the blessed ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... protege of the Collector's, had a streak of genius as an architect and several lesser gifts, among them a propensity for borrowing and a flexible tenor voice. He trolled an old song, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... animals contemporary with them. In these prehistoric delineations, sometimes not without spirit, we have mammoths, combats of reindeer. One presents us with a man harpooning a fish, another a hunting-scene of naked men armed with the dart. Man is the only animal who has the propensity of depicting external forms, and of availing himself of ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... too captured me a mule. He was not a fast mule, and I soon found out that he thought he knew as much as I did. He was wise in his own conceit. He had a propensity to take every hog path he came to. All the bombasting that I could give him would not make him accelerate his speed. If blood makes speed, I do not suppose he had a drop of any kind in him. If I wanted him to go on one side of the road he was sure to be possessed of an equal desire ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins |
