Historians say he owed his rise, not so much to his mental abilities, as to the graces of his person and his excellence in dancing, which captivated the Queen to such a degree, that he arose gradually from one of her Gentlemen Pensioners to the highest employment in the law, which he, however, filled without censure, supplying his own defects by the assistance of the ablest men in the profession.

Take business energy, executive ability.

The point to be settled is whether epileptic genius, that is epilepsy with superior ability, occurs most often in pituitocentrics, the epilepsy being symptomatic of a pituitary struggling against barriers, tugging against bonds.

Mr. Charteris had overrated her modest literary abilities so far as to ask her advice in certain details of his new book, which was to appear in the autumn, and they had found a vernal solitude, besides being extremely picturesque, to be conducive to the forming of really matured opinions.

He was a printer-politician and possessed considerable ability.

Indeed, he had remarkable ability to pitch his voice into the roar of the freight train, and above or beneath it, and give it a quality such as he pleased.

Because their ailment was associated with their extraordinary ability, they attracted an attention that concerned itself not at all with the circumstance that genius has also been liable to measles, scarlet fever, and so on.

Administrative ability is as much a native gift as the poet's voice or the actor's grace, and the managers of any large business are always on the lookout for it.

Typically does he represent his age in which intellectual ability, though sometimes wholly divorced from nobleness of soul, began to dominate brute force.

To do this successfully at least five things appear to be necessary: a sterling education, marked ability in writing and in public speaking, a noble manner, a voice capable of majestic modulations, and a deep and tender heart.

Her teacher, a musician of unusual ability, guided her stumbling fingers with conscientious patience and care.

The prisoner in the dock was a man who by his distinguished abilities had won for himself a leading position at the bar, and had been honoured and respected by all who knew him.

Like so many of the most illustrious men, he early gave promise of rare abilities.

"Before his accident, or whatever it was that made him lose his memory, he was an unusual man, a man of exceptional ability.

Arrian, who wrote his history of Alexander when Hadrian was emperor of the Roman world, and when the spirit of declamation and dogmatism was at its full height, but who was himself, unlike the dreaming pedants of the schools, a statesman and a soldier of practical and proved ability, well rebuked the malevolent aspersions which he heard continually thrown upon the memory of the great conqueror of the East.

"Native ability is better than teaching.

'It's like this,' I argued: 'if every negro with a little ability leaves the South, our people down there will never progress.'

That the differences are inherited was made evident by Galton's finding that the chance of the son of an eminent man exhibiting eminent ability was 500 times as great as that of the son of a man taken at random.

But it will be long before man's overweening self-confidence rises from the shock which has been given to his belief in his mechanical ability.

Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had mentioned them in his excellent Dedication of his Juvenal, but had barely mentioned them.

Musical ability, greater or less, may at all events be traced back in her family for a considerable period.

Dr. T. Campbell (Diary, p. 34) recorded in 1775, that 'when Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster's Sermons, Johnson flew in a passion, and said that Foster was a man of mean ability, and of no original thinking.'

Moreover, their attitude was entirely negative, and they possessed little or no constructive ability of any kind.

Although he was hardly W.W. Denslow or Frank Kramer, Simon's artistic abilities were far superior to those of Dirk.

The consummate ability, energy, and foresight of the corps commander had been supported throughout by the skill of divisional and brigade commanders.