But no matter, alum or no alum, (for I was resolved to forestall any argument on that point,) know that I am a virtuoso in the art of murderam desirous of improving myself in its detailsand am enamored of your vast surface of throat, to which I am determined to be a customer.'

He finds it his best way to be always craving, because he lights many times upon things that are disposed of or not beggable; but if one hit, it pays for twenty that miscarry; even as those virtuosos of his profession at large ask as well of those that give them nothing as those few that, out of charity, give them something.

If a man knows no Latin, he belongs to the vulgar, even though he be a great virtuoso on the electrical machine and have the base of hydrofluoric acid in his crucible.

This goldenhearted genius was a composer at an age when many children have not commenced to learn their ABC's; he was a virtuoso before the time when most boys can be trusted with a blunt knife.

FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT (1788-1866), endowed with a fatal facility of lyric expression, a virtuoso for whom no tour-de-force was too difficult, lived most of his life aloof from the political and social movements of his time.