Only once had she thought him at fault in his likes or dislikes of people; when he had showed a predilection for the assistant rector's shapely calves.

They are mostly carnivorous, though they seize upon almost anything that comes in their way: they even devour their own offspring, and manifest a particular predilection for all living creatures.

Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories reveal predilection for no one type.

Why should I speak of the inhuman sophism that, because it is silly in my neighbour to break his egg at the broad end when the Squire and the Vicar have declared their predilection for the narrow end, therefore it is right for the Squire and the Vicar to hang and quarter him for his silliness:for it comes to that.

But, as it was intended to be a poem on Ariosto's plan, that is to say on no plan at all, and, as is usual in similar cases, having a predilection for the worst passages, I shall retain those parts, though I cannot venture to defend them.

The bulk of the real negroes on the other hand, with an occasional mulatto among them, went their own way, the women frankly indulging a native predilection for gaudy colors, carrying their burdens on their heads, arms akimbo, and laying as great store in their kerchief turbans as their paler cousins did in their beflowered bonnets.

She gave her disposition to her son, but he did not follow her religious predilections.

I never forget my predilections: I was in a wretched state of health and worse spirits when I was at Geneva; but quiet and the lake, better physicians than Polidori, soon set me up.

But it is in forming the predilections of daughters for their destined employments, that mothers are especially influential.

Altogether, he is much less solicitous about gaining her predilection than about getting her for the lowest possible price.

Methinks I can gather from your letters a predilection for this Major Sanford.

' "King James had imbibed a predilection for horse races, before he ascended the English throne; they were in high estimation in Scotland during his minority, previously to which, the English parliament seem to have turned their attention to the subject.

Some prints of the Cambridge colleges, and other pictures indicating Byron's predilections at the time, and which he himself had hung there, were on the walls.

The reader may more than once have noticed our predilection for illustrating the castellated antiquities of Britain in our pages.

Bianchon had already observed in his chief a predilection for Auvergnats, and especially for water carriers; but as Desplein took a sort of pride in his cures at the Hotel-Dieu, the pupil saw nothing very strange in that.

Linforth recognised him no longer as the man to argue with; but as the representative of Government which overrides predilections, sympathies, ambitions, and bends its servants to their duty.

A certain portion of the monied class would be obliged either to sacrifice their predilections by engaging in business, or to lend on inferior security; and they would accordingly accept, where they could obtain good security, an abatement of interest equivalent to the difference of risk.

At the time that greater performer, the elephant, made his appearance on the boards, his own board became a subject of no trifling consideration with the managers, particularly as the African had taken a predilection for rum, which the new actor used to quaff with extraordinary zest.

I only asked to ascertain your predilections.

Bluid is thicker than water is a proverb which has a marked Scottish aspect, as meant to vindicate those family predilections to which, as a nation, we are supposed to be rather strongly inclined.

There is much speaking about the separation of Church and State, and yet, on close examination, we shall see that there was, and there is, scarcely one single government entirely free from the direct or indirect influence of one or other religious denominations; scarcely one which would not at least bear a predilection, if not countenance with favour, one or another creedbut creed, and always creed.

None of his works display a predilection for girlish beauty, and it is probable that her intellectual distinction and mature womanhood touched him even more than if she had been younger.

I have met with a passage in Torquato's prose writings (but I cannot lay my hands on it), in which he expresses a singular predilection for verses full of the same vowel.

" Sir George listened with the interest with which an Englishman of his class always endeavours to catch a concession that he fancies is about to favour his own political predilections, and he felt encouraged to push the subject further.

Monmouth was wild with delight over the prize he had captured, and as they sat at meat he was pondering upon where he should hide the beauty, for he feared his father's predilections, and 'twas sure he would not run the risk of any such mischance and he tossed about in his mind the advisability of taking her to London.