I never could break Sheridan of _gentlemanly_, though he allowed it to be wrong." We talked about the word _talents_ and its history.

I said that it had first appeared in theological writing, that it was a metaphor taken from the parable in the New Testament, and that it had gradually passed from the vocabulary of divinity into common use.

I challenged her to find it in any classical writer on general subjects before the Restoration, or even before the year 1700.

I believe that I might safely have gone down later.

She seemed surprised by this theory, never having, so far as I could judge, heard of the parable of the talents.