"Perspicuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... continued Schaunard, rattling over the keys. "Lastly, an adieu of the young girl, who determines to throw herself into the blue lake, to rejoin her beloved who is buried under the snow. The catastrophe is not very perspicuous, but decidedly interesting. We must have something tender, melancholy. It's coming, it's coming! Here are a dozen bars crying like Magdalens, enough to split one's heart—Brr, brr!" and Schaunard shivered in his spangled ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... that I had never seen a more sensible woman than Agatha's mother. It would have been impossible to announce the success of my suit in a more delicate or more perspicuous manner. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to himself clear, perspicuous ideas of his soul, let him throw himself back on his experience—let him renounce his prejudices—let him avoid theological conjecture—let him tear the bandages which he has been taught to think necessary, but with which he has been blind-folded, only to ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... the brief sickness and speedy death of Washington is so short, yet circumstantial and perspicuous, and may not be condensed without injury to its completeness, that we will give it in his ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... which means all the wrong side of the water'd Stuff becomes flat, and with little wales, and the wales on the other side become the more protuberant; whence the creasings or angular bendings of the wales become the more perspicuous. Having folded it in this manner, they place it with an interjacent Pastboard into an hot Press, where it is kept very violently prest, till it be dry and stiff; by which means, the wales of either contiguous sides leave their own impressions upon each other, as is very manifest by the ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... language, and the want of technical skill in the makers of the law, that statutes often give occasion to the most perplexing and distressing doubts and discussions, arising from the ambiguity that attends them. It requires great experience, as well as the command of a perspicuous diction, to frame a law in such clear and precise terms, as to secure it from ambiguous expressions, and from all doubts and criticisms upon its meaning " ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... office, in a given street, where they were to sign without inquiry, and even without perusal, whatever documents might then and there be presented to them. This course, the writer pointed out, with perspicuous plainness, was all in the end ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... effected little; and as Mrs. Musgrove did not reside at Yamacraw, and could not often assist him as an interpreter; and, perhaps, could not readily make perspicuous in the Indian dialect what was somewhat more mystical than even his English hearers could comprehend, his cherished purposes for the conversion of the Indians seemed to be thwarted. Besides, the condition of the people at Savannah was such as to require clerical services, and he ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... I really have some historic sense, I feel that in my bones. Then there's another thing. Scott never knew the Highlands; he was always a Borderer. He has missed that whole, long, strange, pathetic story of our savages, and, besides, his style is not very perspicuous to childhood. Gad, I think I'll have a flutter. Buridan's Ass! Whether to go, what to attack. Must go to other letters; shall add to this, if I ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said, not probabilities. Yet even the faint glimmer of so alluring a possibility brings home to one with vividness the truth of Humboldt's perspicuous observation that meteorology can be properly comprehended only when studied in connection with the companion sciences. There are no ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... explain the structure and functions of the living body, to those who are supposed to be unacquainted with the usual preliminary and collateral branches of knowledge. It must be obvious to every one, that it can be by no means an easy task to give in a few lectures, a perspicuous view of so extensive a subject; but I trust that the consideration of this difficulty will readily extend ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... Superb, haughty Plenty Copious Pitch Bituminous Priest Sacerdotal Rival Emulous Root Radical Ring Annular Reason Rational Revenge Vindictive Rule Regular Speech Loquacious, garrulous, eloquent Smell Olfactory Sight Visual, optic, perspicuous, conspicuous Side Lateral, collateral Skin Cutaneous Spittle Salivial Shoulder Humeral Shepherd Pastoral Sea Marine, maritime Share Literal Sun Solar Star Astral, sideral, stellar Sunday Dominical Spring Vernal Summer Estival ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... toned at eighty as at forty. But that Schomberg's intellectual powers had been little impaired by years is sufficiently proved by his despatches, which are still extant, and which are models of official writing, terse, perspicuous, full of important facts and weighty reasons, compressed into the smallest possible number of words. In those despatches he sometimes alluded, not angrily, but with calm disdain, to the censures thrown upon his conduct ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... mother, like Aesop's ape, hug her child to death, a [379] wittol wink at his wife's honesty, and too perspicuous in all other affairs; one stumble at a straw, and leap over a block; rob Peter, and pay Paul; scrape unjust sums with one hand, purchase great manors by corruption, fraud and cozenage, and liberally ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the simplest and most perspicuous of Historians, has borrowed many noble images from Homer; and Plato is often indebted to this Poet, whom yet he banished from his Commonwealth. Cicero in his most serious pieces studies the diction, and copies the manner ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... ARITHMETIC, combining the Analytic and Synthetic Methods, in which the Principles of Arithmetic are explained in a perspicuous and familiar manner; containing also, practical systems of Mensuration, Gauging, Geometry, and Book-Keeping, forming a complete Mercantile Arithmetic, designed for Schools and Academies in the United States. By BENJAMIN GREENLEAF, A. M., ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... prejudiced, to be a deep, metaphysical work, though abstruse, etc. etc. Caius Gracchus must have been little accustomed to abstruse disquisitions, if he deem Mr. Godwin's work abstruse:—A chief (and certainly not a small) merit is its perspicuous and "popular" language. My chapter on modern patriotism is that which has irritated you. You condemn me as prejudiced—O this enlightened age! when it can be seriously charged against an essayist, that he is prejudiced in favour of gratitude, conjugal fidelity, filial ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... to his sensuous enjoyment, his toil and labour, his politics, his society. The limitation, no doubt, had its good sides; with it, if not of it, came a greater correctness and precision in the use of words and phrases, a clearer and more perspicuous style, a new sense of order, of just arrangement, of propriety, of good taste. But with it came a sense of uniformity, of monotony, of dulness. In Dryden indeed this was combated if not wholly beaten off by his amazing force; to the last there was an animal verve and swing about the ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... access to the best authorities, we have admitted it into the Catalogue, though not exactly falling within the description of travels. It is full of matter, physical, statistical, political, commercial, &c.; but heavily written, and displaying rather extent and accuracy of research, than a perspicuous and ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... and severity, keeping a strict guard over them, and punishing them severely who shall be detected in attempting to join our opposers, this will only be making bad worse, and serve to render our inconsistence, oppression, and cruelty more criminal, perspicuous, and shocking, and bring down the righteous vengeance of Heaven on our heads. The only way pointed out to prevent this threatening evil is to set the blacks at liberty ourselves by some public acts and laws, and then give them proper encouragement ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... rest of the indentures afford strong confirmation of Peters' idea. The upper range is evidently the Arabic verbal root "To be white," whence all the inflections of brilliancy and whiteness. The lower range is not so immediately perspicuous. The characters are somewhat broken and disjointed; nevertheless, it can not be doubted that, in their perfect state, they formed the full Egyptian word. "The region of the south.' It should be ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... followed, any more than that round the shores of the Gulph of Carpentaria; nor does much remain to be said upon them, beyond what will be found in this Book II, and in the charts; and in speaking of the outer navigation, my remarks will be more perspicuous and useful if I accompany a ship from Port Jackson, through Torres' Strait; pointing out the courses to be steered, and the precautions to be taken for avoiding the dangers. It is supposed that the ship has a time keeper, whose rate of going and error from mean Greenwich ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... was far from being equally perspicuous. A guest in the house dreaded by her father? Here was mystery indeed. Who could that guest ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... cognizance of this commission; and he was summoned to attend it, which he accordingly did, and made a speech, explaining the nature, duty, and income of his place, in terms that, though very concise, were so perspicuous and elegant, that lord chancellor Talbot, who was present, publicly said he preferred that single speech to the best of his poetical compositions." The above praise is precisely such as we might ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... the one, was inexhaustible in resources, so composite and so averse from theory as to appear incongruous, but justified in the result; not formal, not always entirely perspicuous. Webster's mind, like the other, is eminently logical, reduced into principles, orderly, distinct, reconciling abstraction with convenience, various in manifestation, yet pervaded by an unity ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... agitated in the British Parliament concerning slavery, is illustrated with great information, able argument, and perspicuous expression, in a work entitled, "Doubts on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, by an Old Member of Parliament;" printed for Stockdale, in Picadilly, 1790. It is ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... the discussion of these proceedings, with his accustomed zeal and ability; and his Weekly Political Register was universally read, not only in the metropolis, but all over the kingdom. His clear, perspicuous, and forcible reasoning upon this transaction, convinced every one who read the Register; he proved to demonstration that Mr. Pitt had been privy to and connived at his friend Lord Melville's delinquency, and it was made evident, to the meanest understanding, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... lived as if there were.... The next sect to the Epicureans, in point of incredulity, concerning the soul, 1 conceive to be the Sceptics, who were by some esteemed, not only the modestest, but the most perspicuous of all sects. They neither affirmed nor denied anything, but doubted of all things. They thought all our knowledge seemed rather like truth, than to be really true, and that for such like ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... Committee of Ways and Means of the session 1790-91 was entirely prepared by me, known to be so, and laid the foundation of my reputation. I was quite astonished at the general encomiums bestowed upon it, and was not at all aware that I had done so well. It was perspicuous and comprehensive; but I am confident that its true merit, and that which gained me the general confidence, was its being founded in strict justice, without the slightest regard to party feelings or popular prejudices. The principles assumed, and which were carried into effect, were the immediate ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... All the better, I am glad on't; for the issue was very perspicuous. Come let's discover, and salute the knight. [THEY ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... forgotten the duties belonging to his literary functions in the feelings of a kinsman. He does no more than justice to his ancestor Stanhope; he does full justice to Stanhope's enemies and rivals. His narrative is very perspicuous, and is also entitled to the praise, seldom, we grieve to say, deserved by modern writers, of being very concise. It must be admitted, however, that, with many of the best qualities of a literary veteran, he has some of the faults of a literary novice. He has not yet acquired a great command ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... things which so visibly appeared to us; for they concluded that nothing beauteous could casually or fortuitously be formed, but that it was framed from the art of a great understanding that produced the world. That the world is very resplendent is made perspicuous from the figure, the color, the magnitude of it, and likewise from the wonderful variety of those stars which adorn this world. The world is spherical; the orbicular hath the pre-eminence above all other figures, for being round itself it hath its parts like itself. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... instances. His premises are not always true, nor his inferences always legitimate; but there is such evident absence of sophistry, and even of that refining and hair-splitting which usually beget the suspicion of sophistry—his statements are so sincere, and his conclusions so direct, the language is so perspicuous, and the appeal is made so honestly to each reader's understanding, that his popularity as a reasoner is inevitable. We need not say that the author of the Pilgrim possessed imagination; but it is important to note the service it rendered to his preaching, and the charm which it still imparts ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... Banneker, the next morning. In the afternoon mail came a note from Mr. Gaines of The New Era monthly. That perspicuous editor had instantly identified the style of the article with that of the "Eban" series, part of which he had read in typograph. He wrote briefly but warmly of the work: and would the writer not ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... not very perspicuous portraiture, nor does it show that Mr Hunt was a very discerning observer of character. Lord Byron himself is represented to have said, that extraordinary pains were taken with her education: "Her conversation is lively without being frivolous; without being learned, she has read all ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... the cry is all against it; some of the lines are pretty, but it is not perspicuous enough, and is deficient in ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... voyage-writing as well as in history. I feel great diffidence here. Sufficient matter I can easily furnish, and fear not to prevent anything unseamanlike from entering into the composition; but to round a period well and arrange sentences so as to place what is meant in the most perspicuous point of view is too much for me. Seamanship and authorship make too great an angle with each other; the further a man advances upon one line the further distant he becomes from any point ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... resources, he would probably have chosen an academic career, and have done service in it. There was nothing deep in his style of narrative and criticism, and here depth was not wanted; sufficient that he was perspicuous and energetic. He loved the things of which he spoke, and he had the power of presenting to others his reason for loving them. Not one in five hundred men inexperienced in such work could have held the ears of the class as he did ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... This perspicuous and truly elegant performance having been thrice subjected to the critical examination of the friends, (the paragraph concerning Huckaback having been inserted at the instance of that gentleman, who wished to be mixed up from the beginning with so promising ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... I esteem it the very best history that this age has produced. As full of spirit as the hero whose actions it relates, it is nevertheless most exact in all matters of importance. The style of it is elegant, perspicuous, unaffected; the disposition and method are excellent; the judgments given by the writer acute ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Him as plaintiff or defendant into a common-law court,—and then I cannot conceive a clearer or cleverer piece of special pleading than Asgill has here given. The language is excellent—idiomatic, simple, perspicuous, at once significant and lively, that is, expressive of the thought, and also of a manly proportion of feeling appropriate to it. In short, it is the ablest attempt to exhibit a scheme of religion without ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... with his accustomed ability and dignity, and made a powerful appeal in behalf of the crown. Then Mr. Justice Fitzgerald proceeded to charge the jury, which he did in his own peculiarly calm, precise, and perspicuous style. At the outset, referring to the protest of the accused against the conduct of the crown in the jury challenges, he administered a keen rebuke to the government officials. It was, he said, no doubt the strict legal right of the crown to act as it had done; yet, considering ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... practise it. Yes, I seriously propose to you that here in Cambridge we practise writing: that we practise it not only for our own improvement, but to make, or at least try to make, appropriate, perspicuous, accurate, persuasive writing a recognisable hall-mark of anything turned out by our English School. By all means let us study the great writers of the past for their own sakes; but let us study them for our guidance; that we, in our turn, having (it is to be hoped) something to ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... holes. I am a BEASTLY curmudgeon. It is the last verse. 'Newly budded' is off the venue; and haven't you gone ahead to make a poetry daybreak instead of sticking to your muttons, and comparing with the mysterious light of stars the plain, friendly, perspicuous, human day? But this is to be a beast. The little poem is ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... attempt any condensed, and at the same time perspicuous, sketch of the national religion of Ceylon—a difficulty which arises not merely from the voluminous obscurity of its sacred history and records; but still more from confusion in the variety of forms under which Buddhism exhibits itself ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... significant language under consideration. I have written a purely flash song, of which the great and peculiar merit consists in its being utterly incomprehensible to the uninformed understanding, while its meaning must be perfectly clear and perspicuous to the practised patterer of Romany, or Pedlar's French. I have, moreover, been the first to introduce and naturalize amongst us a measure which, though common enough in the Argotic minstrelsy of France, has been hitherto utterly unknown ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... mysterious remains of ancient cities. Those desiring to know what can be said in support of this view of Ancient America must read the later volumes of Brasseur de Bourbourg, especially his "Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique," and his "Sources de l'Histoire Primitive du Mexique," etc. He is not a perspicuous writer; he uses but little system in treating the subject, and he introduces many fanciful speculations which do more to embarrass than to help the discussion; but those who read the books patiently can find and bring together all that relates to the point in question, ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... perspicuous style in which Mr. Hitchcock tells these stories of unhappy loves is not less admirable than the learning and the extensive reading and investigation which have enabled him to gather the facts presented in a manner so engaging. His volume is an important contribution to literature, and it ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... along the coast. A woman saw a man swim from the high seas and plunge direct into the bush; he was no man of that neighbourhood; and it was known he was one of the gods, speeding to a council. Most perspicuous of all, a missionary on Savaii, who is also a medical man, was disturbed late in the night by knocking; it was no hour for the dispensary, but at length he woke his servant and sent him to inquire; the servant, looking from a window, beheld crowds of persons, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may consult Holinshed, and sometimes Hall: from Holinshed, Shakespeare has often inserted whole speeches, with no more alteration than was necessary to the numbers of his verse. To transcribe them into the margin was unnecessary, because the original is easily examined, and they are seldom less perspicuous in the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... foreman of a sentimental jury is commissioned to inform an awful Bench exact in perspicuous English, of a verdict that must of necessity be pronounced in favour of the hanging of the culprit, yet would fain attenuate the crime of a palpable villain by a recommendation to mercy, such foreman, standing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... speech and countenance[732]." Dr. Johnson's method of conversation was certainly calculated to excite attention, and to amuse and instruct, (as it happened,) without wearying or confusing his company. He was always most perfectly clear and perspicuous; and his language was so accurate, and his sentences so neatly constructed, that his conversation might have been all printed without any correction. At the same time, it was easy and natural; the accuracy of it had no appearance of labour, constraint, or stiffness; he seemed ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... visions in this case are not allegorical, emblematic, or symbolic, as in the case of the positive seer, but are actual visions of facts just as they have happened, or will transpire in the future. Of the two orders, the passive is the more serviceable because the more perspicuous, but it has the disadvantage of being largely under the control of external influences, and hence is frequently incapable of "seeing" ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... unrationalized brain reel; had caught him up into a higher air, on no wings of his own; had added another lover to her company of lovers—and the first impostor she had ever had. She who had known only honest men as friends, in one blind moment lost her perspicuous sense; her instinct seemed asleep. She believed in the man and in his healing. Was there anything more ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... table, from the Baptist Register of 1842, exhibits the statistics of the Regular or Associated Baptists in a perspicuous light:— ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... something of his adventures—especially since she had said that the big hall-clock was very likely slow—that it must surely be a lot later than a quarter past seven. The circumstances had combined to produce a narrative not entirely perspicuous—the two clear points being that They do everything in a whisper, and that Clytie ought to get rid of Penny at once, since he could not be depended upon ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... a learned and perspicuous critic says "A performance exhibiting stronger marks of genius, finer animation, or happier display of intellect we have seldom witnessed. Mr. Young has studied this masterpiece of Shakspeare with ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... appearance of General Hull was venerable and prepossessing. Beneath snowy locks, of nearly sixty winters' bleaching, he exhibited a countenance as fresh and blooming as a youth of eighteen. His eloquence was perspicuous and graceful."—American History. ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... himself a pretty good orator, eloquence depending upon observation and care. Every man, if he pleases, may choose good words instead of bad ones, may speak properly instead of improperly, may be clear and perspicuous in his recitals instead of dark and muddy, may have grace instead of awkwardness in his motions and gestures, and, in short, may be a very agreeable instead of a very disagreeable speaker if he will take care and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... His positions may be wrong,—no doubt frequently are wrong,—but so clearly, keenly, and above all so boldly stated, and backed by such shrewd arguments and such apposite illustrations, that it is difficult not to yield to his common-sense view of the question he is discussing. His plain and perspicuous style is often elegant. He may sometimes be coarse and rude, but it is in the thought rather than in the expression. It is true, that, in the heat of conflict, he is apt to lose his temper and break out into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... disguised in good dog-Latin, upon a country squire, and his sayings and doings in this world. We have not a copy of that work at hand, and cannot quote the epitaph, nor would we, though we could, since even the dog-Latin is too plain and perspicuous for many readers. We recommend those, however, who choose to turn it up; and they will find in it (with the exception of the writing of "the Chase") the full history of William Somerville, of whom we know little, but that he was ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Language of an Heroic Poem should be both Perspicuous and Sublime. [1] In proportion as either of these two Qualities are wanting, the Language is imperfect. Perspicuity is the first and most necessary Qualification; insomuch that a good-natur'd Reader sometimes overlooks a little Slip even in the Grammar ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2 vols. in fol.;) but they deserved and required such an editor as the Marquis Scipio Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona. The Barbara Eleganza (as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi) is never simple, and seldom perspicuous] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... a wearisome page of words and rhetoric. It may be good rhetoric; but life is too short for so much of it. The necessity of filling this space causes the writer, instead of stating his idea in the shortest compass in which it can be made perspicuous and telling, to beat it out thin, and make it cover as much ground as possible. This, also, is vanity. In the economy of room, which our journals will more and more be compelled to cultivate, I venture to say that this tradition will be set aside. I think that we may fairly ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... cases the application of the parable which the Lord himself makes at the moment is full and perspicuous, it is in other cases like the parables themselves, and doubtless for good reasons, short, sententious, and partially veiled. In some cases the subjoined doctrine must be read in the light of the parable ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... was drawn thus into some attentions, Slight but select, and just enough to express, To females of perspicuous comprehensions, That he would rather make them more than less. Aurora at the last (so history mentions, Though probably much less a fact than guess) So far relaxed her thoughts from their sweet prison As once or twice to smile, if ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... not a fine style, but simple, perspicuous, and agreeable. We now come to "Cecilia," written during Miss Burney's intimacy with Johnson - and we leave it to our readers to judge whether the following passage was not at least corrected ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... valuable books for the improvement of young minds that has appeared in any language; and to this meritorious work Johnson furnished 'The Preface,'[*] containing a general sketch of the book, with a short and perspicuous recommendation of each article; as also, 'The Vision of Theodore the Hermit, found in his Cell,'[*] a most beautiful allegory of human life, under the figure of ascending the mountain of Existence. The Bishop of Dromore heard Dr. Johnson say, that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... prerogatives of a man? I will not dwell upon the impropriety of such conduct; but on my honor, as a member of the bar, the behavior of Portia was outrageous. This young female, not content with 'cavorting' around the country in a loose and perspicuous style, actually practises a gross swindle on the court. She assumes to be a man when she is only a woman, dons the breeches when she is only entitled to the skirts, and imposes herself upon the Duke ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... administration of justice. He complied, and a meeting of the Society was summoned specially to hear him. The result is much remarked upon in nearly all the London journals. Mr. Field is a clear headed man, master of his subject, perspicuous in his rhetoric, and distinct in his elocution, so that our new constitution was most advantageously displayed before his learned and critical hearers. The ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... seldom indeed that we find history so written,—in a style at once vigorous, perspicuous, and picturesque. The author's heart is thoroughly with his subject; and he exhibits, ever and anon, flashes of the old Scottish spirit, which we are glad to believe has not decayed from ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... constancy is not. This perspicuous proverb from the Persian (which I made up myself for the occasion) is cited in mitigation of the Tyro's regrettable fickleness, he—to his shame be it chronicled—having practically forgotten the woe-begone damsel's very existence within eighteen short hours after ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of our Divines and Barristers, frame a just Idea of the University of Dublin, which, for Compass and Extent of the Sciences, Variety of elegant Arts, found Erudition, and polite Literature therein taught, in the most regular and perspicuous Methods, is equalled by few, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... taste and capacity of children. The Latinity of Phaedrus is not exempt from an alloy of the silver age; but his manner is concise, terse, and sententious; the Thracian slave discreetly breathes the spirit of a freeman; and when the text is found, the style is perspicuous. But his fables, after a long oblivion, were first published by Peter Pithou, from a corrupt manuscript. The labours of fifty editors confess the defects of the copy, as well as the value of the original; and the school-boy may have been whipped for misapprehending a ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... the eyes, and covering up heads under blankets, petticoats, or whatever else might come in use for a shelter, on these occasions. Of course, as everybody knows, when the bodily eyes are thus out of the lists, the spiritual eyes are uncommonly vivacious and perspicuous; and, therefore, there were abundance of full-length portraits of the ghost, abundantly sworn and testified to, which, as if often the case with portraits, agreed with each other in no particular, except the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... perspicuous; and the black, I say, unlocking the recess, pull'd forth A quantity of clothes fit for the back Of any Mussulman, whate'er his worth; And of variety there was no lack— And yet, though I have said there was no dearth, He chose ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... The Light of humane minds is Perspicuous Words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; Reason is the Pace; Encrease of Science, the Way; and the Benefit of man-kind, the End. And on the contrary, Metaphors, and senslesse and ambiguous words, are like Ignes ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... been loved by the English ever since Anglo-Saxon times, but the intellectual satisfaction of solving a puzzle may be purchased at the cost of true poetic pleasure. Let us quote Gray once more, for he had an unerring sense of the difficulty of moulding ideas into "pure, perspicuous and ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... speaker and orator Cicero succeeded in gaining a place beside Demosthenes. His strongest point is his style; there he is clear, concise and apt, perspicuous, elegant and brilliant. He commands all moods, from playful jest to tragic pathos, but is most successful in the imitation of conviction and feeling, to which he gave increased impression by his fiery delivery.' —Teuffel. Quintilian ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... proof that real Captains, taciturn Sons of Anak, are still born in England; and Sea-kings, equal to any that were. Luckily, too, he had some chaplain or ship's-surgeon on board, who saw good to write account of that memorable VOYAGE of his; and did it, in brief, perspicuous terms, wise and credible: a real Poem in its kind, or Romance all Fact; one of the pleasantest little Books in the World's Library at this date. Anson sheds some tincture of heroic beauty over that otherwise altogether hideous puddle of mismanagement, platitude, disaster; and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... refrain from paying my tribute of respect to Mr. George Bentham, the most industrious, perspicuous, and philosophical Botanist who has systematically contributed to lessen the difficulties under which ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... new paper, I took a particular pleasure in reading a single number of the current novel; but I never could bear more than three instalments; and even the second was a disappointment. As soon as the tale became in any way perspicuous, it lost all merit in my eyes; only a single scene, or, as is the way with these feuilletons, half a scene, without antecedent or consequence, like a piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. The less I saw of the novel, the better I liked it: a pregnant reflection. But for ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... impetuosity, the lack of foresight of an imperfect artist, he was risking the three hundred thousand francs that he possessed. A similarity of religious faith had drawn Madame de Guersaint and Madame Froment together; but the former was altogether a superior woman, perspicuous and rigid, with an iron hand which alone prevented her household from gliding to a catastrophe; and she was bringing up her two daughters, Blanche and Marie, in principles of narrow piety, the elder ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... to Lady Delawarr or to Gatty, Rhoda was not sufficiently perspicuous to indicate. Phoebe went on disentangling her hair in silence, and Rhoda likewise ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... moderate price of fifteen sous, is sold a catalogue, which is not merely a barren index, but a perspicuous and satisfactory explanation of the different objects that strike the eye of the admiring spectator as he traverses the GALLERY OF ANTIQUES. It is by no means my intention to transcribe this catalogue, or to mention every statue; but, assisted by the valuable ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... in the few genuine writings which are now extant it is easy to perceive that he has recourse to the simplest language, expresses himself in terms which, though short and pithy, are always precise and perspicuous, and is averse to the introduction of philosophical dogmas. Of the greater part of the writings collected under his name, on the contrary the general character is verboseness, prolixity and a great tendency to speculative opinions. For these reasons, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the author. "A Song of Cheer", by Alfred H. Pearce, is an optimistic ode of real merit. The last line furnishes a particularly pleasing example of sprightly wit. Mr. Gavin T. McColl is sensible and perspicuous in all his editorial utterances. His work in issuing one of the only two regular monthly magazines in amateurdom has already brought him to prominence, though his connexion with the press ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... approved, and which he used to the last,—and read it through several times with profound attention, as he has often told me; expressing himself as having been charmed by the purity and beauty of Blackstone's style, his remarkable power of explaining abstruse subjects, and his perspicuous arrangement. The next book which he read was, I believe, "Cruise's Digest of the Laws of England, respecting Real Property," in seven volumes octavo, a standard work of great merit; which, while at college, he read, I think, twice over, and continued perfectly familiar with it for the rest of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... be perspicuous—and the black, I say, unlocking the recess, pulled forth A quantity of clothes fit for the back Of any Mussulman, whate'er his worth: And of variety there was no lack— And yet, though I have said there was no dearth,— He chose himself ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... work is intended to unfold the natural objects of female education. This is accomplished in a series of lectures written in a perspicuous, pleasing style, and treating of the various studies pursued in a well regulated school for young ladies. It is really and truly what it proposes to be, a guide in the intellectual education of woman, and will, we have no doubt, ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... persisti. Persist persisti. Persistance persisto—ado. Persistent persista. Persistency persisteco. Person persono. Personage persono. Personal persona. Personality personeco. Personate reprezenti. Personate personigxi, imiti. Personification personigxo. Perspective perspektivo. Perspicuous sagaca. Perspicacity sagaceco. Perspiration sxvito. Perspire sxviti. Persuade konvinki. Persuasive konvinka. Pert malrespekta. Pertinacious trudpeta. Pertinacity obstineco, persisteco. Perturb konfuzi, turmenteti. Perturbation turmentado. Peruke peruko. Perusal legado. Peruse ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... tract, all the arguments which could convince a Nonconformist that it was his duty and his interest to prefer an alliance with the Church to an alliance with the Court were condensed into the smallest compass, arranged in the most perspicuous order, illustrated with lively wit, and enforced by an eloquence earnest indeed, yet never in its utmost vehemence transgressing the limits of exact good sense and good breeding. The effect of this paper was immense; for, as it was only a single sheet, more than ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in it. The first part, consisting most in general characters and narration, I have endeavoured to raise, and give it the majestic turn of heroic poesy. The second being matter of dispute, and chiefly concerning Church authority, I was obliged to make as plain and perspicuous as possibly I could; yet not wholly neglecting the numbers, though I had not frequent occasions for the magnificence of verse. The third, which has more of the nature of domestic conversation, is, or ought to be, more free and familiar than the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Adam Ferguson and said among other things, "What an excellent work is that with which our common friend Mr. Adam Smith has enriched the public! An extensive science in a single book, and the most profound ideas expressed in the most perspicuous language. He proposes visiting you very soon, and I find he means to exert his most strenuous endeavours to persuade Mr. Hume to return with him to town. I am sorry to hear that the health and spirits of that truly great man ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... purpose is perspicuous even as substance Whose grossness little characters sum up; And, in the publication, make no strain But that Achilles, were his brain as barren As banks of Libya—though, Apollo knows, 'Tis dry enough—will with great speed of judgment, Ay, with celerity, ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... began as a single vast ocean of matter of immense tenuity, spread all alike over all space as far as nowhere, and comparatively little different within itself when looked at side by side with its own final historical outcome. In Mr. Spencer's perspicuous phrase, evolution in this aspect is a change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the incoherent to the coherent, and from the indefinite to the definite condition. Difficult words at first ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... particularly fashionable in the nineteenth century. In order to render our details perspicuous and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... is excellent; sound, honest, forcible, singularly perspicuous English; at times with a sort of picturesque simplicity, pictures dashed off with only a few touches, but perfectly alive ... We have never to read a passage twice.... We see the course of events day by day, not only the more serious and important communications, but the gossip of the hour.... ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... he was bid; but when he began, with the object of leading up to the subject of Frank's engagement, he always softened down into some much easier enthusiasm in the matter of his own engagement with Beatrice. He had not that perspicuous, but not over-sensitive strength of mind which had enabled Harry Baker to express his opinion out at once; and boldly as he did it, yet to ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... ornament to this building." The prince's lodgings are described as a "freestone building, three stories high, with fourteen turrets covered with lead," being "a very graceful ornament to the whole house, and perspicuous to the county round about." A round tower is mentioned, called the "Canted Tower," with a staircase of one hundred and twenty-four steps. The chapel was ninety-six feet long and forty broad, with cathedral-seats and pews. Adjoining the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... which lies at its foundation, is, when rightly understood, perfectly consistent with the impartiality and glory of the goodness of God. On this subject we shall now proceed to unfold our views in as orderly and perspicuous a manner ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded. Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story, And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory Embroidered with names of the Djinns—a miraculous weaving— But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving. So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture— Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture— Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed. But on him be the Peace and the Blessing; for ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... probable that few only have explored these intricacies of human nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few. But an epitaph is not a proud writing shut up for the studious: it is exposed to all—to the wise and the most ignorant; it is condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its story and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy, and indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired: the stooping old man cons the engraven record like a second horn-book;—the child is proud that he can read ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... endeavour to investigate its truth has been the sole object of my research; under the persuasion that, if ideas were inadequate, words only remained to afford the solution of this important process. The necessary connexion of thought with the construction of a perspicuous sentence, has not, to my knowledge, ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... passed by the ruins of a palace thrown down by the earthquake. Whether a familiar of the Inquisition was griping her in his clutches, or whether she was taking to account by some disappointed votary, I will not pretend to answer.' Are the expressions here italicized either perspicuous or graceful? Whatever we are to have in their place, we should be thankful to get quit ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... of Tatius, and would scarcely have omitted to inveigh against the further scandal of their having proceeded from the pen of an ecclesiastic. "In style and composition this work is of high excellence; the periods are generally well rounded and perspicuous, and gratify the ear by their harmony ... but, except in the names of the personages, and the unpardonable breaches of decorum of which he is guilty, the author appears to have closely copied Heliodorus both in the plan and execution of his narrative." In another ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... elevations, its temperatures, the changes of its atmosphere, the exhibitions of its magnetic power, and the life upon it, especially in the vegetable world. The facts I have recorded with the greatest possible exactness and in perspicuous order in several works, and stated my deductions and views briefly in several treatises. I have settled the geography of the interior of Africa, and of the northern polar regions; of the interior of Asia, and its eastern ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... awful crime of perjury depicted in capital letters on his forehead, and indelibly engraven in the recesses of his heart, considering that every tongueless object was eloquent of his woe, and at periods laboring under a semi-perspicuous, semi-opaque, gutta-serena, attended with an acute palpitation of his pericranium, and a most tormenting delirium of intellects from which he finds not the least mitigation until he consopiates his optics under the influence of Morpheus. There ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... upon any man, who has read and reflected, for a definition of virtue, the whole "theory of moral sentiments" rises, perhaps, to his view at once, in all its elegance; the paradoxical acumen of Mandeville, the perspicuous reasoning of Hume, the accurate metaphysics of Condillac, the persuasive eloquence of Stewart; all the various doctrines that have been supported concerning the foundation of morals, such as the fitness ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... writers; and, finally, because Peter himself, in another part of this epistle, declares, in unequivocal terms, that the soul of Christ went and preached to the souls confined in the under world, for such is the perspicuous meaning of the famous text, "being put to death in the body, but kept alive in the soul, in which also he went and preached [went as a herald] to the spirits in prison." The meaning we have attributed to this celebrated passage is the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... and the Roman legate must be accompanied, or preceded, by an army of Franks, to expel the infidels, and open a way to the holy sepulchre." If the suspicious Latins should require some pledge, some previous effect of the sincerity of the Greeks, the answers of Barlaam were perspicuous and rational. "1. A general synod can alone consummate the union of the churches; nor can such a synod be held till the three Oriental patriarchs, and a great number of bishops, are enfranchised from the Mahometan ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... at Rome, and are thought, with much probability, to have belonged to the Aesculapian temple in the Insula Tiberina. The present translation, in which some errors either of the artist or copyist are rectified, is extracted from the first volume of Gruter's Corp. Inscriptionum. The narrations are perspicuous and laconic. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... the old man, with a sudden spasm of resentment. "Tom 'ud never play such a thrick—I mane it wasn't he invinted the joke; he doesn't throuble himself wid much jokin'; he's too sinsible, and steady, and perspicuous, and oncommon set on me and the child, all the while. There's no better son in Ireland. Och, but the rest of them mane no harm wid it; they're just schemin' to dhrop in prisintly and be risin' ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... story, sullenly, doggedly, but still in a perspicuous manner, and with words which admitted of no doubt. But before he told the story he had excluded all but himself and the groom. He and the groom had taken the horse out of the stable, it being the animal's nature to eat his corn better after slight exercise, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... treasures of thought and knowledge within command; the spell, which often held his imagination fast, dissolved, and she arose and gave him to choose of her urn of gold; earnestness became vehemence, the simple, perspicuous, measured and direct language became a headlong, full, and burning tide of speech; the discourse of reason, wisdom, gravity, and beauty changed to that superhuman, that rarest consummate eloquence—grand, rapid, pathetic, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Public; and have only to observe, that though I have not, to my knowledge, omitted a single sentence of the original, I was obliged, in some places, to paraphrase my author, to render his meaning intelligible to a modern reader. My chief aim was to be clear and perspicuous: if I have succeeded in that, it is all I pretend to. I must leave it to abler pens to copy the Eloquence of Cicero. Mine is unequal ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... taking and defending of walled towns, no poet of the present day greatly excels Homer,—no, not the Scotch schoolmaster even who wrote Wolfe's Ode, or the gentleman who sends us abstruse verses which we unluckily cannot understand, and then scolds us in perspicuous prose for not giving them a place ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... "waited for the kingdom of God," [189:6] there was much that was vague, as well as much that was visionary, in their notions of the Redemption and the Kingdom. We may well suppose that the views of the multitude were still less correct and perspicuous. Some, perhaps, expected that Christ, as a prophet, would decide the ecclesiastical controversies of the age; [189:7] others, probably, anticipated that, as a Redeemer, he would deliver His countrymen from Roman domination; ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... is the "Lauh al-Mahfz," the Preserved Tablet, upon which are written all Allah's decrees and the actions of mankind good (white) and evil (black). This is the "perspicuous Book" of the Koran, chaps. vi. 59. The ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... which only appeared to be abstruse from the unprofitable subtleties with which they were loaded, and the barbarous jargon in which they were expressed. The deepest doctrines of morality have since that time been treated in the perspicuous and popular style, and with some degree of the beauty and eloquence of the ancient moralists. That philosophy on which are founded the principles of our duty, if it has not become more certain (for morality admits no discoveries), is at least less "harsh and crabbed," less obscure and haughty ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... him; for recollection of thee occupied me so entirely during an hour's reading, that although Stair lay before me, and notwithstanding that I turned over three or four pages, the sense of his lordship's clear and perspicuous style so far escaped me, that I had the mortification to find my labour was utterly ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... case of Swift and Kelly—a written judgment and at great length. I thought it remarkably well done, embracing all the points of the case, and laying down the law and the reasons for reversing the decree of the court below in a very forcible and perspicuous manner. He must have written this judgment with great rapidity, for it was only on Tuesday afternoon that it was settled to be given on Thursday, all of which is a proof of his admirable talents. His conduct on the last day of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... finest speeches of the kind in Fletcher; here is the same smooth and fluent declamation, the same prolonged and persistent melody, which if not monotonous is certainly not various; the same pure, lucid, perspicuous flow of simple rather than strong and elegant rather than exquisite English; and yet, if we set it against the best examples of the kind which may be selected from such tragedies as Bonduca or The False One, against ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... page 221 ante. Mr. S's own account of the tapestry may be seen in the XIXth volume of the Archaeologia. It is brief, perspicuous, and satisfactory. His fac-simile is one half the size of the original; executed with great neatness and fidelity; but probably the touches are a ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... opened up the mysteries of religion to him in a clear and perspicuous manner, but particularly the great doctrine of the election of grace; and then I added: "Now, friend, you must tell me if you pertain to this chosen number. It is in every man's power to ascertain this, and it is every man's duty to ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... "Dost ask me, O perspicuous Asad? Are not thine eyes as sharp, thy wits as keen at least as mine, that what is clear to me should be hidden from thee? Or hath this Sakr-el-Bahr bewitched thee with enchantments ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... Mrs. Coleman's not 430 over-perspicuous speech were addressed to Mr. Lowe Brown, who rose to take leave. This gentleman (for such I presume one is bound to designate him, however little appearance might warrant such an appellation) was a snort, stout, not to say fat personage, with an unmeaning pink and white face, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... us, should never be taken where the beauties of nature are concerned, unless they can be cooked. There is another grave objection to the article; which consists in the undue frequency of Italian and French words and phrases, foisted into the narrative. We have a strong attachment to plain, perspicuous English. Ours is a noble language, a beautiful language; and we hold fully with SOUTHEY, who somewhere remarks that he can tolerate a Germanism, for family sake; but he adds: 'He who uses a Latin or a French phrase where a pure old English word does as well, ought to ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... Colbertina: seu Catalogus Librorum Bibliothecae quae fuit primum J.B. Colbert, deinde J.B. Colbert (fil) postea J. Nic. Colbert, ac demum C.L. Colbert. Parisiis, 1728, 8vo., three vols. The preface to this valuable catalogue (executed by Martin) gives us a compressed, but sufficiently perspicuous, account of the auspices under which such an extensive and magnificent collection was assembled and arranged. It contains not fewer than 18,219 articles; being perhaps 60,000 volumes. The celebrated Baluze was the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... conspirators; for with so much secrecy had the arrangements of the Consul been made, that although Catiline knew himself suspected, knew that his motives were perspicuous, and his measures in some sort anticipated, he yet believed that ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... perfectly satisfactory. The author tells us in the preface that they comprise the results of all the study and research of modern European scholars, and embrace every thing which has been brought to light up to the present time. They are very copiously and clearly illustrated by neat and perspicuous engravings, which frequently do more than pages of description to give a distinct impression to the scholar's mind. The construction of Roman ships, the mode of a naval battle, the style of conducting a siege, the form of chaplets, of temples, of household utensils, of coins, ornaments, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... plainly and sensibly, and makes very many important suggestions. He does not mince matters at all, but puts every thing in a straightforward and, not seldom, homely way, perspicuous to the dullest understanding. His style is lively and readable, and the book is very entertaining as well ...
— Publisher's Advertising (1872) • Anonymous
... about as voluminous as the װ, but on a different plan. Every chapter is preceded by a critical discussion of its general meaning, and the logical connexion of its several paragraphs. This is followed by the text, and Chu Hsi's standard commentary. We have then a paraphrase, full and generally perspicuous. Next, there is a selection of approved comments, from a great variety of authors; and finally, the reader finds a number of critical remarks and ingenious views, differing often from the common interpretation, ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... friend Mr. Wilberforce for having at length introduced this great and important subject to the consideration of the house. He thanked him also for the perspicuous, forcible, and masterly manner, in which he had treated it. He was sure that no argument, compatible with any idea of justice, could be assigned for the continuation of the Slave-trade. And, at the same time that he was willing to listen with candour and attention ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... science. Indeed we know no author who has so successfully blended the romantic, the rural and beautiful with the poetical, the useful, and true, as has Dr. Blake. This is a peculiar feature of all his works. His style is plain, simple, and perspicuous; and, with unusual tact and judgment, he so manages to insinuate himself upon you, that you are at once amused, delighted, and instructed with the subject he is discussing. In this respect he relieves the study of agricultural science from the abstruseness ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... rude and false unless informed by intellection; and, however delicate be the touch in obedience to remote gradation, yet knowledge of the genus necessarily invests the representation with perspicuous and truthful relations that ignorance could not possibly have observed. Hence—Paint what you see; but know ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... remarkable for its straightforward and perspicuous simplicity, and, especially after the time of Alfred, it had a marked preference over the Latin. Translations were early made from the Latin, particularly versions of parts of the Scriptures, which come next, in point of date, to the Moeso-Gothic translation ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... to his Text be brief and perspicuous, drawn from the Text itself, or context, or some parallel place, or generall sentence ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... (1480-1535) chief work in English is the Life and Reign of Edward V. It is written in a plain, strong, nervous English style. Hallam calls it "the first example of good English— pure and perspicuous, well chosen, without vulgarisms, and without pedantry." His Utopia (a description of the country of ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... equity, that the wicked were left, not decreed, to perdition. The hypothesis of Dr. Williams is already exploded. It was examined and refuted by the Rev. William Parry, of Wymondly, in a piece entitled "Strictures on the Origin of Moral Evil." For reasoning, acute, profound, and perspicuous, both metaphysical and moral, this work has seldom been surpassed. And the devout and courteous spirit in which it is written, presents an example, beautiful ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... is a steady, pains-taking advocate, considered by the profession as a tolerable criminal lawyer, but never affecting any very learned arguments in affairs of principles or precedents. In addressing a jury, he is both perspicuous and convincing; but far too candid and gentlemanly in his practice to contend with the trickery of Scarlett.—Mr. Common-Serjeant Denman is a man fitted by nature for the law. I never saw a more judicial-looking countenance in my life; there is a sedate gravity about it, both ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... hand these four weeks,—the subject of much meditation, which has not yet cleared itself into anything like a definite practical issue. Indeed, the conditions of the case are still not wholly before me: for if the American side of it, thanks to your perspicuous minuteness, is now tolerably plain, the European side continues dubious, too dim for a decision. So much in my own position here is vague, not to be measured; then there is a Brother, coming home to me from Italy, almost ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... a very deep one, his style is so very unaffected and perspicuous that even the unscientific reader can peruse it with intelligence and profit. In reading such a book we are led almost to wonder that so much that is scientific can be put in language so ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... strict guard over them, and punishing them severely who shall be detected in attempting to join our opposers, this will only be making bad worse, and serve to render our inconsistence, oppression and cruelty more criminal, perspicuous and shocking, and bring down the righteous vengeance of heaven on our heads. The only way pointed out to prevent this threatening evil, is to set the blacks at liberty ourselves by some public acts and laws, and then give them proper ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Latin languages; the Keys (as they are) of those treasures which preceding ages have laid up for our use. And they ought so to learn, as to be able to appreciate the thoughts of others (specially of the best authors), and to express their own in suitable and perspicuous words.... But now, in many places, we see the reverse of all this. Before they can speak (passing by preposterously, the matters essential to ultimate success), the boys are made to proceed, or rather ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... senses; fly to hyperboles and strained metaphors, and thus expound the true meaning and importance of the prophecies quite away; the intent whereof being to instruct men in so necessary a point of faith as that relating to the Messiah, it is reasonable to think they would be delivered in the most perspicuous and intelligible terms. Since ambiguous expressions (capable of such strange meanings as they pretend,) would be too slippery a foundation to build such a point of faith upon; would be of no use, or ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... to put together, among several other books he wrote, a kind of Prose Synopsis of the whole Mythology; elucidated by new fragments of traditionary verse. A work constructed really with great ingenuity, native talent, what one might call unconscious art; altogether a perspicuous clear work, pleasant reading still: this is the Younger or Prose Edda. By these and the numerous other Sagas, mostly Icelandic, with the commentaries, Icelandic or not, which go on zealously in ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... to have recommended to you the ancient and modern history of Millot. Natalie has some of the volumes—some are in the library at Mrs. D.'s, of which I hope you keep the key. Millot is concise, perspicuous, and well selected. Rollin is full of tedious details ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... of this poor New-England after all? Shall we sink, expire, perish, before the short time of the Devil shall be finished? I must confess, That when I consider the lamentable Unfruitfulness of men, among us, under as powerful and perspicuous Dispensations of the Gospel, as are in the World; and when I consider the declining state of the Power of Godliness in our Churches, with the most horrible Indisposition that perhaps ever was, to recover out of this declension; I cannot but Fear lest it comes to ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... exclude those which are not, no more useful construction could be furnished by this or any other court to any part of the fundamental law. But, apart from the imminent risk of a failure to give any definition which would be at once perspicuous, comprehensive, and satisfactory, there is wisdom, * * *, in the ascertaining of the intent and application of such an important phrase in the Federal Constitution, by the gradual process of judicial inclusion and exclusion, as the cases presented for decision ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... fragments and extracts of the rest. As it is, however, it is one of the most valuable historical works that has come down to us. His style, indeed, will not bear a comparison with the great masters of Greek literature: he is not eloquent, like Thucydides; nor practical, like Herodotus; nor perspicuous and elegant, like Xenophon. He lived at a time when the Greek language had lost much of its purity by an intermixture of foreign elements, and he did not attempt to imitate the language of the Attic writers. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... much contracted in the original, I shall be sparing of notes; for my design is not to accommodate the sublimest truths to the meanest understandings (as this would be a contemptible and useless prostitution), but to render them perspicuous to truly liberal and philosophic minds. My reasons for adopting this mode of paraphrase, may be seen in the preface to my translation of ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... style too perspicuous? It is precisely that which Philostratus admires. Is it obscure? Such is that of Cicero to Attica. Negligent? An agreeable negligence in letters is more graceful than elaborate ornaments. Laboured? Nothing can be more proper, since we send ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Commentarii—"notes"—on the events of his campaigns, which might be useful as materials for history; but there was no exaggeration in the splendid compliment paid it a few years later by Cicero, that no one in his senses would think of recasting a work whose succinct, perspicuous, and brilliant style—pura et inlustris brevitas—has been the model and the despair ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... in this and other particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms. For hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking, by the order and perspicuous expressing of that I do propound, I am otherwise zealous and affectionate to recede as little from antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as may stand with truth and the proficience of knowledge. And ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... opinion. He will have it that Browne was the corruptor, though a corruptor of the greatest genius, in point of vocabulary, and that, as far as syntax is concerned, in Jeremy Taylor the sentences are often extremely long, and yet are generally so perspicuous in consequence of their logical structure that they require no reperusal to be understood. And he will have the same to be true not only of Hooker (which may pass), but of Milton, in reference to whom admirers not ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... from this popular notion, and with much confidence and plausibility broaches a new theory of his own. His style is always forcible, and so perspicuous that he cannot be misunderstood. In his "Dissertation on the Prophecies," he lays down the following canon or rule for expositors:—"Before a commentator can reasonably expect his own system to be adopted ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... the headquarters of another, instead of through a medium of cumbersome words which in our life are so often misunderstood. Thus we must admit that we have a ten-fold greater struggle than they to be perspicuous in language. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... no book which furnishes such information and such illustrations in so compact and attractive a form. For greater excellence with the object in hand there is not one more perspicuous."—The ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day |
