"Brevity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the lower and more simply organized species, the races and classes less advanced in the scale of existence, who reproduce their several kinds with the greatest prolificness and in which generation follows generation most rapidly on account of the brevity of individual life. ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... was arrayed in a more worldly suit; a mulberry-coloured cloak and doublet, with a hat of grey felt, that, for brevity of brim, would almost have vied with that of the brass basin worn by the knight of the rueful countenance, whose history may be consulted at length in the writings of that veracious historian, Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. His ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... which it needed a brave man to run. Angus, the head of the existing branch of the Douglas family, who had already risen into much of the power and importance of his forfeited kinsman, answered with equally grim brevity "I'se bell the cat." But while he spoke, the general enemy, mad with arrogance and self-confidence, and not believing in any power or boldness which could stop him in his career, forestalled the necessity. He came to the kirk, where no doubt he had heard there ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... I seldom commune with my conscience when I write. This is due to habit and the brevity of my work. And so when I express this or that opinion about literature, I do not ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... a matter of three hours this morning," replied Kit— not coolly, for nobody was cool in his den, but with a brevity ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... illustrates forcibly the brevity, the absolutely right proportion of language to idea, which from the first had marked Hawthorne with one trait, at least, quite unlike any displayed by the writers with whom he was compared, and entirely foreign to the mood of the present century. This sense ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... which the character had been trained away as surely as the charity from the opinions of the social elite, this descendant of Lecocq accosted his patron, and with business-like brevity indicated that he was already familiar with the situation as outlined by Robert, and if Mr. Raikes would consent to reply to a few questions it ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... examples every day. He who has set his heart exclusively upon the pursuit of worldly welfare is always in a hurry, for he has but a limited time at his disposal to reach it, to grasp it, and to enjoy it. The recollection of the brevity of life is a constant spur to him. Besides the good things which he possesses, he every instant fancies a thousand others which death will prevent him from trying if he does not try them soon. This ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... might even try a tilt or two at one another. The introductory speech of counsel is somewhat in the nature of a parade or a preliminary skirmish. It may also be compared to the prologue spoken before the beginning of a drama. The speech with the vivid brevity, so common in legal ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... seeing a meek compliance with this request, as they expected, the Persian heralds were amazed to hear Leonidas reply with true laconic brevity, "Come and take them!" ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... speech, not only on this occasion, but during the canvass in other parts of the state, was chiefly confined to a defense of the Republican party and its policy while in power, which I contrasted with what I regarded as the feebleness of Mr. Cleveland's administration. I touched upon state matters with brevity, but complimented our brilliant and able governor, Foraker. I referred to the attacks that had been made upon me about my speech in Springfield, Illinois, and said that no one had answered by arraignment, except by the exploded cry of "the bloody shirt," or ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... pleasurable expectation to the revenge that would be theirs when Laurier, political dilettante and amateur, took up the burden that had been too great for their own Ulysses. They foresaw a Laurier regime which for futility and brevity would take its place in history with the ill-starred prime ministership of Mackenzie. The average Liberal felt that the government, which would get its driving force and executive power from someone else—identity not yet revealed—would have in Laurier a most attractive and genial ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... diligenter parumque integra veritate compositos putat, cum Caesar pleraque et quae per alios erant gesta temere crediderit, et quae per se vel consulto vel etiam memoria lapsus perperam ediderit, existimatque rescripturum et correcturum fuisse.' The style is remarkable for its brevity, directness, and the absence of ornament and emotion (Cic. Brut. 262, 'Nudi sunt, recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis, tamquam ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... cries for justice resounded at the palace gates. This Prince was an impartial chief magistrate; he prided himself upon his "invariable" principles of justice, and he allowed nothing to influence his decisions. His plan for arranging all differences had the merit of being brief; and if brevity be the soul of wit, it certainly was most unreasonable in his subjects to consider his judgments no joke. He always counted the quarterings in the shields of the respective parties, and decided accordingly. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... receive no assistance of any kind; she told him nothing of the martyrdom she was enduring even when he reproached her for the brevity of her visits. She never complained; for him she always managed to call up a less mournful smile; still obeyed the dictates of her lover's capricious passion, and lavished upon her ruthless destroyer all the treasures ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... brushed it aside as of no account. And, indeed, it was not aimed at him personally, nor at his wife personally, but at the great mass of thought—or of incoherent, muddled emotion that passed for thought—which the Anti-Potters had agreed, for brevity's sake, to call 'Potterism.' Potterism had very certainly not been created by the Potters, and was indeed no better represented by the goods with which they supplied the market than by those of ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... relate, with necessary brevity, what is most important of the little that is known of this interesting people. All records bearing upon the subject are imperfect, and the best of them are more profuse in speculation and surmise than in solid fact. The information possessed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... that he overlooks the small things, he is pretty apt to encounter failure. There is nothing in business so infinitesimal that we can afford to do it in a slipshod fashion. It is no art to answer twenty letters in a morning when they are, in reality, only half answered. When we commend brevity in business letters, we do not mean brusqueness. Nothing stamps the character of a house so clearly as the letters ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... slightest provocation. The sea sparkled, the wavelets leaped and clapped their hands. Once in awhile a plume of spray was blown over the bow, and the delicate stomach recoiled upon itself suggestively; but the deliciousness of the air in the open sea and the brevity of the cruise—we were but five or six hours outside—kept us in a state of intense delight. Presently we ran back into the maze of fiords and land-locked lakes, and resumed the same old round of daily and ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... out on her knees the black gloves which, in her nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild brevity, and as if the young man's words had ...
— Different Girls • Various
... Cultivate brevity and simplicity. "Savon Francais" may look smarter, but more people will understand "French Soap." Sir Isaac Newton's explanation of gravitation covers six pages but the schoolboy's terse and homely "What goes up must come down" clinches the whole thing ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... more inwardly vexed, and her little foot beat an impatient tattoo under the table, as she replied with careless brevity to a few of the commonplace observations addressed to her, and cast an occasional annoyed glance at her lord, M le Duc, a thin, military-looking individual, with a well waxed and pointed mustache, whose countenance suggested an admirably executed ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Mr. Screw had felt himself injured before, he was on the verge of desperation when he read Claudius's polemic. He repeated to himself the several sentences, which seemed to breathe war and carnage in their trenchant brevity; and he thought that even if he had been guilty of any breach of trust, he could hardly have felt worse. He ran his fingers through his thick yellow-gray hair, and hooked his legs in and out of each ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... we been getting under way that nothing surprised me more than the extreme brevity of our actual voyage. Not many houses and gardens had slipped behind us on the Middlesex shore, when we turned into an inlet running under the very windows of a house so near the river itself that even I might have thrown a stone from any one of them into Surrey. The inlet was empty ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... characters obstinately refused to come to life, or to take the bit between their teeth. They were simply cog-wheels in a pre-arranged mechanism. In one respect, my two or three plays were models—in respect of brevity and conciseness. I was never troubled by the necessity of cutting down—so cruel a necessity to many playwrights.[6] My difficulty was rather to find enough for my characters to say—for they never wanted to say anything that was not strictly germane to the plot. ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... an expression of the Deity and that every letter, as a constituent of such sound, has a meaning. But these letters are due to Maya: in reality there is no plurality of sound. Ram seems to have been selected as the divine name, because its brevity is an approach to this unity, but true knowledge is to understand the Letterless One, that is the real name or essence of God from which all differentiation of letters has vanished. Apart from some special metaphors the whole doctrine set forth in the Sukh ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... spice of danger, as when a lion and a bear, famished and furious and ravening for their prey, came out of the wintry woods to devour the sheep. Then, as the sacred chronicler tersely and with Homeric brevity tells us, the shepherd "slew both the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... without interest. Instantly he rose, fixed her with a comprehending look, nodded almost imperceptibly toward the chair he was vacating, and returned to his seat inside the car. Her fine brows lifted a trifle; her slight inclination of the head was robbed of the chill of brevity by a fleeting smile of gratitude, not so much for the sacrifice of his seat in her favor as for the fine courtesy which had moved him to proffer it without making of his action an excuse to sit beside ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... With me was a boy from Tanumamanono named Suisuega-le-moni (The Seeker after Truth), who carried a basket containing some cooked food, and fifty cartridges for my gun. "Sui," as he was called for brevity, was an old acquaintance of mine and one of the most unmitigated young imps that ever ate taro as handsome "as a picture," and a most notorious scandalmonger and spy. He was only thirteen years of age, and was of rebel blood, and, child as he was, ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... Scrutiny. However, if I have the Mortification to have my Views baffled, yet shall I reap the Advantage of being instructed in what I am ignorant of. His Excellency has commanded me to lay before you what my Reasons are, for supposing the Moon an inhabited Globe. I shall therefore, with all possible Brevity, obey his Excellency's Commands. I shall not name the ancient Sages, both of this and the neighbouring Nations, who have been of the same Opinion, because I have already cited them in my Memorial; but shall first offer you some Principles on which I have, beside the ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... away, and presently disappeared among the laurels. But her last words were ringing in his ears. "Leon"—everybody else called him "Lee" for brevity; "Leon"—it was pretty as ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... pinned to our cushions on Saturday nights a grayish slip of paper, uncertain of size and ragged of edge, stating with characteristic New England brevity and conciseness the amount of our indebtedness to our hostess; but what of that? The guests in those stately villas whose lights twinkle at us on clear evenings from the point along the coast, have their scores to settle ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... book is very readable. It is written with brevity, and a brightness of style that is ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... was going to be of a brevity hitherto unseen. Germany had been preparing herself to bring about this event without any long, economic world-disturbance. A single month would be enough to crush France, the most to be feared of ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and this very gentlemanlike way—that he always gave his wife as full an answer as he would another lady. He was not given to marital brevity. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... barking, and snapping,—as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and brevity which suited the minister and the man, Godfrey told his business, and Lord Oldborough, with laconic decision, equally pleasing to the young soldier, replied, "that if it was possible, the thing should be done for Major Gascoigne"—inquired how long Captain Percy ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... glanced rapidly at his unknown guest. "Excuse me," he said, with respectful business brevity, "but I thought every one was out," ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... wrought in me, it seemed to me that I had spoken defectively; and therefore I resolved to say words in which I would tell how I seemed to myself to be disposed to her influence, and how her virtue wrought in me. And not believing that I could relate this in the brevity of a sonnet, I began ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... attended by a couple of equerries. He rode through the palace gate and into the city. Habitans and citizens bowed to him out of habitual respect for their superiors. Bigot returned their salutations with official brevity, but his dark face broke into sunshine as he passed ladies and citizens whom he knew as partners of the Grand Company or partizans of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... &c adj.; brevity; littleness &c 193; a span. shortening &c v.; abbreviation, abbreviature^; abridgment, concision, retrenchment, curtailment, decurtation^; reduction &c (contraction) 195; epitome &c (compendium) 596. elision, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... smothered in sweets!" the old Senator retorted irritably, resenting her accent of reproof. "It is small marvel if the Consultore seemeth not great to thee; the power of the man is in the clarity of his vision and the brevity of ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... wrote the famous letter to Lord Brailstone, which debarred the wily pursuer from any pretext to be running down into Mrs. Levellier's neighbourhood, and also precluded the chance of his meeting the fair lady at Calesford. With the brevity equivalent to the flick of a glove on the cheek, Lord Brailstone was given to understand by Lord Fleetwood that relations were at an end between them. No explanation was added; a single sentence executed the work, and in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of common councilmen and others, as bailiffs, sergeants, constables, and others; but all of them like to those afore-named, being either fathers, brothers, cousins, or nephews to them, whose names, for brevity's sake, I omit ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... show that the writer even then was keenly alive to the picturesque. The journal ends somewhat abruptly, and Lord John confesses in so many words that he gave up this journal in despair, a statement which is followed by the assertion that the record at least possesses the 'merit of brevity.' ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... the fact, certainly," said Defarge. He had had it conveyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife's elbow as she knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity. ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... long-forgotten passages from old poets. The stillness of such wastes of sward, such deeps of woodland, induced the nurture of revery, gravely soft and lulling. There, Ambition might give rest to the wheel of Ixion, Avarice to the sieve of the Danaids; there, disappointed Love might muse on the brevity of all human passions, and count over the tortured hearts that have found peace in holy meditation, or are now stilled under grassy knolls. See where, at the crossing of three roads upon the waste, the landscape suddenly unfolds, an upland in the distance, and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... guides, as it is phrased, the destinies of the conveyance. It was, indeed, one of the most notable of these—a humble friend of my own—who had the fortune to make the acute, recorded, historic observation which, with the hearty, pungent, cursory brevity and point of his class and metier—the envy of the painstaking, voluminous analyst and artist of our period— But ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... the breakfast-table when somebody else begins to tell the adventures of the night before. I hesitate, therefore, to enter upon an account of my dreams; for it is a literary sin to bore the reader, and a scientific sin to report the facts of a far country with more regard to point and brevity than to complete and literal truth. The psychologists have trained a pack of theories and facts which they keep in leash, like so many bulldogs, and which they let loose upon us whenever we depart from the straight and narrow path of dream probability. One may not ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... the same way: she wore a loose black jacket, with deep pockets, which were stuffed with papers, memoranda of a voluminous correspondence; and from beneath her jacket depended a short stuff dress. The brevity of this simple garment was the one device by which Miss Birdseye managed to suggest that she was a woman of business, that she wished to be free for action. She belonged to the Short-Skirts League, as a matter of course; ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... agreeable young lady, with a fortune of L.10,000.' We suppose that the best excuse newspaper editors now have for being less florid in their matrimonial announcements is, that where the papers formerly had one, they have now at least a dozen of these interesting notices; so that their brevity may be less owing to the want of gallantry than to the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... Brevity is always desirable, and especially where matter is abundant; and the problem is less a grammatical than a substantial one; the solution, I mean, is to deal summarily with all immaterial details, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... with contemptuous brevity. "But I should be satisfied if the twins—and this agrees with my first wish should grow up honest men. If you should pay me the honour of a visit during the next few days, Sir Seitz, I could ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... more admired and esteemed and thought wiser[590] than unbridled windbags. And so Plato[591] praises, and compares to clever javelin-men, such as speak tersely, compressedly, and concisely. And Lycurgus by using his citizens from boyhood to silence taught them to perfection their brevity and terseness. For as the Celtiberians make steel of iron only after digging down deep in the soil, and carefully separating the iron ore, so Laconian oratory has no rind,[592] but by the removal of all superfluous matter ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... as good as dead," he observed, with cold brevity. "Better call at the house of the Miserecordia; the brethren will ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... had only lately forbidden herself the village use of the full name, and her sudden recollection of the fact caused her to speak with nippy brevity; "not the Brentons, but just Scott himself. Of course, we owe it ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... three factors: (1) Freedom from ambiguity or obscurity of wording; (2) adaptation to the age and understanding of the pupil; (3) reasonable brevity. ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... days afterwards, I had an interview with Isturitz at the palace, and for the sake of brevity I shall content myself with saying that I found him perfectly well disposed to favour my views. "I have lived long in England," said he; "the Bible is free there, and I see no reason why it should ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... sentences—which we have been obliged, for the sake of brevity, to compress—we have the suggestion of Pascal’s philosophy both of human nature and of Divine revelation. He recurs over and over again to the same idea, that man is great and yet weak, full of capacity and yet miserable, and that the Gospel ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... history. For even the briefest epistle in the ordinary chirography is dangerous. There is scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may not be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of Caesar's by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatory veni and vidi. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of qualification ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... of what passes in London for humor is mere cynicism, and he hated cynicism so heartily as to dislike even humor when it had a touch of cynical flavor. Wit he enjoyed, but did not produce. The turn of his mind was not to brevity and point and condensation. He sometimes struck off a telling phrase, but never polished an epigram. His conversation was luminous rather than sparkling; you were interested and instructed while you listened, but the words seldom ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... to his father. The symphony is that known as the "Parisian" (Kochel, No. 297). It is characterized by brevity and ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... whispered word he finds himself, without knowing why, the public enemy. None speak to him or salute him or smile upon him—save ironically: long-esteemed friends pass him by without recognition, or, if pursued, reply to his most earnest questions with all possible brevity and caution. Most likely they do not know the "why" of the matter: they only know that orders have been given, and that into the [430] reason of orders it is not good to enquire. Even the street-children know this much, and mock the despondent victim of fortune; even ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... be omitted a sketch of the daily lives of the people—their food, their homes, and their amusements. And lastly, to connect the whole, should be exhibited the morals, theoretical and practical, of all classes: as indicated in their laws, habits, proverbs, deeds. These facts, given with as much brevity as consists with clearness and accuracy, should be so grouped and arranged that they may be comprehended in their ensemble, and contemplated as mutually-dependent parts of one great whole. The aim should ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... for constructive thought; it presents the theme of the program in a broader way, with wider application. It is, usually, the longest story of the program. The third story is, invariably, the dessert of this story meal. Through its brevity, humor, tenderness, or sharply contrasting treatment of the program theme, it supplies the necessary relaxation, the fitting climax ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... lives too short for the work we have to do; and with the constantly accelerating progress of discovery, and the never-ceasing expansion of knowledge, we shall certainly find more and more reason to regret, as time goes on, the brevity of existence. That Science will ever discover the Elixir of the Alchemists' hope is extremely unlikely. The Cosmic Powers will not allow us to cheat them. For every advantage which they yield us the full price must be paid: nothing for ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... perceptible on Mount Sinai in the morning, still God did not reveal Himself to the people until noon. For owing to the brevity of the summer nights, and the pleasantness of the morning sleep in summer, the people were still asleep when God had descended upon Mount Sinai. Moses betook himself to the encampment and awakened them with these ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... with one of equal strength, and folly to strive with a weaker. But, considering his own defaults and demerits, — remembering the patience of Christ and the undeserved tribulations of the saints, the brevity of this life with all its trouble and sorrow, the discredit thrown on the wisdom and training of a man who cannot bear wrong with patience — he should refrain wholly from taking vengeance. Meliboeus submits that he is not at all a perfect man, and his heart will never be at peace ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... to bed early in hope that a long night's rest would steady his nerves for an interview which would not be the less trying for its brevity and which, he now saw, had been made inevitably dramatic. It was a perfect autumn morning, as he climbed into the car, with a scented mist rising before his eyes, under the mild warmth of a November sun; Lashmar Woods flaunted their last dwindling recklessness of colour, from ivy-green through ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... the apathy of the dullard or the jealousy of the shrewd, and a man who casts his thoughts before the common herd—I will not say to consider but to trample under foot, would seem to bring discredit on the study of divinity. So I purposely use brevity and wrap up the ideas I draw from the deep questionings of philosophy in new and unaccustomed words which speak only to you and to myself, that is, if you deign to look at them. The rest of the world I simply disregard: they cannot understand, ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... sake of brevity, the numerous considerations which the professor adduces in support of what he calls, too modestly in my opinion, his Utopia. They would serve only to prove beyond all question that, of all the charlatans ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... with the beauty of this introduction. It is modest, and at the same time replete with the dignity of conscious worth. It is drawn out to considerable length, yet it is all so pertinent and tasteful, that we would not spare a sentence or a word. With all the thoughtful and sententious brevity of the exordiums of Sallust, it has far more of natural ease and the beauty ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... of bleak and unexplored mountain country adjacent to the river Atrato. Stung by his sense of loss, as well as by the taunts of his boisterous companions, and harassed by the practical conclusion that life's brevity would not permit of wiping out their innumerable insults singly by the sword, the raging Juan gathered together a few blood-drinking companions of that ilk and set out to find diversion ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... speeches of the Duke, will have remarked the intensely British feeling that pervades them. He is like the old Romans in his admiration and love for his country and her institutions. The same feeling breathes in all his speeches. The same magnanimous brevity that marked the public declarations of that haughty people, dignifies the addresses of the Duke of Wellington. Some of his sayings, as, for instance, "that a great nation can never wage a little war," will he embalmed in history. His denunciations are like ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... that among the multitude of things, which for brevity sake I omit, the Reader may observe these ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... The birth and dignity of Andrew Dandolo gave him the motive and the means of searching in the archives of Venice the memorable story of his ancestor. His brevity seems to accuse the copious and more recent narratives of Sanudo, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxii.,) ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... "appearances," I do so only for brevity: I do not mean anything that must "appear" to somebody, but only that happening, whatever it may be, which is connected, at the place in question, with a given physical object—according to the old orthodox theory, it would be a transverse vibration in the aether. ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... can hardly tell you what a fever consumes me, from sense of the brevity of my time and opportunity. Here I cannot sleep at night, because I have been able to do so little in the day. Constantly I try to calm my mind into content with small achievements, but it is difficult. You will say, it is not so mightily ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... T. WYLIE: DEAR SIR: The essays submitted to us by Mr. Bliss, according to your announcement, numbered about twenty. Several could not be called essays from their brevity, and others were exceedingly incomplete. About twelve, however, required and were worthy of careful consideration. That of Mr. D. A. Compton, of Hawley, Wayne County, Pa., was, in the opinion of your committee, decidedly ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... to run," replied Archibald with beaming good humour. In his passion for brevity he eliminated pronouns whenever it ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... the two pieces for 'The Token.' They were ready some days ago, but I kept them in expectation of hearing from you. I have complied with your wishes in regard to brevity. You can insert them (if you think them worthy a place in your publication) as by the author of 'Provincial Tales,'—such being the title I propose giving my volume. I can conceive no objection to your designating them in this manner, even if my tales should not ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... entered the festive hall the king saw there a man who had not on a wedding-garment. Although this is the turning point of the parable, it is represented with extreme brevity. The great central facts are recorded with the utmost distinctness, but all the surrounding circumstances are in silence assumed: no explanation is given, and the reason doubtless is that no explanation is needed. Some customs and allusions connected with the scene remain obscure ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... February 15.—A lively sitting, with an unexpected ending. Debate on Address resumed by SEXTON in excellent speech, an effect largely contributed to by comparative brevity. Only an hour long; remarkable compression. Would have been better still had it been reduced by the twenty minutes occupied in preliminary observations. At twenty-five minutes past four he rose to move Amendment condemnatory of Land Purchase Act of last year. Precisely at a quarter to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... gh may be said not to have their proper sound."—Webster's El. Spelling-Book, p. 10. "Are we to welcome the loathsome harlot, and introduce it to our children?"—Maturin's Sermons, p. 167. "The first question is this, 'Is reputable, national, and present use, which, for brevity's sake, I shall hereafter simply denominate good use, always uniform in her decisions?"—Campbell's Rhet., p. 171. "Time is always masculine, on account of its mighty efficacy. Virtue is feminine from its beauty, and its being the object of love."—Murray's Gram., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... these household stories (the models for which were originally oral tradition) the thing most to be avoided is a discursive or descriptive style of writing. Brevity and epigram must ever be soul of their wit, and they should be written as ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... gem of Greek art; even in the English Version it loses little, if anything, of its literary charm. As a prologue it is regarded as unsurpassed for brevity, modesty, and dignity. However, its value lies not in its beauty but in its testimony to the veracity of the writer and to the historic worth and absolute credibility of the gospel story. The fact of inspiration should not blind us to the human means by which the Spirit of God secured accuracy ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... thoughtfully provided us by giving her the Night Life Song, or the Academy Howl, whichever she prefers." She bowed to Elinor with exaggerated politeness. "Which shall it be, Miss Kendall? Each is equally diverting, but the Howl has the merit of greater brevity. No extra charge for the choice, you know, so speak up ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... land in mountain regions leads to the utilization of the untillable slopes for stock grazing. This industry is always a valuable ally to mountain agriculture on account of the manure which it yields; but in high altitudes, where the steepness or rockiness of the soil, cold and the brevity of the growing season restrict or eliminate cereal crops, it becomes the dominant occupation of the inhabitants, while agriculture takes a subordinate place, limited to the production of hay and fodder for the winter feeding of the stock. Above the line ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... in this treatise being brevity, I shall bring forward a little of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and whether there be any such things as superfoetations, or a second conception in a woman (which is yet common enough), and as to twins, I shall have occasion to speak ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... the young lawyer—"You have hit it—the very reverend Tolbooth itself; and let me tell you, you are obliged to us for describing it with so much modesty and brevity; for with whatever amplifications we might have chosen to decorate the subject, you lay entirely at our mercy, since the Fathers Conscript of our city have decreed that the venerable edifice itself shall not remain in existence to confirm ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... us that he set up his sculptures at the sources of the Tsupnat river alongside of sculptures previously set up by his ancestors Tiglath-Pileser and Tiglathi-Nin. That Tiglathi-Nin should have made so distant an expedition is the more remarkable from the brevity of his reign, which only lasted for six years. According to the Canon, he ascended the throne in the year B.C. 889; he was succeeded in B.C. 883 by ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... From the same.— Mowbray's impatience to run from a dying Belton to a too-lively Lovelace. Mowbray abuses Mr. Belton's servant in the language of a rake of the common class. Reflection on the brevity ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... I think, whilst admiring in the broad page of the Morning Chronicle the compendious brevity of this announcement, that the pleasant village referred to was our own dear Aberleigh; and that the first tenant of those apartments should be a lady whose family I had long known, and in whose fortunes and destiny I took a more ...
— Country Lodgings • Mary Russell Mitford
... attention to characteristic details, for these alone enable us to understand how one fact differed from others, and what there was in it peculiar to itself. There is thus a conflict between the need of brevity, which leads us to look for concrete formulae, and the necessity of being precise, which requires us to adopt detailed formulae. Formulae which are too short make science vague and illusory, formulae which are too long encumber it and make it useless. This dilemma can only be evaded ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... her to show him some favor. Elsewhere he finds it necessary to apologize for the brevity of ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... Hooker permits me to add, that after having carefully read my manuscript, and examined the tables, he thinks that the following statements are fairly well established. The whole subject, however, treated as it necessarily here is with much brevity, is rather perplexing, and allusions cannot be avoided to the "struggle for existence," "divergence of character," and other questions, hereafter to ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... Lee" lies a vast renunciation half comical and wholly tragic. There are jests in the volume, and these, with the exception of Ponte dell' Angelo, have the merit of brevity; they buzz swiftly in and out, and do not wind about us with the terror of voluminous coils, as sometimes happens when Browning is in his mood of mirth. There are stories, and they are told with spirit and with skill. In Beatrice Signorini the story-teller does justice to the honest jealousy ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... child grew in health and beauty; and as we are the most usually the more strongly attached to pleasures in proportion to the brevity of continuance, so did the melancholy fate of his son more firmly fix him in the heart of Sir Maurice. Often did the wondering lady observe the countenance of her husband with surprise, as watching the endearing sportiveness of the boy, his countenance, at first brightened by the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... beauty it possesses) consists in the arrangement and 'massing' of lines of type in various sizes. We have returned almost to the primitive simplicity of the oldest printed books, which had no title-pages, properly speaking, at all, or merely gave, with extreme brevity, the name of the work, without printer's mark, or date, or place. These were reserved for the colophon, if it was thought desirable to mention them at all. Thus, in the black-letter example of Guido de Columna's 'History of Troy,' written about 1283, and printed at Strasburg ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... question whether—on theological grounds—man has a right to kill these creatures, even though they be rats. But he soars into such altitudes of rhetorical theology, that we dare not follow him. He dismisses, in the same paragraph, several remedies for rats, with a brevity almost savoring of contempt; gliding gracefully from theology to arsenic and other poisons, he returns, with a gush of enthusiasm, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... frozen Hili-lite would be to send him to the North Pole! Now, sir, I instantly grasped the whole idea of the necessary effect of that cold wave on those Hili-lites, for I now have data in abundance for reading those people through and through. In a word, sir—and observe my sententious brevity—their thermogenistic organization being adynamic, and their thermolysic functions being over-active owing to their thermic environment, and the thermotaxic balance being habitually anomalous, the emergency was not successfully encountered; and this was more particularly the case because the nerve-centres ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... question is a difficult and complicated one, and though I am a strong Tariff Reformer myself I hope I am not incapable of seeing both sides of the case. I certainly should have reason to be ashamed if I could not be fair to those whom, for the sake of brevity and convenience, I will call Free Traders, though I do not altogether admit the correctness of that designation. My views were once the same as theirs, and though I long ago felt constrained to modify them, and had become a Tariff Reformer some years before the subject attained ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... your face," pursued the Governor, while his smile faded—was brevity, after all, the secret of its magic? "You were at one of my speeches last autumn, and you sat in the front row, I think. I recall you because you were the only person in the audience who ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... eat lotuses, and fancy it 'always afternoon,' if his wife would let him! But she won't, bless her impulsive heart and active mind! She knows better than that. Who ever heard of a woman taking life as it ought to be taken? Instead of supporting it as an unavoidable nuisance, only redeemable by its brevity, she goes through it as if it were a pageant or a procession. She dresses for it, and simpers and grins, and gesticulates for it. She pushes her neighbors, and struggles for a good place in the dismal march; ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... the lucus a non lucendo principle) for another quality—that of reticence. It was very rarely indeed that he spoke to anyone, except when called upon to reply to a question; and even then it was noticeable that he invariably employed the fewest and most concise words in his vocabulary. If brevity were the body, as well as the soul of wit, Fink must have been about the wittiest man that ever lived, the Monosyllabic Traveller not excepted. He never received a letter from any one during the whole time of his stay at Peoria; ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... "As brevity is always highly to be prized, I will say no more at this moment. If any gentleman present desires to address the class, I will recognize him for that purpose. If, after a pause, we ascertain that no member desires to make a general address, I will then rule ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... than amplified into full story-flesh and blood; we see such heroine as there is only to see her die; even the great moment of the horn is given as if it had been "censored" by somebody. People, I believe, have called this brevity Homeric; but that is not how I ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... apparatus was readily adopted for the sake of reducing expenses. In consequence the acreage cultivated per hand came to be several times greater than that which had prevailed in Jamaica's heyday. But the brevity of the growing season kept the saccharine content of the canes below that in the tropics, and together with the mounting price of labor made prosperity depend in some degree upon protective tariffs. The dearth of land available kept the sugar output ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... losses and tempting offers induced her in 1849 to reappear in public. In Warsaw she gave a first series of five or six concerts in the course of a week, went then by invitation of the King of Prussia to Fischbach, and from there returned to Warsaw. Her concerts were remarkable for their brevity. She usually sang at them four times, and between her performances the orchestra played some pieces. She dispensed altogether with the assistance of other virtuosos. But Chopin remarks that so great was the impression she made as a vocalist and the interest she inspired as an artist that ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... (1721-1759), English poet, wrote only a few poems, but among them is this short dirge which keeps his name alive in popular memory. It was probably in honor of his countrymen who fell at Fontenoy in 1745, the year before its composition. Its austere brevity, its well-known personifications, its freedom from fulsome expressions, place it ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... gentlemen - no one else being present but myself - sitting in armchairs over the fire, finishing their bottle of port, Lord Lynedoch told the wonderful story of his adventures during the siege of Mantua by the French, in 1796. For brevity's sake, it were better perhaps to give the outline in the words of Alison. 'It was high time the Imperialists should advance to the relief of this fortress, which was now reduced to the last extremity from want of provisions. At a council of war held in the ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... that ideas vary according to the composition of the object, and this Trope also brings to confusion the existence of outward objects, and leads us to reserve our opinion in regard to them.[2] This Trope is illustrated by Diogenes with exceeding brevity.[3] ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... express the lingering reluctance, ignorance not yet dispelled, suspicion and unwilling surrender, the dramatic question is repeated, 'Who is this King of Glory?' The answer is sharp and authoritative in its brevity, and we may fancy it shouted with a full-throated burst—'The Lord of Hosts,' who, as Captain, commands all the embattled energies of earth and heaven conceived as a disciplined army. That great name, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the other House, under the care of an English physician, nurses were hired without reference to their religion. As soon as Hetty's house was all in order, and her shrubs and trees set out, she went one morning to this House, and asked to see the physician in charge. With characteristic brevity, she stated that she had come to St. Mary's to earn her living as a nurse, and would like to secure a situation. The doctor looked at ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... of all the Metazoa and Metaphyta is that the organism consists of a plurality of physiological cells, variously modified to subserve different functions in the economy of the animal or plant, as the case may be. For the sake of brevity, I shall hereafter deal only with the case of animals (Protozoa and Metazoa); but it may throughout be understood that everything which is said applies also to the case ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... entreat your Excellency distinctly to understand that I have not written with this comparative brevity on the subject of the Israelites in Poland, because I think their position less deserving the attention of the Imperial Government than that of the Russian brethren. On the contrary, in Poland affliction and degradation are the more severe; and what stronger ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they. I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it. But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the .. admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to expound it. First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all controllable ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... further him in Rhoda's regard. She thought him rude, as indeed he was, though he tried to conceal it. He seldom spoke to her, and when he did it was with an unadorned brevity that offended her. Mostly he let her alone, and saw Peter when he could outside his home. Rodney, himself a celibate, thought matrimony a mistake, though certainly a necessary mistake if the human race was to continue to ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... good one.' At the request of Socrates he promises to be brief; for 'he can be as long as he pleases, and as short as he pleases.' Socrates would have him bestow his length on others, and proceeds to ask him a number of questions, which are answered by him to his own great satisfaction, and with a brevity which excites the admiration of Socrates. The result of the discussion may be summed ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... a specimen of this little volume, a single passage, in which a chief article of the political creed of the Whigs is stated and explained, with singular clearness, force, and brevity. Our readers will remember that, in 1825, the Catholic Association raised the cry of emancipation with most formidable effect. The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of removing the grievance they tried to put down the agitation, and brought in a law, apparently ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he replied, with brevity; and I changed the subject, remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... marked the progress of reform in past ages, are matters of history, well known and universally acknowledged by the Protestant world; they are facts which none can gainsay. This history I have presented briefly, in accordance with the scope of the book, and the brevity which must necessarily be observed, the facts having been condensed into as little space as seemed consistent with a proper understanding of their application. In some cases where a historian has so grouped together events as ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... described in a few phrases, so the cessation of the flood may have been dismissed with equal brevity; the gradual abatement of the waters, as attested by the dove, the swallow, and the raven, may well be due to later elaboration or to combination with some variant account. Under its amended form the narrative leads naturally up to the landing on the mountain and the sacrifice of thanksgiving ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... I shall endeavour to avoid technicalities as far as possible, yet as I am writing in the main for students of Theosophy, I shall feel myself at liberty sometimes to use, for brevity's sake and without detailed explanation, the ordinary Theosophical terms with which I may safely assume ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater |
