"Brevity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it. When I saw her first she was playing a small part in a light opera at Forstadt. A few weeks later she had assumed leading roles, and was the idol of the young men. She was then about twenty-three, tall, dark, of full figure, doomed to a brevity of beauty, but at the moment magnificence itself. Every intellectual gift she appeared to lack, except a strangely persistent resolution of purpose and an admirably lucid conception of her own interest. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... of his youthful affections on Lieutenant Brandis—henceforward to be called 'Coppy' for the sake of brevity—Wee Willie Winkie was destined to behold strange things and ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... as the world would be a tame and an insipid institution were all men's tastes alike, so the world of smokers would lose much of its romance were all the lovers of the weed of temperament too robust to love a cigarette. Brevity and sweetness are proverbially held to constitute claims upon the respect and admiration of the voluptuous, and to the cigarette these cannot be denied. There is something touching in the self-abnegation of a tobaccoite who will devote five mortal minutes and the sweat ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Leander, whose story you, no doubt, know too well for me to add anything on the subject except that I crossed the Hellespont without so good a motive for the undertaking. As I am just going to visit the Captain-Pacha, you will excuse the brevity of my letter. When Mr. Adair takes leave I am to see the Sultan ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... affair in progress, at the time of these statements, was called Cudjoe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of extreme brevity and blackness, whose full-length portrait can hardly be said to adorn Dallas's History; but he was as formidable a guerrilla as Marion. Under his leadership, the various bodies of fugitives were consolidated into one force ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... were 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 ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... the credo of the mercenary spirit. It is characterized by brevity. For the mercenary man, the law and the prophets are contained in this one axiom: With money you can get anything. From a surface view of our social life, nothing seems more evident. "The sinews of war," "the shining mark," "the key that opens all doors," "king money!"—If ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... simple brevity, and Mrs. Brent felt that perhaps Miss Vanderpoel was not really very easy ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Norris's Ovid may be safely put into the hands of children, as it is a selection of the least exceptionable fables. To accustom boys to read poetry and prose nearly at the same period, is advantageous. Cornelius Nepos, a crabbed book, but useful from its brevity, and from its being a proper introduction to Grecian and Roman history, may be read nearly at the same time with Ovid's Metamorphoses. After Ovid, the pupil may begin Virgil, postponing some of the ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... they were seated as before. The horses started up, with the smaller cab but a dozen paces behind. Mary Gowd leaned forward. She began to speak—her voice very low, her accent clearly English, her brevity wonderfully American. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... he remarked "Seine Majestät"—Foreign Office brevity for conveying that His Majesty was satisfied. Without more ado, von Wedel plunged into the subject. Leaning back and crossing his legs, he began to talk ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... collocation—the carrying on of one subject or nominative through a sentence, the breaking up of a sentence into clauses, the evasion of its categorical form, the resolution of abstract nouns into verbs and participles;—what is possible in Latin composition and what is not, how to compensate for want of brevity by elegance, and to secure perspicuity by the use of figures, these, and a hundred similar points of art, I illustrated with a diligence which even bordered on subtlety. Cicero became a mere magazine of instances, and the ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... 1. Brevity. The text, other than appended national documents and the census of 1880, makes but 303 pages; and is within the most limited period allowable for instruction ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... to speak of the living in these pages. Personal relations enforce reserve and brevity. Nevertheless, no one can think of Manchester College and Martineau without being reminded of Mansfield College and of Fairbairn, a Scotchman, but of the Independent Church. He also was both teacher and preacher all his days, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... essential for its illustration, and the proof of the various propositions which it contains. In the Civilisation Europeenne, and Essays on the History of France, however, the general results are given with equal clearness and greater brevity. We do not hesitate to say, that they appear to us to throw more light on the history of society in modern Europe, and the general progress of mankind, from the exertions of its inhabitants, than any other works in existence; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... court clerk, while he was going through the formalities of the commitment, Prosper replied with haughty brevity to the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... Dumas fils had just what George Sand lacked. He was vigorous, he had the art of brevity and brilliant dialogue. It is thanks to all this that we have one of the masterpieces of the French theatre, Le Marquis de Villemer, as a ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... minister raised his voice in prayer. All eyes closed reverently, except perhaps the bridegroom's, which seemed glazed and vacant. It was an open question in the community whether Mr. Dishart did not miss his chance at weddings; the men shaking their heads over the comparative brevity of the ceremony, the women worshipping him (though he never hesitated to rebuke them when they showed it too openly) for the urbanity of his manners. At that time, however, only a minister of such experience ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... power of rapid comprehension is another reason for brevity. A short title consisting of a small group of words yields its meaning at a glance. Unless the reader catches the idea in the title quickly, he is likely to pass on to something else. Here again short words have an advantage ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Professor Whitney's Second Lecture? He objects, like myself, to comparing the growth of language and the growth of a tree, and like myself, he admits of an excuse, viz., when the metaphor is employed for the sake of brevity or liveliness of ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... which does not admit of being very happily translated into an English term of equal brevity, is the name given by the inventor, Mr. Girard, to a frictionless support, or socket, designed to sustain the axes of heavy wheels in machinery. Since it is a contrivance deriving its efficacy from hydraulic pressure, it may, without impropriety, be considered here. The friction of axles in their ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... not quote these specimens in the precise order in which they occur in the work, or to show the consecutive or connected interest of the several articles. In many cases we select them for their brevity and point of illustration. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... miles (or lengths) to a first canto, and five to a second, is as far from right as such a distribution of mile-stones would be to the overworked prads. The great fault of modern poetasters arises from their extreme love of spinning out an infinite deal of nothing. Now, as "brevity is the soul of wit," their productions can be looked upon as little else than phantasmagorial skeletons, ridiculous from their extreme extenuation, and in appearance more peculiarly empty, from the circumstance of their owing their existence to false lights. This fault does not exist with all the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... a man of few words, and, therefore, constitutionally economical of them; but brevity is apt to degenerate into obscurity. Writing a book, however, and book-making, are two very different things: "spinning a yarn" is mechanical, and book-making savours of trade, and is the employment ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... in my secret soul; but that remark settled the matter, and I crushed him on the spot with martial brevity,—"It is now one; I ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... negotiation with them which is nearly, if not quite, the strangest thing in our history. Virtually, Seward intrigued against Lincoln for control of the Administration. The events of the next five weeks have an importance out of all proportion to the brevity of the time. This was Lincoln's period of final probation. The psychological intensity of this episode grew from the consciousness in every mind that now, irretrievably, destiny was to be determined. War or peace, happiness or adversity, one nation or two—all these were in the balance. ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... made; and it does not appear to me to be more than apparently weakened by the subsequent discovery of the relatively small development of the posterior lobes in the Siamang and in the Howling monkey. Notwithstanding the exceptional brevity of the posterior lobes in these two species, no one will pretend that their brains, in the slightest degree, approach those of the Lemurs. And if, instead of putting Hapale out of its natural place, as Professor Bischoff most ...
— Note on the Resemblances and Differences in the Structure and the Development of Brain in Man and the Apes • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Edwards, provokingly leaves out his method of teaching, "for the sake of brevity," and from his own diary little is to be gathered but accounts of his state of feeling through endless journeyings and terrible prostrations of strength. He was always travelling about—now to the Susquehanna, now back to New England—apparently at times ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... mind, my heart beating thick, and with an insupportable weight on my heart. It always takes the same form with me—an overwhelming sense of failure in all that I attempt, a dreary consciousness of absolute futility, coupled with the sense of the brevity and misery of human life generally. I ask myself what is the use of anything? What is an almost demoniacal feature of the mood is that it lays a spell of utter dreariness upon all pleasures as well as duties. One feels condemned to a long perspective of work without interest, ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... received many letters, chiefly on business, and these she answered with manlike brevity, in a strong, provincial hand. They took up much of her time, and mercifully, for it was now the last week in November and the young ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... whom he became intimately acquainted[88] at Heidelberg during the winter of 1807-8. This, of course, is not to say that Heine borrowed from Loeben. Indeed, one of the strongest proofs that Heine borrowed from Schreiber rather than from Loeben is the clarity and brevity, ease and poetry of Schreiber's saga as over against the obscurity and diffuseness, clumsiness and woodenness of Loeben's saga,[89] the plot of which, so far as the action is concerned, is as follows: Hugbert von Stahleck, the son of the Palsgrave, falls in love with the Lorelei ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield
... it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax. De Beranger ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... society. Men whose time and labour are chiefly engrossed by the common occupations of life, have little leisure to read, none for what is called study. In books they do not search for deep learning, but for amusement accompanied with information on general topics, conveyed with brevity; happy if, in seeking relaxation from the drudgery of business, they can pick up some new particles of knowledge. For this most useful and numerous portion of society, some adequate intellectual provision ought to be made. Nor should it be imagined that, in supplying them, the general interests ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... 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. ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... Journeys (Volume IX, page 321) is printed the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. It is the one great, masterly American address, noted not only for its perfect construction, but for its sentiment, its power and its brevity. In no other great address are all these elements combined. Tested by any standard it rings true in thought and is perfect in form. It is worth while to commit it to memory, and father and son should be equally interested in the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... to examine one of them:—The Heirs of Tranby Chase. It weighed four or five pounds. The publishers would never have had to grumble at its brevity, or have been compelled to use large type and wide margins to "bulk up." It was written in the thin, early Victorian handwriting not often met with in this generation of writers. It subscribed faithfully to the great canons of publication—for instance, it ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... never was heard such a tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, 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 ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... reconciling brevity with the copiousness of illustration demanded by those who have not yet mastered the rudiments of the science, I have endeavoured to abridge the work in the manner above hinted at, so as to place it within the reach of many to whom it was ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... the very long work he meditated forging. To judge from his handiwork, he was specially struck by certain peculiarities:—such as dignified and powerful expression, with extraordinary conciseness joined to loftiness of diction;—hence, his brevity, being dissembled, and altogether foreign to his own natural diction, which was most copious, has a hardness and obscurity, of which the brevity of Tacitus is totally void. He seems to have furthermore observed how the language of Tacitus has a poetical complexion, is figurative, nor altogether ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... With frankness 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 ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... is actively advancing any part of science can make a mistake so crude. Think how many absolutely new scientific conceptions have arisen in our own generation, how many new problems have been formulated that were never thought of before, and then cast an eye upon the brevity of science's career. It began with Galileo, not three hundred years ago. Four thinkers since Galileo, each informing his successor of what discoveries his own lifetime had seen achieved, might have ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... the reigning wit anent the administration which Amber's Salon held together, and in which her husband occupied a position quite disproportionate to his nominal office, and still more so to the almost unparalleled brevity of his career as a ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... contemptible characters. Some of the best literary criticism we have of the period, he presents through the medium of the parasite rhetorician Agamemnon. That happy phrase characterizing Horace's style, "curiosa felicitas," which has perhaps never been equalled in its brevity and appositeness, is coined by the incorrigible poetaster Eumolpus. It is he too who composes and recites the two rather brilliant epic poems incorporated into the Satirae, one of which is received with a shower of stones by the bystanders. The impassioned ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... explicit, is the governor. It is advisable for the honor and respect of your Majesty, to put a stop to as much as possible. For that reason, I shall merely touch upon the following particulars of what is new, with all possible brevity; for in order to satisfy your Majesty some things ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... thou hadst attained to the years and passed through all the desolate bereavements that chilled and scared myself ere my researches had made it mine, thou wouldest have escaped the curse of which thou complainest now. Thou wouldest not have mourned over the brevity of human affection as compared to the duration of thine own existence, for thou wouldest have survived the very desire and dream of the love of woman. Brightest, and but for that error perhaps the loftiest, of the secret and solemn race ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The brevity of the answer caused Mrs. Baynes's bright smile a moment's hesitation; she disguised it by a quick movement, and spreading her skirts afresh, said: "Why, my dear—he's quite the most harum-scarum person; one ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... eve of a far-reaching campaign, he had all his calculations ready; those generals who made use of them did not lose one battle in ten; those who ran counter to them in any particular saw their armies incontinently beaten and put to flight." Ts'ao Kung's notes on Sun Tzu, models of austere brevity, are so thoroughly characteristic of the stern commander known to history, that it is hard indeed to conceive of them as the work of a mere LITTERATEUR. Sometimes, indeed, owing to extreme compression, they are scarcely intelligible and stand no less in need ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... movements of particles of matter, to those other phenomena which we term thought, sensation, or consciousness; but, knowing that so positive an expression of opinion from him will have great weight with many persons, I shall endeavour to show, with as much brevity as is compatible with clearness, that this theory is not only incapable of proof, but is also, as it appears to me, inconsistent with accurate conceptions of molecular physics. To do this, and in order further to develop my views, I shall have to give ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Alfriston in this County, set forth a small Manuall, intituled Collectiones Theologicarum Conclusionum. Indeed, many have much opposed it (as what book meeteth not with opposition?); though such as dislike must commend the brevity and clearness of his Positions. For mine own part, I am glad to see a Lay-Gentleman so able and industrious." Chowne's great great grandson, an antiquary, one night left some books too near his library fire; they ignited, and Frog Firle Place ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... in silence those points on which MR. KEIGHTLEY and myself agreed, I need scarcely assure him that it was for the sake of brevity, and not from any want ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... the uttered "Vernon 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 ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... inconsequential dialogue, by-play, and mutual trickery of sundry 'lewd fellows of the baser sort'? When it extended its sphere from the castle banqueting-hall to the street or inn-yard no greater excellence was expected from it. Its brevity saved it from tediousness, and the Virtues, whom the lingering influence of religion upon the drama saved from the wreck of the Morality Plays, were given a more and more subordinate place. In this play they serve to point the moral by showing the reward that ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... note from Maitland written at Trieste. He excused its brevity by saying he had been obliged to travel night and day in order to reach this port in time to catch the Austrian Lloyd steamer Helois, bound for Aden, Bombay, Ceylon, Singapore, and Hong Kong. From Aden ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... committed to the charge of public officers, called boy-trainers. The aim of the entire course, as to the boys, was to make a nation of soldiers who should despise toil and danger and prefer death to military dishonor. Reading and writing were untaught, and the art of rhetoric was despised. Spartan brevity was a proverb, whence our word laconic (from Laconia), implying a concise and pithy mode of expression. Boys were taught to respond in the fewest words possible. At the public tables they were not permitted to speak until questioned: they sat "silent as statues." As Plutarch ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... a French term long associated with English recruiting, the headquarters of the gang were more familiarly, and for brevity's sake, called the "rondy." Publicans were partial to having the rondy on their premises because of the trade it brought them. Hence it was usually an alehouse, frequently one of the shadiest description, situated in the lowest slum of the town; but ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... monthly magazine to be called The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America. The price was to be nine-pence Pennsylvania money, with considerable allowance to shopmen who should take quantities. The brevity of Franklin's advertisement is in strong contrast to the learned length of Webbe's pedantic prospectus. He claims that the idea of the magazine had long been in his mind, and that Webbe had stolen his plans. Before he had divulged the scheme to Webbe he had proceeded so far in the matter ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... will forgive the brevity of my present letter. The public examinations are but just concluded, and I have to communicate to all the parents and guardians the progress which our pupils have made during the past year. To you I may well be brief, having to say ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... suitor. The father, though much under the sway of his spouse, is in his heart desirous to keep his engagement, and has called in the notary to draw the contract. At this moment the scene begins, the actors of which, for greater perspicuity and brevity, may be provided with stage names ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... Leuconoe. Let alone the fortune-tellers. How much better to endure Whatsoever shall betide us—even though we be not sure Whether Jove grants other winters, whether this our last shall be That upon the rocks opposing dashes now the Tuscan sea. Be thou wise, and strain thy wines, and mindful of life's brevity Stint thy hopes. The envious moments, even while we speak, have flown; Trusting nothing to the future, seize the day that ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... on to the branch of a tree, and hoist himself up with horrible gymnastic jerks, like those of a giant frog in its final agony. Never, apparently, did he think of putting the rake to any of its proper uses, and the gardener, in consequence, treated his actions with coldness and brevity. But the gardener was certain that on one particular morning in October he (the gardener) had come round the corner of the house carrying the hose, had seen Mr. Smith standing on the lawn in a striped red and ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... presented in an unorganized form. Standing as isolated dogmas—as empirical generalizations, they are neither so clearly apprehended, nor so much respected, as they would be were they deduced from some simple first principle. We are told that "brevity is the soul of wit." We hear styles condemned as verbose or involved. Blair says that every needless part of a sentence "interrupts the description and clogs the image;" and again, that "long sentences fatigue the reader's attention." It is remarked by Lord Kaimes, that "to give the utmost ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... beauty (if 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 ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... Dr. Lindsay, a comfortable-looking professor in some new theological school. It was quite common-place, though not so long as the Scotch ministers are in the habit of giving; for excessive brevity is by no means their besetting infirmity. At the close of the exercises, he announced that a third service would be held in the evening. "The subject," continued he, "will be the thoughts and exercises of Jonah in ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... to have said a word or two or relation to the present condition and prospects of the Indians, but the original design in regard to both the topics and brevity of this writing having been already greatly transcended, it must be deferred. The once powerful confederacy of the Six Nations, occupying in its palmy days the greater portion of New York State, ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... first time in her life she told him of the wild impulsiveness and the shocking brevity of her affections for various members of his sex; naming no names she explained to him with much self-abasement (and a little amusement) that she was no good, "A nice wife ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... his career are easy to trace and must be set down here with brevity. A minister's son, and descended from a very old and distinguished family, he was born at Elmwood in Cambridge in 1819. After a somewhat turbulent course, he was graduated from Harvard in 1838, the year of Emerson's "Divinity School Address." He studied law, turned Abolitionist, wrote poetry, married ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... to delve too far into my past or relate what would be mundane and disconnected with my story, I will summarize with brevity what my situation was. I was a military man, an Air force pilot to be exact, and was on active duty patrolling the no-fly zones off the coast of China, it being, at that time, an area of very high tensions. The ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... to see a fellow teacher's plans of work. I wish to disclaim any desire to dogmatize about the methods or the details of teaching. If I have anywhere assumed a tone of authority, it has been merely for the sake of brevity in stating my opinions. ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... expression and cast of thought are, in my view, true to type. He is the Lancashire man of action, who affects no literary arts. These pages are bare of heroics. There is a soldierly brevity in his account of even of the bravest exploit. There is also plenty of quiet humour. The reader will search vainly for any "villain of the piece." The "Hun" is to Captain Wilson, as to the normal British officer, just a "Boche" and no more; to the rank and file he was simply "Jerry." If you ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... the first is the "Choice of Hercules," from Xenophon. The numbers are smooth, the diction elegant, and the thoughts just; but something of vigour is still to be wished, which it might have had by brevity and compression. His "Fate of Delicacy" has an air of gaiety, but not a very pointed and general moral. His blank verses, those that can read them, may probably find to be like the blank verses of his neighbours. "Love and Honour" is derived from the old ballad, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... with all care follow the method of the sage;[3] but if I should think fit to insert something[4] {of my own}, that variety of subjects may gratify the taste, I trust, Reader, you will take it in good part; provided that my brevity be a fair return for such a favour: of which, that {my} praises may not be verbose, listen to the reason why you ought to deny the covetous, {and} even to offer to the modest that for ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... memoir, which I could not help receiving with a smile, from the brevity of the period during which the trust was likely to hold. The gendarme now came up to demand my attendance. I shook hands with the marquis, who at that moment was certainly no philosopher, and followed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... variations; for believers in organic selection they are only the foster parents or nurses. It is because organic selection is the direct outcome of and a natural extension of Darwin's cardinal thesis that some reference to it here is justifiable. The matter may be put with the utmost brevity as follows. (1) Variations (V) occur, some of which are in the direction of increased adaptation (), others in the direction of decreased adaptation (-). (2) Acquired modifications (M) also occur. Some of these are in the direction of increased accommodation to circumstances (), ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... the sublimities form a semicircle; with the two Majesties, and pair of young creatures, in the centre. You young creatures, you are of one intention with your parents in this matter? Alas, there is no doubt of it. Pledge yourselves, then, by exchange of rings! said his Majesty with due business brevity. The rings are exchanged: Majesty embraces the two young creatures with great tenderness;" as do Queen and Serenities; and then all the world takes to embracing and congratulating; and so the betrothal is a finished thing. Bassoons and violins, striking ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... confess 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 ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Christian behavior, both in the course of her life and at her death, and her extraordinary care in educating her children, and setting them a good example, etc., under the hands of so many, are so numerous that for brevity they are here omitted."—Robert Calef, More Wonders ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... an attempt to exhibit a scientific conception of morality in a popular form, and with a view to practical applications rather than the discussion of theoretical difficulties. For this purpose it has been necessary to study brevity and avoid controversy. Hence, I have made few references to other authors, and I have almost altogether dispensed with foot-notes. But, though I have attempted to state rather than to defend my views, I believe ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... ideal. Here it must suffice, to select the most essential or interesting matters, and to present them with such vividness as the necessary brevity will permit. Very little preliminary knowledge will be taken for granted; the use of Latin or technical terms will be shunned, and every topic will be dealt with, as far as possible, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... 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 ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... desired, and meant also "for light and direction" to "such as have the worth in them to make trial," but "not beginning as some have done [e.g. Comenius] at the cradle, which might yet be worth many considerations," and omitting also "many other circumstances" that might have been mentioned had not brevity been the scope. All this it is necessary to remember in justice to the tract. It is a tract on the education of gentlemen's sons, or of such boys and youths as had hitherto been accustomed to go to the English Public Schools ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... 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 even tell ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... is the ending, at once of the story and of the music. In the brevity lies the point of the plot: in the curt dismissal of the humbled spirit, at the height of his revel, to his place as broom in the corner. Wistful almost is the slow vanishing until the last chords come like the breaking of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... labour is yet to come, the labour of interpreting these words and phrases with brevity, fulness, and perspicuity; a task of which the extent and intricacy is sufficiently shown by the miscarriage of those who have generally attempted it. This difficulty is increased by the necessity of explaining the words in the same language; for there is often only one word for one ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... invited to do so,—to the great concern of those who knew his habitual prolixity, and dreaded its effect on the guests. At the same time, not one of them dared rasp his irritable temper by any suggestion of brevity; and hence they came in terror to the feast, expecting an invocation of a good half-hour, ended by open revolt of the hungry Britons; when, to their surprise and relief, Moody said: "Good Lord, we have so much to thank thee for, that time will ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... in my classes lessons in "how to tell a story" with ease, brevity, and point, promising to give an anecdote of my own suggested by theirs every time. This pleased them, and we had a jolly time. The first girl who tried to ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... description of Wordsworth is of interest: "For the rest, he talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity, and force, as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop, and as no unwise one could. His voice was good, frank, and sonorous, though practically clear, distinct, and forcible, rather than melodious; ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... with English brevity. She stood startled, in the hall, lingering a little, changing colour, not with any of the deep emotions which Williams from his own superior knowledge suspected, but with shyness and excitement. "It will be the lady from Italy, the ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Henry IV., to whom he even offers some personal flattery (Act II., Sc. 3). In the following act he suffers a reprimand because, in speaking of the King he talks of him as "Richard," without more ado, but protests that he did it only for brevity's sake. A little later his insidious words induce the King to surrender. In the following act, when the King renounces the crown, Northumberland treats him with such harshness and contempt that the unlucky monarch is quite broken, ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... acknowledgment of a risk 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 was some unauthorised assembly, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... haste the celebrated specialist was summoned, but his examination was sickening in its brevity, and his verdict held out no hope. "The nervous system has received some terribly sudden shock," he said; "and there is a serious rupture of the vessels of the heart. She may recover consciousness, but it will be only momentary. We see many appalling sights in my profession, but rarely ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... nor virtue would have held Lew long in the paths of propriety had not the rumour gone abroad that the Regiment was to be sent on active service, to take part in a war which, for the sake of brevity, we will call "The War of the ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 be so to present ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... assembling data of conduct, bodily well-being, and putting it all down in that masterful hand of hers. That settled it. He mustn't write her. He must telegraph and forestall Dick. And he did telegraph her, on the moment, a message of noncommittal brevity: ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... any reputation for brevity I must now close these remarks. I remember a lesson in brevity I once received in a barber's shop. An Irishman came in, and the unsteady gait with which he approached the chair showed that he had been imbibing of the produce of the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... vast and various body of authentic 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
... Old Testament. Again and again he cites continuous passages, and argues from them at length. But with Polycarp the case is different. The New Testament has exchanged places with the Old, at least so far as practical use is concerned. Notwithstanding its brevity, Polycarp's Epistle contains decisive coincidences with or references to between thirty and forty passages in the New Testament [94:2]. On the other hand, with the single exception of four words from the apocryphal book ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... has what, for the sake of brevity, I have called Vision, enabling him to see clearly the facts or ideas, the objects or relations, which he places before us for our own instruction, his work must obviously be defective. He must see clearly if we are to see clearly. Unless a writer has Sincerity, urging him to place before ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... permit. Luck and my prayers with you." Then to Firio a letter, which did not come quite so easily: "You see by now that you are mistaken, Firio. I am not coming back. Make the most of the ranch—your ranch—that you can." The brevity, he told himself, was in keeping with Firio's own style. Besides, anything more at length would have opened up an avenue of recollections ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... 18. The brevity of such passages is the chief obstacle to their clear comprehension. Fortunately the allusions are very plain. What is meant is that those who die during the lighted fortnights of the summer solstice attain to solar regions of bliss. Those that die during the dark fortnights ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... spared the cheering influence of the homely scene or the unchanged presence of his familiars and friends. I have sat in companies and put on an affected mirth, and laughed and sung with the most buoyant of all around, and yet ever and anon I chilled at the intruding notion of life's brevity. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... with like brevity, then rode on to Tombstone. Those who had banked on the big issue wherein Breckenbridge would smell the other man's powder-smoke were disappointed. And there were some among them who shook their heads when the young fellow's name was mentioned, saying, ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... barracks, he never answered any question put to him by an officer, without recovering himself from his usual "stand-at-ease" position— throwing shoulders back, his nose up in the air, his arms down his sides, and the palms of his hands flattened on his thighs. His replies were given with all the brevity that the question would admit, or rapid articulation on his own part ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Brentons, Eva," Catia 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
... For the sake of brevity we omit the old theory that the Homeric house was practically that of historical Greece, with the men's hall approached by a door from the courtyard; while a door at the upper end of the men's hall yields direct access to the quarters where the women dwelt apart, at the ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... will not permit this occasion to pass without saying, with brevity and such clearness as I can command, what it seems to me should be said by a Senator, under these circumstances, before leaving public life. Something is due to the State which has honored me; something is due to the record which I have endeavored to maintain ...
— Conditions in Utah - Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States • Thomas Kearns
... through conversation, through examples, and through my own reflections, that the first step in delivering ourselves from the wishy-washy, long-winded, empty epoch, could be taken only by definiteness, precision, and brevity. In the style which had hitherto prevailed, one could not distinguish the commonplace from what was better; since all were brought down to a level with each other. Authors had already tried to escape from this wide- spread disease, with more or less success. Haller and ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... 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 its present ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... upon the rhythms of our Bible they, too, fall back. 'The great mutations of the world are acted, or time may be too short for our designs.' 'Acquaint thyself with the Choragium of the stars.' 'There is nothing immortal but immortality.' The precise man Addison cannot excel one parable in brevity or in heavenly clarity: the two parts of Johnson's antithesis come to no more than this 'Our Lord has gone up to the sound of a trump: with the sound of a trump our Lord has gone up.' The Bible controls its enemy Gibbon as surely as it haunts the ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... questioning involves 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
... replied with brevity; and then looking down at her with one of his irresistible smiles he added, ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... more than the sky in looking blue, asserted this relationship, for by the same glance it seemed to take in equally the farthest and the nearest; only over us in the boat it passed always as over vacant space. Yet any question was answered at once with quiet, willing brevity, not as if he had been interrupted in his thoughts, or was recalled to a recognition of our existence, but just as he would turn the tiller in steering his boat,—while the eye still continued its conversation with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... How admirable are the brevity and the lightness of that 'adieu, mes gens'! In three words the instantaneous vanishing of the animals is indicated with masterly precision. One can almost see their tails whisking round ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... copy of it in Le Temps of the 28th December quickly reached Signor Nobili, who, with Signor Antinori, immediately experimented upon the subject, and obtained many of the results mentioned in my letter; others they could not obtain or understand, because of the brevity of my account. These results by Signori Nobili and Antinori have been embodied in a paper dated 31st January 1832, and printed and published in the number of the Antologia dated November 1831 (according at least to the copy of the paper kindly sent me by Signor ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... to your request for a statement of the causes and meaning of the European war I write with necessary brevity, both because of the limits on my time and the limits on ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... things should be applied to them. In the cure of old fistulous tracts near the teeth he employs not only this Egyptian ointment but also arsenic and corrosive sublimate. What he has to say with regard to the filling of the teeth is, however, most important. He says it with extreme brevity, but with the manner of a man thoroughly accustomed to doing it. "By means of a drill or file the putrefied or corroded part of the tooth should be completely removed. The cavity left should then be filled with gold leaf." It is evident that ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... the ruin as well as the origin and extension of many cities. Among those which were ruined were Aquileia, Luni, Chiusi, Popolonia, Fiesole, and many others. The new cities were Venice, Sienna, Ferrara, Aquila, with many towns and castles which for brevity we omit. Those which became extended were Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Milan, Naples, and Bologna; to all of which may be added, the ruin and restoration of Rome, and of many ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... progress with our intended exposition of Mr Scrope's beautiful and instructive volume. Although salmon and salmon streams form the subject and "main region of his song," he yet touches truthfully, albeit with brevity, upon the kindred nature of sea-trout, which are of two species—the salmon-trout and the bull-trout. The fry of the former, called orange fins, (which, like the genuine parr, remain two continuous years in the river,) greatly resemble the young of the common fresh-water ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... would help the reader who happens to have both books before him if I made occasional references that would direct him to solutions and analyses in the later book calculated to elucidate matter in these pages. This course has also obviated the necessity of my repeating myself. For the sake of brevity, Amusements in Mathematics is throughout referred to ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... 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 goes ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... could not with equal brevity be more clearly stated. Bill presented to Lords as sort of lay figure, which they may, in accordance with taste and conviction, suitably clothe. No assurance forthcoming that style and fit will be approved when submitted to House of Commons, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... three partially constructed office-buildings, and a few private edifices and boarding houses. Marshall never removed his residence to Washington but occupied chambers in one or other of these buildings, in company with some of the associate justices. This arrangement was practicable owing to the brevity of the judicial term, which usually lasted little more than six weeks, and was almost necessitated by the unhealthful climate of the place. It may be conjectured that the life of John Marshall was prolonged for some years by the Act of 1802, which abolished the August term of court, for in the late ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... the better the effects; not a compound of acids and sweets, hot water and fire-water, to steal away the brains,—but a finer mixture of subtler elements, conducive to mental and moral health; not, in a word, punch, the drink, but "Punch," the wise wag, the genial philosopher, with his brevity of stature, goodly-conditioned paunch, next-to-nothing legs, protuberant back, bill-hook nose, and twinkling eyes,—to speak respectfully, Mr. Punch, attended by the solemnly-sagacious, ubiquitously-versatile "Toby," together with the invisible company of skirmishers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Italian in its motive, though the composer has been charged with taking it from "La Femme de Tabarin," by the French novelist, Catulle Mendes. Be this as it may, Leoncavallo's version has the merit of brevity, conciseness, ingenuity, and swift action, closing in a denouement of great tragic power and capable, in the hands of a good actor, of being made very effective. The composer has not alone been charged with borrowing the story, but also with plagiarizing ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... and something, too, of its glow; her eyes, though not profound, were large and in hue varied, as the light fell or her emotions shifted, through a wide gamut of blue shades. But it was her mouth you remembered: the fulness and brevity of it, the deep indentation of its upper lip, the curves of it and its vivid crimson—these roused you to wildish speculation as to its probable softness when Lady Allonby and Fate were beyond ordinary lenient. Pink was the color most ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... hands firmly on the table and with an effort assumed an erect position. Every voice was hushed. He said that in fifteen minutes we would separate, nevermore to meet again, and then, with glowing force and eloquence, he contrasted the brevity and vanity of human life with the immortality of the events they were celebrating, which century after century would be celebrated by your children and your children's ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... straightway follows due Anti-strophe, Reichenbach croaking responsive;—and we are to note, the rooks always speak in the third person and by ambiguous periphrasis; never once say "I" or "You," unless forced by this Editor, for brevity's sake, to do it. Reichenbach from his perch thus ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... parted at Mr. Mulligan's door he knew all of the New World that young Stevens had patiently accumulated in four years. It was a stirring story, that account of the rising impatience of the British colonies, and Stevens told it with animation and brevity. Alexander became so interested that he forgot his personal mission, but he would not subscribe to his friend's opinion that the Colonials were in ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Nelson also recommends Lieutenant Parkinson, who is the bearer, to the notice of the Lords of the Admiralty; observing, that this officer is sent, by desire of his Sicilian Majesty, to mark that monarch's approbation of his lordship's conduct. Then, apologising for the brevity of his letter, when he has so much to communicate, his lordship adds, that he is writing in a fever, and finds it barely possible to keep out of bed; but, to the last, begs he will assure the board, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... direction of affairs; there was no disposition to keep the holiday-makers waiting; the unhappy victims were led up, one after the other, before King Banda, and their supposed crimes very briefly recited to him, whereupon his Majesty, with equal brevity, pronounced their sentence—in all cases that of death—which was at once carried out, the only difference consisting in the mode of execution; some of the unfortunate wretches being secured to the crucifixion tree in one way, some in another; but it was very difficult for a mere onlooker ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... denunciation. The two other figures, both clad in dark gray, showed the sobriety of Deacons; one was ridiculously tall and thin, like a man of ordinary bulk infinitely produced, as the mathematicians say; while the brevity and thickness of his colleague seemed a compression of the same man. These four talked with great earnestness, and their gestures intimated that they had revived the ancient dispute about the meeting- house ...
— An Old Woman's Tale - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... while that dreadful house stood listening about us in the early hours of this chill morning upon the edge of winter, she told me, with laconic brevity, things about Mabel that I heard as from a distance. There was nothing so unusual or tremendous in the short recital, nothing indeed I might not have already guessed for myself. It was the time and scene, the inference, too, that ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... evincing some little curiosity, received from the girl an interpretation in low and rapid French. The woman expressed by her gestures some pity for man and beast. The girl replied with gentle brevity— ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... have gathered, up to the latest time, have added valuable knowledge from their own varied stores, and at last furnished to American students a work superior in its kind to any that has preceded it here or abroad. It combines in a remarkable degree the copiousness of a Thesaurus with the brevity and convenience for ready reference of a school-dictionary. Citations abundantly sufficient to meet the wants of ordinary readers are given in full, while distinct references guide the more exacting scholar over a ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... French victories flew with astonishing rapidity.[1552] The brevity of authentic accounts was amply supplemented by the eloquence of loquacious clerks and the popular imagination. The Loire campaign and the coronation expedition were scarcely known at first save by fabulous reports, and the people only thought ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... the present. My love to Bernard." Everard spoke with his usual brevity, but his handclasp was remembered by Tommy for a very ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... letters yesterday of a total victory of the King of Prussia over the Austrians,(787) with their army dispersed and their general wounded and prisoner—I don't know how, but it is not confirmed yet. You must excuse the brevity of my English letter, in consideration of my Chinese one. Adieu! (786) Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese philosopher at London, to his friend ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... 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 ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... law. This feature of his speech—this evidence of sincerity in every word—with the almost boyish beauty of his face, bound his distinguished audience as with a magic spell. When, at the conclusion of the speech, Mr. Webster left the hall, he remarked to a friend, with his comprehensive brevity, "Nobody can ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... pithy quaintness of old Howell has admirably described the ingredients of an exquisite proverb to be sense, shortness, and salt. A proverb is distinguished from a maxim or an apophthegm by that brevity which condenses a thought or a metaphor, where one thing is said and another is to be applied. This often produces wit, and that quick pungency which excites surprise, but strikes with conviction; this gives it an epigrammatic turn. George Herbert entitled ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... I trust nothing but the brevity of human life, which one day cannot fail to release me from an existence that has proved an almost intolerable burden. You know Vogt says, 'The natural laws are rude, unbending powers,' and I comfort myself by hoping that they can neither ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Attached Medical Staff, Gueldersdorp, and frequently mentioned in Despatches from that bit of debatable soil, while it was in process of debating, was distinctly a person to cultivate. Not that it was in the least easy—the man was almost quite a bear, but his brevity of speech and brusqueness of manner gave him a cachet that Society found distinguished. He was married, too—so romantic! married to a girl who was shut up with him in Gueldersdorp all through the Siege. Quite too astonishingly lovely, don't you ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the human face; the Beast is everywhere growing more and more out of the thing that had been Man. And John Burley, still unconquered, but clean lost to his senses, fancies himself a preacher, and drawls forth the most lugubrious sermon upon the brevity of life that mortal ever beard, accompanied with unctuous sobs; and now and then in the midst of balderdash gleams out a gorgeous sentence, that Jeremy Taylor might have envied, drivelling away again into a cadence below the rhetoric of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... story which was now in Mr Jedwood's hands had perhaps more merit than 'Margaret Home'; its brevity, and the fact that nothing more was aimed at than a concatenation of brisk events, made it not unreadable. But Reardon thought of it with humiliation. If it were published as his next work it would afford final proof to such sympathetic readers as ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... of three hours this morning," replied Kit—not coolly, for nobody was cool in his den, but with a brevity which provoked a laugh. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lady had done, would receive such chastisement as royal power guided by prudent counsel could inflict. Parma assured his sovereign, that, if the conquest of England were effected, that of the Netherlands would be finished with much facility and brevity; but that otherwise, on account of the situation, strength and obstinacy of those people, it would be a very long, perilous, and at best ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... touching upon a somewhat wide range of points, will constantly aim at as great brevity in statement as may be consistent with perspicuity, go into detail only so far as shall appear needful to the end in view, and feel amply compensated for his labors, if the developments and suggestions here made shall in any degree aid the ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... did not believe in wasting anything. There was no penalty attached, and they were at liberty to believe anything they chose; just the plain command to get out, and somehow it seemed more impressive because of its brevity. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... doubt of the truth of her loyal defense. And Drumley could not have raised a doubt, even if she had been seeing the expression of his face. His long practice of the modern editorial art of clearness and brevity and compact statement had enabled him to put into those few sentences more than another might have been unable to express in hours of explanation and appeal. And the ideas were not new to her. Rod had often talked ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... replied Archibald with beaming good humour. In his passion for brevity he eliminated ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... indeed very short, but in its insidious brevity it comprises a multitude of things which are all the more dangerous because they are unforeseen, being concealed in a perfidious and cloudy vagueness. Why? This word is the beginning of the greater part of those ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... virtue would have held Lew long in the paths of propriety had not the rumour gone abroad that the Regiment was to be sent on active service, to take part in a war which, for the sake of brevity, we will call 'The War of the ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... it excluded music and the whole cycle of the mathematical and physical sciences. Throughout it was the directly practical element in science which alone was to be handled, and that with as much brevity and simplicity as possible. The Greek literature was doubtless made use of, but only to furnish some serviceable maxims of experience culled from the mass of chaff and rubbish: it was one of Cato's commonplaces, that "Greek books must be looked into, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... spoken thus—You have, said I, O Varro, explained the principles both of the Old Academy and of the Stoics with brevity, but also with great clearness. But I think it to be true, as Antiochus, a great friend of mine, used to assert, that it is to be considered rather as a corrected edition of the Old Academy, than as any new sect. Then Varro replied—It is your ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... let 'em into th' church; the dippitation a'n't coom." Presently two clergymen arrived, when the clerk called out, "Ye maunt gang hoame; t' deppitation's coom." The old vicar made an excellent chairman, his introductory remarks being models of brevity: "T' furst deppitation will speak!" "T' second deppitation will speak!" after which the clerk lighted some candles in the singing gallery, and gave out for an appropriate hymn, ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch. What we have to do is to be for ever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... Plato himself. And however this may be, the reader will admit, in examining the six skeptics set forth by Scott, that each is a character firmly based in historical truth; that all, with the exception of 'Bletson,' are sketched with remarkable brevity; and that a careful comparative analysis of the whole gives us a deeper insight into the secret tendencies of the author's mind, and at the same time into the springs of his genius, than the world has been wont to take. And the study of the subject is finally interesting, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Lady Lyndhurst. I desired her to tell Lyndhurst all the Duke had said to me about him, for in these times it is as well they should draw together. He will be a match for Brougham in the House of Lords, for he can be concise, which the other cannot, and the Lords in the long run will prefer brevity to art, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... forward by France as the gravamen, or chief offence, was not communicated to the Chamber. The Prime- Minister, though hard-pressed, held it back. Was it from conviction of its too trivial character? But it is not lost to the history of the duel. This telegram, with something of the brevity peculiar to telegraphic dispatches, merely reports the refusal to see the French Ambassador, without one word of affront or boast. It reports the fact, and nothing else; and it is understood that the refusal was only when this functionary presented himself ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... so he can enjoy the faint autumnal splendour of the landscape, as he sees hill and plain, vineyard and forest, clad in one wonderful glory of fairy gold, which the first great winds of winter will transmute, as in the fable, into withered leaves. And so too he can enjoy the admirable brevity and simplicity of such little glimpses of country and country ways as flash upon him through the windows of the train; little glimpses that have a character all their own; sights seen as a travelling swallow might see them from the wing, or Iris ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... almost reached Nannie's before David said that—that he was afraid he would have to go away a month before he had planned. When he was most in earnest, his usual brevity of speech fell into a curtness that might have seemed, to one who did not know him, indifference. Elizabeth did know him, but even to her the ensuing explanation, which did not explain, was, through his very anxiety not to offend ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... asking wildly for her husband; and Wade replying, with brutal brevity, that he was taken to London to be examined for his practices before the Council, the poor lady, well knowing that examination often meant torture, fell back ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... needed. The recent volumes of Messrs. Collier, Singer, and Dyce, show that even editors of Shakspeare scarcely know the history of all the emendations. Let their precise pedigree be in the last case recorded with the most absolute brevity; simply the suggestion, and the names ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... not brief, for instance, in his private prayers for himself, his friends, and his flock. Brevity did not mark his proceedings when engaged in preparing for the Sabbath services. He was not brief when, in his study, he pleaded with some awakened but unbelieving soul to cast itself unreservedly on the finished work of our Saviour. ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... sake of brevity I shall put the cart before the horse, the findings before the facts from which they ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... said, with frank brevity. 'But then there's something else. You know where we live—at the very ends of the earth, seven miles from a station, in the very loneliest valley of all Westmoreland. What's to be done with a fiddle in such a place? ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... propensities, Pedro de Heredia then bestowed upon him a strip 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 of mind on ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... most remarkable thing in this code, is its great reasonableness, clearness, and consistency; the businesslike brevity and directness of the various provisions, and the plainness and moderation of the language in which they are expressed. It is a clear, concise, and distinct series of enactments, savoring throughout of practical judgment and European good ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge |
