"Cursory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... officer looked the red-haired beauty up and down, bestowing on her but a cursory glance. Fandor noticed that Bobinette was greatly troubled by it. Following this little by-play, he immediately got a very clear impression that if the lieutenant did not consider the pretty girl worthy of much consideration, she, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... stillness deepened about those two; there was not another living creature to be seen. The irregular old buildings on every side looked ruinous in the shadowy moonlight, and the whole market-place presented to the Boy a picture of desolation which chilled him. He was about to turn away with a last cursory glance at the other solitary figure, when something suddenly occurred which arrested his attention. It seemed to startle him too, for he sprang back, with prompt agility, into a dark doorway behind him, from whence he watched what followed with the keenest interest, being careful, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... be a boy at school, if we have only escaped the ferula to come under the fescue of an Imprimatur; if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his pedagogue, must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extemporizing licenser? He who is not trusted with his own actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and standing to the hazard of law and penalty, has no great argument to think himself reputed in the Commonwealth wherein he was born for other than a fool or ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... accession of population, but lost to some extent by a portion of the Bear people moving across to Walpi. No important event seems to have occurred among them for a long period after the destruction of Sikytki, in which they bore some part, and only cursory mention is made of the ingress of "enemies from the north;" but their ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... the whole apparatus, means, machinery, and dependences of that system—a revolution begun, carried through, and perfected within the period of my own personal experience—merits a word or two of illustration in the most cursory memoirs that profess any attention at all to the shifting scenery and moving forces of the age, whether manifested in great effects or in little. And these particular effects, though little, when regarded in their separate details, are not little in their final amount. On the contrary, I have ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... every moment at Paris likewise strike even a cursory observer,—a countess in a morning, her hair dressed, with diamonds too perhaps, a dirty black handkerchief about her neck, and a flat silver ring on her finger, like our ale-wives; a femme publique, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... from one to another of those who lay slain; in turn stooping over each corpse, and scrutinising it—to some giving but a cursory glance, to others more careful examination—then leaving each with an air of disappointment, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... cigar and gossip, the sergeant vouchsafed but a careless and cursory glance to this party, and they were passing on without hindrance, when, from a window of the guard-house, a voice called to ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... they be matrices or feed-baggs of any kind of Fishes, or some kind of watry Insect; or whether they are at any times more soft and tender, or of another nature and texture, which things, if I knew how, I should much desire to be informed of: but from a cursory view that I at first made with my Microscope, and some other trials, I supposed it to be some Animal substance cast out, and fastned upon the Rocks in the form of a froth, or congeries of bubbles, like that which I have often observ'd on Rosemary, and other Plants (wherein is included a little ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... perhaps, in this state alone. The state spends its money for the above institution, and, therefore, has a right to know what it is; a knowledge which can never be obtained from the reports of the authorities, the cursory observations of visitors, or the statements ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals, that their maxims have a plausible air: and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... most necessary," stated a Manchester economics expert last week, "that the Government should release more beef for civilian needs." Yet a cursory view of the work done by the military tribunals seems to indicate that they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... in the air. This practice is of such venerable antiquity, and so universal, that it would be vain to impugn it. The pleasure, too, which most children evince under it, seems to show that it cannot be so objectionable as a cursory observer would be disposed to consider it. Still there are hazards which ought not to be overlooked. The risk of accident is one of some amount: children have slipped from the hands, and sustained serious injury. Some people are so energetic as to throw up children and catch them in ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... and couldn't the least understand, a sudden blank expression cross Robert's face. For the moment he looked as if he were dead but had been beautifully stuffed. But Georgie gave but a cursory thought to that, for the amazing supposition dawned on him that Lucia had not been polemical at all, but was burying instead of chopping with the hatchet. It was instantly confirmed, for Lucia took her elbow off the table, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... flying French colours. In such cases it was not Captain Brownrigg's custom to board, but only to go alongside to see that the papers were correct. He therefore ordered the boat's crew to be careful not to board without direct orders, intending a mere cursory examination, and no detention whatever, as he did not arm the boat's crew, and directed the time alongside to ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... into this case, heart and soul. Money, Justice, Law, Morality, are all concerned—One moment, my dear sir! If you must really go back to London, oblige me at any rate, with your address, and just state in a cursory way, whether you were christened or not at Dibbledean church. I want nothing more to begin with—absolutely nothing more, on my word of honor as ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... that Bush had acquired most of his knowledge of sea terms from a cursory perusal of Bowditch's Navigator, which I had seen lying on the office table, and I privately resolved to procure a compact edition of Marryat's sea tales as soon as I should go ashore, and overwhelm him next time with such accumulated stores of nautical erudition that he would hide ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... machine giving it a cursory looking over, but could find nothing out of the way, and every one of ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... himself that he was a past master of the art of measuring the depth of a hidden purse. He recalled the brilliant Casimir Wieniawski of eight years past—the curled darling of the hot-hearted ladies of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Singapore. In a glance of cursory inspection Alan Hawke had noted the doubtful gloss of the dress suit; it was the polish of long wear, not the velvety glow of newness. There was a growing bald spot, scarcely hidden by the Hyperion ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... quick to last; it died a natural death in 1819, from the paralyzed state of its members. The house was then taken by a set of blacklegs, who instituted a common bank of gambling. To form an idea of the ruin produced by this short-lived establishment among men whom I have so intimately known, a cursory glance to the past suggests the following melancholy list, which only forms a part of its deplorable results: none of the dead reached the average age of man.' Among the members were Beau ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... of the Law which thus gradually took form, a distinction may easily be traced even by the cursory reader. The earlier code, Deuteronomy, is full of a generous and lofty temper. It is one of the most impressive documents of the Jewish scriptures. Here is that which Jesus named as the first and great commandment: "Thou shalt love the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... perhaps a trifle chagrined at the profusion, as Nina gave a cursory glance at the cards that Celeste had affixed to each opened box. But with a curious little smile—one that had real sweetness in it—Nina picked up a particular bunch of violets, and looked at Derby over their clustered ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... know not whose turn it is to write; though a suspicion has long attended me that it was yours, and above all an indisputable wish that you would do it: but this present is a cursory line, all on business,—and as usual all on business ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... forty years, in fact, counting in every chance cursory acquaintanceship, we may well say that we have been intimate with two or three ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... and material details of 1Kings vi., vii. are reproduced only in an imperfect and cursory manner, the act of consecration on the other hand, and the discourse delivered by Solomon on the occasion, is accurately and fully given (v. 2-vii. 10) in accordance with 1Kings viii.; such additions and omissions as occur are all deliberate. In 1Kings viii. the priests ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... himself across his wheel, gave a cursory glance at the landscape, took a running slide over the tracks with a swift pedal or two and slumped in a heap, lying motionless as the dead. He couldn't have done it more effectively if he had practised for a week. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... maids Caius was obliged to relate wherefore he had come and whither he was bound. He told his story with a feeling of self-conscious awkwardness, because, put it in as cursory a manner as he would, he felt the heroism of his errand must appear; nor was he with this present audience mistaken. The wrinkled maidens, with their warm Irish hearts, were overcome with the thought that so much youth and ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Spalding was the originator of the trip, the master spirit of the remarkable enterprise, and the leader of the band of base ball missionaries to the antipodes. Of course, in recording the Australian trip in the GUIDE for 1889, only a cursory glance can be taken of the trip, as it would require a volume of itself to do the tour justice. Suffice it to say that the pluck, energy and business enterprise which characterized the unequaled event reflected the highest credit not only ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... the greater part of what we had to say has been already said, in speaking of his works. The most cursory perusal of these will satisfy us that he had a mind of the highest order; grand by nature, and cultivated by the assiduous study of a lifetime. It is not the predominating force of any one faculty ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... what kind of a treasure is this that we propose to bequeath to posterity? What is the real value of this system of metaphysics, purified by criticism, and thereby reduced to a permanent condition? A cursory view of the present work will lead to the supposition that its use is merely negative, that it only serves to warn us against venturing, with speculative reason, beyond the limits of experience. This is, in fact, its primary use. But this, at once, assumes a positive value, when we observe ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... more frequent use than any other intellectual quality; it is exerted on slight occasions, and called into act by the cursory business of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... fact, that they considered wisdom as synonymous with sleepless and unscrupulous cunning! Schiller declares that 'man depicts himself in his gods'; and even a cursory inspection of the classics proves that all the abhorred and hideous ideas of the ancients were personified by woman. Pluto was affable, and beneficent, and gentlemanly, in comparison with Brimo; ditto might be said of Loke and Hela, and the most appalling idea that ever attacked the brain of mankind, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... V. be transient &c. adj.; flit, pass away, fly, gallop, vanish, fade, evaporate; pass away like a cloud, pass away like a summer cloud, pass away like a shadow, pass away like a dream. Adj. transient, transitory, transitive; passing, evanescent, fleeting, cursory, short-lived, ephemeral; flying &c. v.; fugacious, fugitive; shifting, slippery; spasmodic; instantaneous, momentaneous[obs3]. temporal, temporary; provisional, provisory; deciduous; perishable, mortal, precarious, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of the Inter-Mountain one of the men at the table in the private dining-room had registered from Chicago. The name was illegible to the cursory eye, but since it was the signature of a notable empire-builder, it was sufficiently well known in all the vast region served by the Transcontinental Railway System. The owner of the name had finished his ice, and was sitting back to clip the end from a very long and very black cigar. He was a man ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... here unnecessarily alarmed. On that terrible slave question, over which wiser brains have puzzled, till they became lost in a labyrinth of self-contradiction, I purpose to speak only a few cursory words. It is beyond dispute that a vast extent of the richest land in the South can only be kept in cultivation by the Africans, who can thrive and fatten where the white man withers helplessly. No one that has realized the present state of our own West Indian colonies, will ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... his enthusiasm was once more alight in my father when I got back to our camp that morning; and one might have supposed it nourished him, if one had judged from the cursory manner in which his share of our simple breakfast was dispatched. Then, carrying with him a tomahawk, I remember, he led us down across the sand to where the ship lay, so deeply bedded that one stepped over her rail as it might have been the coaming of a hatch. Her deck, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... a good boy, has no objection to his praying, and hopes a good master will buy him. He will do all he can to further his interests, having heard a deal about his talents. He says this with good-natured measure, and proceeds to take a cursory view of the felons. While he is thus proceeding, the gentlemen of trade who accompanied him are putting "the property" through a series ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... awed at the imposing doorway, but Andrea, boylike, marched in unabashed, and, after a cursory glance in various directions, declared himself ready to leave. He would far rather be outdoors and could scarcely wait to get on ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... sight appear from what has been said that the literature of the sexual life of the child was extremely voluminous, but this is not in reality the case. Almost always, this important question is handled in a casual or cursory manner. A thorough presentation of the subject has not, as far as my knowledge extends, hitherto been attempted. Freud rightly insists that even in all, or nearly all, the works on the psychology ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... vain for him to attempt, in a cursory address, to fan the fervour of his hearers' zeal, or throw light on subjects which they were in the habit ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... painter who has "come on" visibly since the war. He has drawn right away from "the field" to join those leaders—Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Bonnard, shall we say, with one or two more in close attendance—a cursory glance at whom, as they flash by, provokes this not unprofitable exclamation: "How different they are!" Apparently, amongst the chiefs, that famous movement no longer counts for much. Look at them; to an eye at all practised these artists ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... mentioned this circumstance in the cursory tone of an ordinary remark, but he could not conceal the pride he felt in the rank and condition of his guest. As for Gorman, perhaps it was his foreign breeding, perhaps his ignorance of all home matters generally, but he simply assented to the force of the caution, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... carried before the commons, who voted him insane, and ordered his dismissal. The court of king's bench, however, committed Dun to prison for want of bail and securities, and looking upon facts only in a cursory light, the people believed that the government was determined to make away with the defender of their liberties. All this tended to render the cabinet so obnoxious, that Horace Walpole was apprehensive that there would have been some ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... consisted of some two-score structures, and only a cursory glance was needed to ascertain that it was the source of supplies and rendez-vous for entertainment of the several mines and all the miners and prospectors in the neighboring hills. Several fairly good roads and many trails led into it, and from it there ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... dismiss him out of her life with a cursory word of pardon and a half-expressed promise of oblivion: on that understanding and that only she was ready to let her hand rest for the space of one second ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... was essentially a man of the intellect. No other author of modern times, perhaps no other English author of any time, appeals so directly as he to the educated classes. Even a cursory reading of his pages, prose or verse, reveals the scholar and the critic. He is always thinking, always brilliant, never lacks for a word or phrase; and on the whole, his judgments are good. Between his prose and verse, however, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... On a cursory inspection of the great works of art—the steam-engine, the printing-press, the power-loom, the mill, the iron foundery, the ship, the telescope, etc., etc.—we are apt to look upon them as having sprung into sudden existence, and reached their present state of perfection by one, or, at most, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... along with the current into far distant seas and strange climes. To this cause the occasional discovery of foreigners upon British coasts has been ascribed. With regard to the name of the cat-fish, one must not be quite so particular. There is, on a cursory glance, enough of the appearance of pussy about the head of this curious animal to explain how the title came to be applied to it. It strikes one as being rather a morose and surly creature, an ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... must be afforded protection. These were traversed with care, and seen with as much thoroughness as possible. More of the reserves might easily have been visited in other States, had I been content to do this in a sketchy and cursory manner, but my idea was to derive the greatest possible amount of instruction for a definite specific purpose, and it seemed to me for the accomplishment of this end to be essential that one should spend a sufficiently long time in each forest to receive ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... would here mention Rogers's Italy, if such a cursory notice could convey our high opinion ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... an aid in the compilation, we might almost say, as a framework to fill up. This is the itinerary of the German knight William of Boldensele, written in 1336 at the desire of Cardinal Talleyrand de Perigord. A cursory comparison of this with Mandeville leaves no doubt of the fact that the latter has followed its thread, using its suggestions, and on many subjects its expressions, though digressing and expanding on ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the main deck and prowled aft. On the port side of her house he found two more dead men, and a cursory inspection of the bodies told him they had died of scurvy. He circled the ship, came back to the fo'castle, entered, and found four men alive in their berths, but too far gone to leave them. "I'll have you ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... leisure for mankind. Do not believe them: it only creates a vacuum for eager thought to rush in. Even idleness is eager now—eager for amusement; prone to excursion-trains, art museums, periodical literature, and exciting novels; prone even to scientific theorizing and cursory peeps through microscopes. Old Leisure was quite a different personage. He only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from that periodicity of sensations which we call post-time. He was a contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent digestion; of quiet perceptions, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... theory of the visible Church and her fellowship, not only hostile to the Church of England and fraught with absurdity, but propounded under the alluring guise of Christian charity; a charity which has won for him the applause of the professors of modern liberalism, because, on a cursory glance, it appears to embrace all sects and denominations of Christians. It is proper, therefore, to set the matter in a true light, by showing that this liberality of sentiment is more specious than real; that Mr. Noel is throwing out false colours, and that while, in no measured ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... the study of the ancient geometry in Lancashire; for during the latter half of the last century, and almost up to the present date, it has numbered amongst its members several of the most distinguished geometers of modern times. A cursory glance at some of the mathematical periodicals of that date will readily furnish the names of Ainsworth, whose elegant productions in pure geometry adorn the pages of the Gentleman's and Burrow's Diaries; Taylor, the distinguished tutor of Wolfenden; Fletcher, whose investigations ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... hear; and the immense balance may be so far against the foregoing inferences that it is the part of mere prudence to declare that they are not my opinions or conclusions, but are only impressions, vague and hurried, guesses from cursory observations, deductions from slight casual incidents. They are mere gleams from social facets, sparks struck out by chance encounter, and never glancing lights from the rarefied atmosphere in which the two nations have their formal reciprocities. For all that I have really the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... was more elevated, no doubt overlooking cultivated fields beyond the confines of the ruin. No kivas were discovered, but if such exist they ought to be found in the mass of houses at the southern end. I thought we had found circular rooms in that region, but cursory excavations did not demonstrate their existence. As there is no reason to suspect the existence of circular kivas in ancient Tusayan, it would be difficult to decide whether or not any one of the large rectangular rooms was used for ceremonial ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... cursory acquaintance we had judged the French a sociable nation. Our stay at Versailles speedily convinced us of the fallacy of that belief. Nothing could have impressed us so forcibly as did the frigid silence that characterised the ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... in her little black book and checked off when the owners testified that the said garments had been made whole. So remembering the immaculate clothes which awaited her each week in Genevieve's room, she made a cursory examination of the dainty undies and checked O.K. opposite ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... this conclusion is supported is too subtle and complicated to be properly dealt with in a public lecture, and you will thank me for not inviting you to consider it at all.[13] I feel the more free to pass it by now as I think that the cursory account of the absolutistic attitude which I have already given is sufficient for our present purpose, and that my own verdict on the philosophy of the absolute as 'not proven'—please observe that I go no farther now—need not ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... three days after Christmas John was sitting in his room in the evening when there came a knock at the door, and to his "Come in" there entered Mr. Harum, who was warmly welcomed and entreated to take the big chair, which, after a cursory survey of the apartment and its furnishings, he did, saying, "Wa'al, I thought I'd come in an' see how Polly'd got you fixed; whether the baskit [casket?] was worthy of the jew'l, as I heard a feller say in ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... zealously that he had been absent last time and unable to assist. At every vacant minute he hastened to gather furze-stumps, thorn-tree roots, and other solid materials from the adjacent slopes, hiding them from cursory view. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... papers coming in between these two series, and covering the period extending from 1776 to 1789, have never been published, and in great part have either never been examined or else have been examined in the most cursory manner. The original documents are all in the Department of State at Washington, and for convenience will be referred to as "State Department MSS." They are bound in two or three hundred large volumes; exactly ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... are generally supposed to be Works of mere Amusement; or modest to direct its Judgment, in what is offered for its Entertainment; I would beg leave to introduce the following Sheets with a few cursory Remarks, that may lead the common Reader into some tolerable conception of the nature of this Work, and the ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... from the press. The leaves may all be cut, and the tops trimmed, and even gilded, without striking terror to the heart of the bibliomaniac. Dibdin, indeed, treats this last mentioned symptom in merely a superficial way and dismisses it with a few cursory remarks, viz: "It may be defined a passion to possess books of which the edges have never been sheared by the binder's tools." This definition is vague and unsatisfactory. Mr. Adrian H. Joline (Diversions of a Booklover, Harper & Bros., New ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... first sight it appeared to be as unblemished in every part of it as Nature's choicest and most perfect handiwork could be. So little did a mere cursory view suggest the possibility that life would have been destroyed by any external violence, that the Professor was about to take the necessary steps for ascertaining what light could be thrown on the manner of her death by the internal condition of the different portions of the organism, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... needs but a cursory view of history to realize—though all knowledge of history confirms the generalization—that this arena is not a confused and aimless conflict of individuals. Looked at too closely it may seem to be that—a formless web of individual hates ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... even in a cursory way, with the history of Europe will be able to recall numerous such instances; and it must in fairness be admitted that in some of them the ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... A cursory reading will suggest to any young person that the paragraph says Ailie is going to die, and that she does not fear death; but how much more it means to him who can understand it all. The end was drawing on—Ailie was going to her ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... the yard, though this exit was evidently never used, for the door was fixed by screws. The contents were a couple of broken chairs, and some coats and rugs hung upon hooks upon the walls, together with a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends upon a shelf. I gave merely a cursory glance at the contents of this apartment, for my attention had been attracted by a plant of machinery, which occupied the far end of the large room. As it happened, I had once had an opportunity of inspecting the laboratory of the Royal Institution, and I recognized at once ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... Cursory and incomprehensible, but conclusive; and Lance, who minded enough to have lost sleep and gained a headache, marvelled over young men's lightness and buoyancy. He had seen Dr. Brownlow, and arranged that there should be a call, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... A cursory inspection quickly convinced Jack that the station was not of recent installation, but had been put in about the year 1918. Much of the equipment, while of the best at the time it was put in, had been ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... now worked with new zest for his employer and friend; while in every free moment he read law, feeling that, as almost all his forbears had been lawyers, he might perhaps be destined for the bar. This acquaintance with the fundamental basis of law, cursory as it was, became like a gospel to Edward Bok. In later years, he was taught its value by repeated experience in his contact with corporate laws, contracts, property leases, and other matters; and he determined that, whatever the direction of activity ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... to estimate a book or an article on a cursory inspection is of great practical value. The table of contents in a book, and sometimes the index, will give a good idea of its scope; and samples of a few pages at a time, especially on critical points, which can be chosen by means of the index, will ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... possessed some science of graciousness and attraction which books had not taught, and of which neither I nor my father had any knowledge; that he had the power of obliging those whom he did not benefit; that he diffused, upon his cursory behaviour and most trifling actions, a gloss of softness and delicacy by which every one was dazzled; and that, by some occult method of captivation, he animated the timorous, softened the supercilious, and opened the reserved. I could not but repine at the inelegance of my own manners, which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... some helpful Hand had contrived to bring out, under the pretended date "Potsdam," a cheap edition of that interesting Work. ["OEuvres du Philosophe de Sans-Souci:" 1 vol. 12 mo, "Potsdam [PARIS, in truth], 1760."] Merely in the way of theft, as appeared to cursory readers, to D'Argens, for example: [His Letter to the King, OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 138.] but, in deeper fact, for the purpose of apprising certain Crowned Heads, friendly and hostile,—Czarish Majesty ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... young Somerset's brain-work for the last six weeks lay under their eyes. To Dare, who was too cursory to trouble himself by entering into such details, it had very little meaning; but the design shone into Havill's head like a light into a dark place. It was original; and it was fascinating. Its originality lay partly in the circumstance that Somerset had not attempted to adapt an old ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Duties of a more stirring character, were, however, awaiting them, and as these are intimately associated with the career of the subject of this biography, the delineation of whose life is the purpose of the writer, we will give them something more than a cursory notice. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... spoke, and after a cursory examination of the tall stool in front of the desk the officer picked up a thick silver-mounted rattan cane thrust in a stand by the side of the desk in company with ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... proceeded to scan the sky, roving from planet to star, from single stars to double stars, from double to coloured stars, in the cursory manner of the merely curious. They plunged down to that at other times invisible multitude in the back rows of the celestial theatre: remote layers of constellations whose shapes were new and singular; pretty twinklers which for infinite ages had spent their beams without calling ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... state the question, you must solve it; I can leave you only some cursory ideas, which I am satisfied are just, and upon which you may meditate at your leisure. Only for fools or the weak does materialism become a debasing dogma; assuredly, in its code there are none of those precepts of ordinary morals which our fathers ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... more they will be astonished. If we may judge by what has already taken place, we are entitled to predict that in a very few years more no European banner will be seen to float in any part of the new world. Let us take a cursory view ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... danger increasing with the fever, and therewith his horror of his father's knowing. It was of no use for his mother to hang over him, hold his hands, and assure him that she knew (as, in fact, she did, for Bernard had been obliged to make a cursory explanation), and that nothing could hinder her loving him still; he forgot it in the next interruption, and turned from her with terror and dismay, and once he nearly flung himself out of bed, fancying that ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... fortune!" I cried, gazing about me at the splendors of the room, which even to a cursory inspection revealed themselves as of priceless value. "That cloisonne jar over by the fireplace is worth two ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... many optional civilities in life which add very much to its charm if observed, but which cannot be called indispensable. To those which are harmless and graceful we shall give a cursory glance, and to those which are doubtful and perhaps harmful we shall also briefly allude, leaving it to the common-sense of the reader as to whether he will hereafter observe in his own manners these ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... errand, and when Grace came back she alighted from Mr. Libby's buggy with an expression of thanks that gave no clew as to the direction or purpose of it. He touched his hat to her with equal succinctness, and drove away, including all the ladies on the piazza in a cursory obeisance. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in the present Lecture go back to the age of Queen Anne, and endeavour to give a cursory account of the most eminent of our poets, of whom I have not already spoken, from ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... After a cursory glance around, they went forth again out upon the landing in order to await the arrival of two other plain-clothes officers who had come round on foot, one of them the sergeant of the Criminal Investigation Department attached to the Kew station. Then, after giving orders to the constable ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... precise nature of his malady was not known, since with quiet hopelessness he had refused to take medical advice. His friend Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was the only physician who had an opportunity to take even a cursory view of his case, which he did in the course of a brief walk and conversation in Boston before Hawthorne started with Mr. Pierce; but he was unable, with that slight opportunity, to reach any definite conclusion. Dr. Holmes prescribed and had put up for him a remedy to palliate some ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a matter to be dealt with as any one pleases—for the sake of sense, of more sense, of better sense, as much as if the text were a Greek manuscript without any division of words. This position I need not argue with anyone who has given but a cursory glance to the original page, or knows anything of printers' pointing. I hold hard by the word, for that is, or may be, grain: the pointing as we have it is merest chaff, and more likely to be wrong than right. Here also, however, I change ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... disclose the reasons of Professor Sloane for indulging in this prodigious Napoleonic dream and for delineating it in what is likely to be regarded as the best product of his intellectual career. We can only take what he has produced and give it such cursory notice as our space ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... by his papers, and by the presence on board of several gaunt, sickly-looking figures, who had all the appearance of being military invalids. There were no visible signs of any cargo; and after a somewhat cursory examination, the lieutenant returned to his ship, after telling the skipper, more for the sake of annoyance than from any expectation of its being realised, 'that Captain Long would ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... this occasion has inspired much censure and surprise when contrasted with his conspicuous respect for virtue in all other cases. But the history of the time requires intelligent expansion. Cursory reading suggests that Umako's resolve to kill Sushun was taken suddenly in consequence of discovering the latter's angry mood. The truth seems to be that Sushun was doomed from the moment of his accession. His elder brother had perished at the hands of Umako's troops, and if he himself ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... they were particularly jealous of any inspection at Oppau, the site of the wonderful Haber synthetic ammonia plant. Lieut. McConnel, of the U.S. Navy, tells us:[1] "Upon arrival at the plant the Germans displayed a polite but sullen attitude. They seemed willing to afford the opportunity of a cursory inspection, but strongly objected to a detailed examination. On the third day of the visit the writer was informed that his presence had become a source of serious objection and that if his examination were prolonged ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... fuss for nothing!" Pao-ch'ai interposed. "I merely passed a cursory remark, and there you want to go immediately and ask for things. Do wait until we arrive at some decision in our deliberations, and then you can go! But let's consider now what would be best to use to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... light at once the termination of that period and the beginning of a phase of my youth which was full of the charm of poetry. Therefore, I will not pursue my recollections from hour to hour, but only throw a cursory glance at the most prominent of them, from the time to which I have now carried my tale to the moment of my first contact with the exceptional personality that was fated to exercise such a decisive influence ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... these two occasions, I had no opportunity of making any observations on the manners and customs of our neighbours. Occasionally Mrs. Tod mentioned them in her social chatter, while laying the cloth; but it was always in the most cursory and trivial way, such as "Miss March having begged that the children might be kept quiet—Mrs. Tod hoped their noise didn't disturb ME? but Mr. March was such a very fidgety gentleman—so particular in his dress, too—Why, Miss March had to iron his cravats with ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... electric sign—"Lustgarten." Even a cursory glance told them that it included a saloon on the first floor, with a sort of dance hall and second-rate cabaret. Above that was a hotel. The windows were darkened, with awnings pulled down, even on what must have been in the daytime ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... all law, seeing that they could either manufacture it, or its interpretation, at will. Among the conspicuous, audacious capitalists the fraud of a few paltry millions shrank to the modesty of a small, cursory, off-hand operation. Yet, in the aggregate, these petty frauds constituted great results, and for that ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... prominent Americans are shamefully meagre, I was inclined to regard Rector Reed's sermon as a historical document of inestimable value. Being prone, however, to act upon the advice of St. Paul and "prove all things," I began a cursory investigation. Rector Reed neglected to give the source of his information, and to save me I could find but seven presidents, including Washington, who were Episcopalians, and now Col. Patrick Ford, of the Irish World calls my attention to Jared Spark's statement that the Father of his ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... essence of the tale to consist in the conception of an external soul or "life- index," and they both trace in this a "survival" of savage philosophy, which they consider occurs among all men at a certain stage of culture. But the most cursory examination of the sets of tales containing these incidents in Mr. Frazer's analyses shows that many, indeed the majority, of these tales cannot be independent of one another; for they contain not alone the incident of an external materialised soul, but the further point that this is contained ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... to content himself with a cursory examination of the forage and baggage wagon and presently came slouching back to the fire again. He had some scrap of harness in his hand and Pike longed to know what, but it was too far from his post of observation. He decided to remain where he was. ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... catch a moment's rest and sleep on the stone steps and in the corners of the lobby. I have no legal proof of the truth of the statement, or I should name the firm. The Report of the Children's Employment Commission is very cursory upon this subject, stating merely that in England, at least, the children are mostly pretty well clothed and fed (relatively, according to the wages of the parents), that they receive no education whatsoever, and are ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... in a necessarily cursory manner with volcanoes of distant parts of the globe, we may proceed to the consideration of the group of active volcanoes which still survive in Europe, as they possess a special interest, not only from their proximity and facility of access, at least ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... would involve a great deal of unnecessary repetition. In their buildings, their customs, their worship, their religious faith, their extreme cleanliness, their costume, and in many other particulars, they are all nearly alike; and the Shaker of Kentucky does not to the cursory view differ from his brother of Maine. But I have thought it necessary, to a complete view of the order, to present some particulars of each society, as to its location, numbers, the quantity of land it owns, its industries, and ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... suggestion of strength, of a mastery of facts, of a fund of knowledge, that speaks well for future production. . . . To be thoroughly enjoyed, however, this book must be read, as no mere cursory notice can give an adequate idea of its many interesting points and excellences, for without a doubt 'Dr. Claudius' is the most interesting book that has been published for many months, and richly deserves a high place in the public ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... clearly its defects, and are laboring most assiduously to correct them. Grave obstacles have been encountered in their endeavors to perfect the system. Those who have written upon the subject in the public press have been largely such as have given it but a cursory study, or such as have been totally unfit to discuss it from an impartial standpoint by reason of preconceived notions or prejudices in favor of the level premium system of insurance, if, indeed, they have not been retained for a consideration by ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... infinitely extended. Considering these circumstances, Cook's exploration of the coast was wonderful, and the charts attached to this book attest the skill and unwearied pains taken in mapping it from such a cursory glance. He only stopped at four places: Botany Bay, Bustard Bay, Thirsty Sound, and the Endeavour River; and from the neighbourhood of these, with the view obtained as he coasted along, he had to form his opinion of the country—an ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... obviously impossible to treat a subject so vast and so profoundly interesting as this within the limits of a Parish Paper, except in the most cursory and superficial manner. Yet I am induced to make the attempt, in order, if possible, to impress my readers with such ideas of our life in heaven as are more in accordance with the nature of man and the Word of God, than, I am inclined to think, obtain among many sincere ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod |
