"Perspicacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are indebted for the preservation of the literature of Rome, and the multiplied copies of the works of the ancients. Nor were they contented only with the praise of never-ending industry. They forged many works, that afterwards passed for classical, and which have demanded all the perspicacity of comparative criticism to refute. And in these pursuits the indefatigable men who were dedicated to them, were not even goaded by the love of fame. They were satisfied with the consciousness of their own perseverance ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... she rose from the table might have been taken for assent. It was in reality satisfaction at her own perspicacity. She had not supposed for one moment that he had been ill but in no other way could she express what she wanted to know. It was in itself an innocuous and natural remark, but the sudden gloom that fell on him warned ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Herausgeber, in no wise! I here, by the unexampled favor you stand in with our Sage, send not a Biography only, but an Autobiography: at least the materials for such; wherefrom, if I misreckon not, your perspicacity will draw fullest insight: and so the whole Philosophy and Philosopher of Clothes will stand clear to the wondering eyes of England, nay thence, through America, through Hindostan, and the antipodal New Holland, finally conquer (einnehmen) great ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... seemed needful, I have endeavored to explain in brief footnotes. But I have desired to avoid distracting the attention of the reader from the narrative, and have mainly left the understanding of it to his good sense and perspicacity. The clearness of Dante's imaginative vision is so complete, and the character of his narration of it so direct and simple, that the difficulties in understanding his intention ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... before, you’re rather lacking at times in perspicacity. Your intelligence is marred by large opaque spots. Now that there’s a woman in the case you’re less sane than ever. Bah, these women! And now we’ve got to go ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... told the King. "I have never seen a more despicable creature than you. The admirable perspicacity inherent in your tribe seems to have deteriorated in you to a hyperbolated insousancy." Then he reached out his arms and slapped the king four times, twice on one side of his face ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... perspicacity. You do not know, but you suspect, what I am about to disclose to you. My hope is that, when I am done, your Majesty will throw Kant and the rest of your philosophers out of the window. The people are sullen at the mention of your name, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... depends on character; a cheerful heart In one, a buoyant imagination in another, and the sweet self-oblivion which Faith imparts in a third, sentiment here and will there, work the same miracle. Foresti belonged to that class of Italians who combine perspicacity and force of reasoning with a frank, affectionate, and trustful disposition,—types of the manly intellect, the childlike heart; incarceration, while it failed to enfeeble the former, by seclusion from life's game and the world's encroachments from early youth to middle age, perhaps ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... same question respecting Tsz-kung and Yen Yu he answered similarly, pronouncing Tsz-kung to be a man of perspicacity, and Yen Yu to be one ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... must see—I see it plainly enough—that Mr. Digby is going to marry Althea.' He actually didn't add, 'If she'll have him.' Helen wondered how far his perspicacity went; had he seen what Gerald had seen, and what she had ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... wood-work, looking behind the pictures for the hiding place of the famous diamond. In his time he had seen so many secret drawers, double-seated chairs, and numerous contrivances of a similar sort, that it would be a cunning hand that could baffle his perspicacity and experience. ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... wanted her to be attached to the household at Shortlands, he was using Winifred as his stalking-horse. The father thought only of his child, he saw a rock of salvation in Gudrun. And Gudrun admired him for his perspicacity. The child, moreover, was really exceptional. Gudrun was quite content. She was quite willing, given a studio, to spend her days at Shortlands. She disliked the Grammar School already thoroughly, she wanted to be free. If a studio were provided, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... was a man of business. His daughter should marry a man who had money sufficient to insure his worth. With perspicacity rare in a man, he had observed that the two singular men of this narrative admired his daughter. Now, Bat, being a freak, was making money rapidly, while Sampey was only a poor literary bureau! Castellani felt the need of a partner. Why should not a ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... and what a base! An official Supreme Being, and a regulated Terror. The one was to fill up the spiritual void, and the other to satisfy all the exigencies of temporal things. It is to the credit of Robespierre's perspicacity that he should have recognised the human craving for religion, but this credit is as naught when we contemplate the jejune thing that passed for religion in his dim and narrow understanding. Rousseau had brought a new soul into the eighteenth century by the Savoyard Vicar's ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... deal of esprit, to whom forty years' experience of the great world had given a prodigious perspicacity of judgment, the Duchess of Chalux, arbitress of the opinion to be held on all new comers to the Faubourg Saint Germain, and of their destiny and reception in it;—one of those women, in a word, who make or ruin a man,—said, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... husks as the normal book of Griswold's day. The whole atmosphere of our literature, in William James' phrase, is "mawkish and dishwatery." Books are still judged among us, not by their form and organization as works of art, their accuracy and vividness as representations of life, their validity and perspicacity as interpretations of it, but by their conformity to the national prejudices, their accordance with set standards of niceness and propriety. The thing irrevocably demanded is a "sane" book; the ideal is a "clean," an "inspiring," a ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... "will you be kind enough to carry my condolences to the ladies at court, and say that I recommend reading as an antidote for the poison which idleness produces. I've no doubt that they, with all the perspicacity of lonely and honest women, imagine that I maintain a harem as well as a bar-room. Kindly set them right about it. Neither my home nor my bar-room is open to ladies. If you don't mind we'll go on ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... for his merits we accord the full Christian name—do any discredit to the perspicacity of his master, if it was not that he rather exceeded the hopes of his benefactor, for he was attentive to the horses, civil to the farmers, and handy at anything that came in his way. Then, to render the connection reciprocal, William was gratefully alive to the conviction that if ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... has placed the result of his researches at my disposal with a disinterestedness I shall never be able adequately to acknowledge. He has also carefully read the whole of my work. M. Jean Brousson has given me the advantage of his perspicacity which far surpasses what one is entitled to expect ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... had always an admirable perspicacity in discerning what was false; and it may be said that in everything and always truth was the sole object of his mind. From his childhood he could only yield to what seemed to him evidently true; and when others spoke of good reasons, he tried to find them for himself. He never quitted a subject ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... with a natural perspicacity that enabled him, as soon as he heard these remarks, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... habitual perspicacity: "It is the widespread belief in the Great Spirit, whatever his precise nature and origin, that has long and deservedly drawn the attention of European thinkers to the native religions of the North American tribes". Now while, in recent times, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... inference and synthesis. Much of it, to be sure, can be divined from the acts and conversations, from the dress and manners of the characters, but there is always more that has to be directly expounded. The writer cannot rely upon the reader's perspicacity to make the right inferences, or upon his knowledge to supply sufficient data; nor can he make his characters tell all that he may want told about their past and the life of the world in which they live, and through the influence of which they ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... of it, I once stopped and had a talk with a farmer whom I had asked for work. Although he had none to give me he was very civil, and we talked of tramps and tramping. He looked at me keenly. "I can see you are not of the regular professionals," said he. "Thank you for your perspicacity," I answered, and though perspicacity fairly floored him, he saw it was not an insult, and went on talking. "Now look here, my boy, they say we're hard on tramps, and perhaps some of us are, but I reckon we sometimes get enough to make us rough. Last summer I ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... about the room, irritation and pity expressed in every feature of his countenance, not wholly unmixed, it must be confessed (or so it seemed to Calvert, who could not help being a little amused thereat), with a certain satisfaction at his perspicacity. Suddenly ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtu. They are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here, too, are some chefs d'oeuvre of the unknown great; and here, unfinished designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence and to me. What think you," said he, turning abruptly as he spoke—"what think you of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he redeemed them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist might call the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little like a fox, and he was thought to be very wily, but never false or dishonest. His wiliness was perspicacity; and consisted in foreseeing results and protecting himself and others from the traps set for them. He loved whist, a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which the abbe learned to play in a very ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... far beyond the allotted years of man Mr. Gallatin retained the elasticity of his physical nature as well as his mental perspicacity. In middle age he was slight of figure, his height about five feet ten inches, his form compact and of nervous vigor. His complexion was Italian;[28] his expression keen; his nose long, prominent; his mouth small, fine cut, and mobile; his eyes hazel, and penetrative; his ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... absurd, as it is also to believe in the disinterestedness of a politician, reformer, office-holder, a corporation, or a rich man. But to believe evil, to expect to be swindled, or prepare to be deceived is the height of perspicacity and wisdom. How wonderfully Shakspere in Othello portrays the wretchedness of the suspicious man. One reason why Iago so hated the Moor ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... it difficult to interpret the sudden look he gave her, but her perspicacity warned her that she was on the wrong tack with this man of ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... He felt humiliated at Claudet's perspicacity; but he had too much pride and selfrespect to let his preferred rival know of his unfortunate passion. He waited a moment to swallow something in his throat that seemed to be choking him, and then, trying in vain to ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's and the family director, called profane books. This discipline had borne fruit. Forced to employ her feelings on some passion or other, Elisabeth became eager after gain. Though she was not lacking in sense or perspicacity, religious theories, and her complete ignorance of higher emotions had encircled all her faculties with an iron hand; they were exercised solely on the commonest things of life; spent in a few directions ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... a roof whose outlines are merged in the gray dusk of dreams. There is cruelty, horror, and a sense of the wickedly magnificent in the ensemble. What crimes were committed to merit such atrocious punishment? The boldness and clearness of it all! With perspicacity George Saintsbury wrote of Flaubert's Temptation of Saint Anthony: "It is the best example of dream literature that I know—most writers who have tried this style have erred, inasmuch as they have endeavoured to throw a portion of the mystery with which the waking ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... remembered as her early attributes, were quite gone, and now I saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and rosy tint, rounded its contours and brightened its hues. I had been accustomed to nurse a flattering idea that my strong attachment to her proved some particular perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life's treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that it was only my tastes which were ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... without loss of time, her perspicacity penetrated the disguises, although not to the motives that impelled the plotters. She centered her thoughts on the old, white-locked pianist, who silently listened to all the parties and was tolerated even when the piano was closed; he was taciturn, always blandly smiling and bent in a ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... indeed! Well, that was a proof of your perspicacity. You may recall that in my book I referred to ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... took public opinion captive, it might be a drama in appearance insignificant, and then each one saw and followed traces which were more or less normal and ordinarily probable. Fandor and Juve, Fandor alone, or Juve isolated, following the indications which only their perspicacity enabled them to discover, still and always felt the presence, the trace of this monster, this being so enigmatical, so ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... and this invasion, if rightly considered, cannot but bring universal ruin, although it seems to menace us alone.' In his agony Ferdinand applied to Alexander VI. But the Pope looked coldly upon him, because the King of Naples, with rare perspicacity, had predicted that his elevation to the Papacy would prove disastrous to Christendom. Alexander preferred to ally himself with Venice and Milan. Upon this Ferdinand wrote as follows: 'It seems fated that the Popes should leave no peace in Italy. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Thierry had reached the spirit of the past. He had prophesied upon the dry bones and to the wind, and the dry bones lived. As a liberal, he had been interested in contemporary politics. His political ardour had given him that historical perspicacity which enabled him to discover the soul behind an ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... a horse and started for Widewood. He had to stop and shake hands with Parson Tombs over his front palings, and make an honest effort to feel annoyed by the old man's laughter-laden compliments on his energy, enterprise, and perspicacity. At the Halliday cottage he saw Fannie clipping roses from the porch trellis for Martha Salter, who stood by. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... I retorted, still smarting a little, "I shall not presume to match my stupidity against your perspicacity. I haven't ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... and fetch her down, Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply,—his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making him suspect that the lad had been hard upon "the little un," else she would never have left his side. "And be good to her, do you hear? Else I'll ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... merely ignored. It was understood that now, as in the past, he was supposed to make himself "useful" by way of paying his shot; and as he had never been known to be any other thing than useless, it was evidence rather of the easy good nature than the perspicacity of his associates that he never had actually lacked food and shelter in that place. But that was as much, men thought, as "Tame Cat Harry" could possibly expect. One of the last fond messages flung at Beeching, as his overloaded sled swung out ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... mighty detectives whose proceedings form a school, as it were, and whose names will always remain inscribed on the judicial annals of Europe. He lacks the flashes of genius that illumine a Dupin, a Lecoq or a Holmlock Shears. But he possesses first-rate average qualities: perspicacity, sagacity, perseverance and even a certain amount of intuition. His greatest merit lies in the fact that he is absolutely independent of outside influences. Short of a kind of fascination which Arsene Lupin wields ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... the draftsman, as one properly disgusted with his own lack of perspicacity. Then, after another and more searching scrutiny, in which the headlight glare of his own engine was helped out by the burning of half a dozen matches: "Whoever did that, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... what they said to themselves as one adventure followed another now in the career of Billy Breckenbridge you who read these words can judge, if you be blessed with ordinary perspicacity. For many things took place and many months went by before he reached down along his lean right thigh toward the butt of his ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... But, though suspected, the ineffectiveness of that squadron could not be assumed before proved. Until then—to use the words of an Italian writer who has treated the whole subject of this war with comprehensive and instructive perspicacity—Spain had "the possibility of contesting the command of the sea, and even of securing a definite preponderance, by means of a squadron possessed of truly exceptional characteristics, both tactical and strategic,"—in short, by means of a "fleet ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... is the main merit of "The Shipwreck." It has in most of its descriptive passages a certain rugged strength and truth, which prove at once the perspicacity and the poetic vision of the author, who, while he sees all the minute details of his subject, sees also the glory of imagination shining around them. A ship appears before his view, with its every spar and yard, clear and distinct as if seen in meridian sunshine, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... COMPARATIVE SAGACITY, or Perspicacity, as Gall called it, was a better term than Comparison, which was introduced by Spurzheim. Direct perception of truth is its leading character. Illustration by comparison belongs to the breadth of the forehead, to the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... knowl- 128:15 edge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher 128:18 realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... have caught the universal feeling of western people regarding the matter of "quakes," he chuckled, in contemplation of his own perspicacity, and calmly resumed his recumbent ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... troublesome conscience," referring to its extreme tenderness, and his nervous scrupulousness lest he should wear the remotest appearance of evil. His religious works are chiefly critical and controversial, and are written in a style of quiet and graceful simplicity, with great perspicacity of expression and perspicuity of thought. His "Scripture Testimony of the Messiah" is a wonderful monument of human learning and clear, candid, and cogent logic. It is the greatest standard work ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... have found a prince of the church, pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together the indicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncanny acumen that you stood aghast at his perspicacity?" ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... of quick intelligence on his florid features, the trooper backed out of the room. With his hands behind him, his shoulders bent forward, the duke long pondered, his look, keen and discerning; his perspicacity clear, in spite of Francis' wine, or the intoxication of the princess' eyes. Although the noble's glance seemed bent on vacancy, it was himself as well as others he was studying; weighing the memorable ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Irish, and it was persisted in for a period of ten years, or until they had secured a substantial victory. The history of the anti-rent agitation in New York also illustrates strikingly, as it seems to me, the perspicacity of a remark made, in substance, long ago by Mr. Disraeli, which, in my eyes at least, threw a great deal of light on the Irish problem, namely, that Ireland was suffering from suppressed revolution. As Mr. Dicey says, "The crises called revolutions are ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... intentions happened to be mingled with the play were lost in the details of the action—or in the often mischievous interpretation of the actors. With his wonderful perspicacity, Delsarte seemed to foresee all the excesses of naturalism in certain forerunners of Adolphe Belot and ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... Zeitung. The work has just been completed by the publication of the fourth volume, which only confirms the reputation which the earlier portions gained for the author among the jurists of all Europe. Dr. Schaeffner, with equal learning and perspicacity, sets forth the relation of French law, and the changes it has undergone, to the history of the political institutions of the country. In this respect the work interests a much wider public than is ordinarily addressed by a juridical ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... for one moment doubt their constancy. Alas! it required but little perspicacity on her part to perceive that the letters on either side must have been intercepted by the Le Noirs—father ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... a potato properly, and the use of brooms and pails and scrubbing-brushes. "You must first clean them and then convert them: get them into the bath-tub, and you can take them anywhere," said Sir Robert, with great truth and perspicacity. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... This was marvellous perspicacity of thought; Lynn looked admiringly down at her sister, and Muffie stood, with her mouth open, digesting this freshly-minted fact, and making clear resolutions for all ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... worked so brilliantly as it was working now. The problems involved in his clients' affairs were child's play to him. He took them apart and put them together again with a careless, confident, infallible perspicacity that amazed his colleagues and his opponents. And, as Frank Crawford had pointed out, he took a savagely contemptuous pleasure in making those clients pay ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... year 1572 did the Duke less signally manifest his military genius. Assailed as he was at every point, with the soil suddenly upheaving all around him, as by an earthquake, he did not lose his firmness nor his perspicacity. Certainly, if he had not been so soon assisted by that other earthquake, which on Saint Bartholomew's Day caused all Christendom to tremble, and shattered the recent structure of Protestant Freedom in the Netherlands, it might have been worse for his reputation. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... observation and accuracy of distinction which books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original and native excellence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon mankind with perspicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diversify them only by the accidental appendages of present manners; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the same. Our author had both matter and form to provide; ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... a man must be a historian beforehand, a jurisconsult and economist, and have gathered up myriad of facts; and, besides all this, he must possess a vast erudition, an experienced and professional perspicacity. If these conditions are only partially complied with, the result will only be a half finished product or a doubtful alloy, a few rough drafts of the sciences, the rudiments of pedagogy as with Rousseau, of political economy with ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and Zoe blushed crimson to see her noble brother manipulated by this artful minx and then flattered for his perspicacity. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... nature really craved friendship hardly less than Schiller's, there was something very grateful in this frank homage combined with rare perspicacity. He saw that Schiller understood him or was at least concerned to understand him. With all their differences they were spiritual congeners, and much might be hoped for from this new connection. So he sent a very cordial reply to the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... laws of his country, if he will but apply his mind in good earnest to receive and apprehend them. For, though such knowlege as is necessary for a judge is hardly to be acquired by the lucubrations of twenty years, yet with a genius of tolerable perspicacity, that knowlege which is fit for a person of birth or condition may be learned in a single year, without ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... settlement were then in all probability pushing on as fast as possible through the brulee, and the other that the man had no desire to proceed to extremities. This was reassuring as far as it went, but it must be admitted that the surveyor was afterward a little astonished at his collectedness and perspicacity. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... perspicacity, he already foresaw that he would be guilty of cowardly conduct in yielding to this sudden weakness, and ashamed of himself he disengaged himself from her hysterical embrace, while Marianne squatted on his bed, throwing back her hair from her face, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... was the next to visit me. The comfortable old soul, redolent of perfume and glittering with diamonds, began by congratulating herself on her perspicacity. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... a-sitting beside her. The two gentlemen takes off their 'ats, and they all shakes hands together, and then Mr. Brunow and Mr. Sacovitch gets into the carriage, and they all drives off together." He stopped there with such an air of triumph and perspicacity that I was angry with him. Certainly the news that Brunow was about again was interesting, and might perhaps be useful. But that, being at large, he should be in the companionship of the baroness and the Austrian police spy was not at all by itself ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... have enough perspicacity to guess what had just taken place, he did not in any way show it. He sat down; and it was only after conversing for a few moments upon indifferent subjects, that he ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakespeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakespeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart, and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... be matter of controversy; but the dust of prejudice and passion, which so distempers the intellectual vision of theologians and politicians, is seen to make, with ruthless impartiality, no exception of the perspicacity of philologists. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... that with Uncle Sim's perspicacity this might be a leading question, but he made the answer he considered the most diplomatic in the circumstances. "She is if—if Claude is in love with her. But—but why do you call her that, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... prompt the other actors who were to play in his drama. So, to give himself a countenance, he had attached himself to the jealous Amelie, the better to lull suspicion in Lucien and in Mme. de Bargeton, who was not without perspicacity. In order to spy upon the pair, he had contrived of late to open up a stock controversy on the point with M. de Chandour. Chatelet said that Mme. de Bargeton was simply amusing herself with Lucien; she was too proud, too high-born, to stoop to the apothecary's son. The role of incredulity was ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... cherished. But, at last, I think she begins to know me: I don't perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... quarters which were usually well informed. Bostons had been much in request, and after hours they had had a further spurt, closing at L7 10S. Already in these three days he had cleared his option, and at present prices the shares showed a profit of a point. Mills would have to acknowledge that his perspicacity had been at fault, when he ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... social perspicacity that I hoped you would see without my having to tell you. It's ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... from a personage fully as important, a giant in power, whose words resound from one extremity of Europe to another, and whom the Choiseuls believe their own entirely." "It is M. de Voltaire," I said. "Exactly so: your perspicacity has made you guess it." "But what does he want with me?" "To be at peace with you; to range himself under your banner, secretly at first, but afterwards openly." "Is he then afraid openly to evince himself my friend?" I replied, in a tone of some pique. "Rather ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... aught but the most contemptuous disbelief in her pretensions of special foresight and mysterious endowment. They did not fear her discrimination, and told their story, through an interpreter, with a glib disregard of any uncanny perspicacity on her part. She was one of the many Indians of the reservation who speak no English. Her cabin was far from Quallatown, and indeed at a considerable distance from any other dwelling. With her and her few associates, ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... "Sheer American business perspicacity, that," said Salter, as he marched up and down, thinking of a particular case of this order. "There's something admirable in the practical way they make for what they want. They want to amalgamate ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... de Bargeton made no interruption. She was struck with his perspicacity. The queen of Angouleme had, in fact, counted upon preserving ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... apparent, as it is in all literature of this kind. In his letters he uses a very simple and naturally witty style. He was a great coiner of sentences, many of which can be found in his proclamations and addresses. His political perspicacity was remarkable. He could and did break the conventionalities and the political principles sacred in that epoch, to formulate those which were better for the condition of the country. He was a shrewd judge of ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... well as anywhere," said Markham, breaking his cigar-ash off. But Pinney's alluring confidence, and his simple-hearted acknowledgment of his lack of perspicacity had told upon him; he felt the fascinating need of helping Pinney, which Pinney was able to inspire in those who respected him least, and he said, "There was a priest who knew this man when he was at Haha Bay, and I believe he has a parish now—yes, he has! I remember ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... a train which some months ago I should indeed very little have expected. But such are the energies of virtue! How changed at present do all surrounding objects seem! To me they were never dark; but they were not always pleasant. They are now all cheerfulness and perspicacity. We have the most charming walks and the most delightful conversations, Louisa; and on subjects so expansive, so sublime—! Often do I say—'Why is my friend not with us? Why does she not come and bear her part in discussion? She whose ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... it that, in the midst of so much perspicacity as to detail, blinded Burke at the time when he wrote the Reflections to the true nature of the movement? Is it not this, that he judges the Revolution as the solution of a merely political question? If the Revolution had been merely political, his judgment would have been adequate. ...
— Burke • John Morley
... to be ploughing the same old furrows in the same old fields. Such a critic would be alert to detect those fine differences of situation which distinguish a later from an earlier predicament. He would note with unfailing perspicacity the shades of variance which constitute Florindo an essentially novel character when presented under the name of Lindoro, or Floribella a fresh delight when she reappears as Doralinda. Even when he could not deny that these persons were ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... to sigh again, and Lady Alicia, with a boldness that surprised herself, and a perspicacity that would have surprised her friends, asked, "How could they—I ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... it is no disrespect to Mr. Booth to say that he is not the peer of Francis of Assisi. But if Francis's judgment of men was so imperfect as to permit him to appoint an ambitious intriguer of the stamp of Brother Elias his deputy, we have no right to be sanguine about the perspicacity of Mr. Booth in a ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... floor, ventured to place himself on the stone flag where Monsieur Guillaume was standing. He took two steps out into the street, raised his head, and fancied that he caught sight of Mademoiselle Augustine Guillaume in hasty retreat. The draper, annoyed by his assistant's perspicacity, shot a side glance at him; but the draper and his amorous apprentice were suddenly relieved from the fears which the young man's presence had excited in their minds. He hailed a hackney cab on its way to a neighboring stand, and jumped ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... Prompted by the formidable perspicacity of the Parisian half-breed, who spends her days stretched on a sofa, turning the lantern of her detective spirit on the obscurest depths of souls, sentiments, and intrigues, she had decided on making an ally of the spy. This supremely rash step was, perhaps premeditated; she had discerned the true ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... to judicial trickery. He had, too, all the acumen of an observer. This man, apparently so foolishly good-natured, simple, and absent-minded, could guess all the cunning of a prison wag, unmask the astutest street huzzy, and subdue a scoundrel. Unusual circumstances had sharpened his perspicacity; but to relate these we must intrude on his domestic history, for in him the judge was the social side of the man; another man, greater ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... battle all his indomitable ardor. "We ought to be able to turn the hills," said he to his lieutenants, and he detached immediately General Montbrun upon the right, to traverse an unknown country, hostile, and already enveloped in the darkness of night. The perspicacity and perseverance of the marshal had not been deceived; his scouts discovered a passage which the English had not occupied. On the 29th, at sunset, Lord Wellington learnt all of a sudden that the French army ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... her. She understood now that Mrs. Toomey had accepted the loan hoping to carry water on both shoulders, and finding herself unable to do so, had eased herself of the burden which required the least courage. The perspicacity of years of experience seemed to come to Kate in a few minutes, so surely did she follow Mrs. Toomey's ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... great work has lately appeared, edited in an opposite interest; and the standard reference on the law of nations, so honorable to the legal knowledge, perspicacity, and candor of an American author, goes forth perverted and deformed by annotations and comments indirectly sympathetic with the wicked rebellion now devastating the nation. Can a greater literary outrage ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and distraction of Louisa and her mother may be easily imagined. It might be a subject of more deep and curious interest to trace the influence of such a catastrophe on the mind of Mildred; but this also we must leave to the reflection and perspicacity of the reader. Mr. Bloomfield and his sister soon after left Italy, embarking in the steam-boat direct for Marseilles: they had grown weary of travel. Colonel Willoughby and his daughter Mildred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... thought the metaphor a rude one. But you are a goose, you know, in certain relations. Smartest man on the Stock Exchange, I readily admit; easiest fool to bamboozle in the open country that ever I met with. You fail in one thing—the perspicacity of simplicity. For that reason, among others, I have chosen to fasten upon you. Regard me, my dear sir, as a microbe of millionaires, a parasite upon capitalists. You know ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... aggregate, favorably disposed to Bonaparte. Any tale of distress from the Revolution was among this class always ended with this, 'but now, we are quiet, thanks to God and to Bonaparte.'"—Mallet-Dupan, with his accustomed perspicacity, ("Mercure Britainnique," Nos. for November 25 and December 10, 1799), at once comprehended the character and harmony of this last revolution. "The possible domination of the Jacobins chilled all ages and most ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... emotion struggled with her desire to preserve an appearance of complete confidence in Judge Ostrander, and incidentally in his son. Then, being on her feet by this time, she turned to go, anxious to escape further embarrassment from a perspicacity she no longer possessed the ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... Paris, Salammbo, Madame Bovary, Adolphe, M. de Camors, l'Assommoir, Sapho, etc., still can be so bold as to write "This or that is, or is not, a novel," seems to me to be gifted with a perspicacity strangely akin to incompetence. Such a critic commonly understands by a novel a more or less improbable narrative of adventure, elaborated after the fashion of a piece for the stage, in three acts, of which the first contains the exposition, the second the action, and the third the catastrophe ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... pleased with my perspicacity that he offered to sell me a village for twenty pounds sterling. But I buy no villages in the Himalayas so long as one red head flares between the tail of the heaven-climbing glacier and the ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... these the Prince amused himself as he returned, uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a look that discovered him to feel some complacence in his own perspicacity, and to receive some solace of the miseries of life from consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt and the eloquence with which he bewailed them. He mingled cheerfully in the diversions of the evening, and all rejoiced to find that ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... sight, eagle sight, piercing sight, penetrating sight, clear glance, sharp glance, quick glance, eagle glance, piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis^. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus^. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Myth.]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken [Scot.]; get a sight of, have a sight of, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the credit of the perspicacity of the memorialists that they discern the real nature of the Controverted Question of the age. They are awake to the unquestionable fact that, if Scripture has been discovered "not to be worthy of unquestioning belief," faith "in the supernatural itself" is, so far, undermined. And ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... amplitude by long time and distant travel, and the old island chieftain would end in becoming the Demiurgus. Ganymede (who possibly gave rise to the old Lat. "Catamitus") was probably some fair Phrygian boy ("son of Tros") who in process of time became a symbol of the wise man seized by the eagle (perspicacity) to be raised amongst the Immortals; and the chaste myth simply signified that only the prudent are loved by the gods. But it rotted with age as do all things human. For the Pederastia of the Gods ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... in obvious imitation of his Tatlers and Spectators. Most of those papers have some merit; many are very lively and amusing; but there is not a single one which could be passed off as Addison's on a critic of the smallest perspicacity. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... note you write?" asked Thuillier, believing that by thus examining every detail he was giving proofs of amazing perspicacity. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac |
