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More "Acuteness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ways of settling these questions—adjudication and compromise. The difficulties of adjudication were great; I think insuperable. Whatever acuteness and diligence could do has been done. One person in particular, whose talents and industry peculiarly fitted him for such investigations, and of whom I can never think without regret, Mr Hyde Villiers, devoted himself to the examination with an ardour and a perseverance, which, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hireling of royalty in a curricle, to the passive spouse of all the town, on the pavement; from the splendour of affluence to the miseries of penury; even Mendicity itself has its shades of variety, its success being less frequently derived from the acuteness of distress than the caprice of Nature, in having gifted the mendicant with some peculiar eccentricity of person or character, to attract attention and sympathy. He who is without these endowments passes unnoticed; but the diminutive ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... undergone by them during the above process, would probably go a great way towards solving the problem. I know no one better qualified for this undertaking than Mr. Knight, if he should at any future time have leisure and opportunity to direct towards it the same acuteness of observation and accuracy of investigation which have enabled him to make such important discoveries in the economy of the vegetable kingdom, and if the explanation of this phenomenon should ever lead to results ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... softness, darkness and light, the shades of colors, all these are very easily distinguished when the difference is any way considerable, but not when it is minute, for want of some common measures, which perhaps may never come to be discovered. In these nice cases, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal, the greater attention and habit in such things will have the advantage. In the question about the tables, the marble-polisher will unquestionably determine the most accurately. But notwithstanding this want of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... acuteness of our sense of duty depends largely on the breadth and depth of our vision. This principle explains the importance of the Catholic Extension educational policy. Through its official organ, "The Catholic Register," by means of pamphlets, leaflets, and lectures and sermons, the Society is most ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... mentioned in the same breath. The former, who is the creator of the world-tragedy, is a mere shadow in comparison to the great genius of whom Mueller, the Swiss historian, says: "Quite impartially and truly, as before God, I must say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of his understanding (not dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with astonishment, and his manner of speaking to me with love for him. By his genius and his disinterested goodness, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... There was at least one emotion which dispelled and dissipated my thoughts: it was fear. Let any one attempt to scale mountains alone all night long in ignorance of the way—where the eye, unnaturally strained, beholds distant shapes it cannot solve—where the ear, with morbid acuteness, hears sounds without knowing whence they come—where the foot suddenly stumbles, it may be over a root which forces its way through the rocks, or on a slippery path which the waterfall has drenched with its spray—and besides all this, a disconsolate waste in the heart, no memory ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... book,' adds a second, 'proceeds from a man of ability, a scholar and a reasoner.' 'His scholarship,' says this same reviewer again, 'is apparent throughout.' 'Along with a wide and minute scholarship,' he writes in yet another place, 'the unknown writer shows great acuteness.' Again a third reviewer, of whose general tone, as well as of his criticisms on the first part of the work, I should wish to speak with the highest respect, praises the writer's 'searching and scholarly criticism.' ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... by thirty properties, and the priesthood by twenty-four; but the law is acquired by forty-eight things, and these are they—with study, attention, eloquence; an understanding heart, an intelligent heart; with dread and meekness, fear and joy; with attendance on the Sages, the acuteness of companions, and disputations of the disciples; with sedateness, the study of the Bible, and the Mishna; in purity, in taking little sleep, in using little discourse, in being little engaged in traffic, in taking little sport, in enjoying little delight and little worldly ...
— Hebrew Literature
... contrast the lady behind must find in his gawkiness compared with the correct and composed deportment of the Capital she had come from! He must be the rustic indeed to her, handling lollipops yet like a child, and tumbling books in a child's confusion. As if to give more acuteness to his picture of himself he saw a foil in Young Islay so trim and manly in the uniform old custom demanded for the Sunday parade, a shrewd upward tilt of the chin and lowering of the brow, his hand now and then at his cheeks, not ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... with a pleased expression on his face, and pulling his tawny mustache reflectively, muttered to himself with true masculine acuteness, "She knew as much about my ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... the Elsmeres. Dropping his bantering tone, he delivered himself of a very delicate critical analysis of Catherine Elsmere's temperament and position, as in the course of several months his intimacy with her husband had revealed them to him. He did it well, with acuteness and philosophical relish. The situation presented itself to him as an extremely refined and yet tragic phase of the religious difficulty, and it gave him intellectual pleasure to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... desire to frequent their superiors, and these men must either suffer their raillery, or must not be suffered to continue in their society; if we converse with them who speak with more address than ourselves, then we repine equally at our own dulness, and envy the acuteness that accomplishes the speaker; or, if we converse with duller animals than ourselves, then we are weary to draw the yoke alone, and fret at our being in ill company; but if chance blows us in amongst our equals, then we are so at guard to catch all advantages, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... be easily determined by means of an "acoumeter." This little instrument measures the acuteness of the hearing very accurately by means of shot dropped from varying heights upon strips of glass, copper and cardboard. Tests with this device indicate whether the subject's hearing is above or ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... its pathos, its tragedy, and its gratification for Lane. He saw clearly, and felt with the acuteness of a woman. Helen had jilted him for such young men as these. So in the feeling of the moment it cost him nothing to thrill and fascinate these girls with the story of how he had been shot through the ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... utilize them; the young man, as a rule, that they are growing better, because he hopes to turn them to account. It is, however, always a purely empirical question; and in the solution of it, the observer's eye may acquire a singular acuteness by the comparative study of as many nations as possible, especially of those ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... had been given of the striking phenomenon of a lunar eclipse, in which the brilliant surface is plunged temporarily into darkness, and also of the still more imposing spectacle of a solar eclipse, in which the sun itself undergoes a partial or even a total obscuration. Then, too, the acuteness of the early astronomers had detected the five wandering stars or planets: they had traced the movements of Mercury and Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They had observed with awe the various configurations of these planets: and just ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... owing to the particular organization of the integuments, that in the Indians the sting is followed by less of swelling and inflammatory symptoms; it is on the nervous irritability of the epidermis that the acuteness and duration of the pain depend. This irritability is augmented by very warm clothing, by the use of alcoholic liquors, by the habit of scratching the wounds, and lastly, (and this physiological observation is the result of my own experience,) that of baths repeated at too short intervals. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... a careful scientific examination, and no organ similar to an eye can be discovered. It would indeed be a useless appendage to creatures that dwell for ever in Cimmerian darkness. But, as usual, the acuteness of one sense is increased by the absence of another. These fish are undisturbed by the most powerful glare of light, but they are alarmed at the slightest agitation of the water; and it is therefore exceedingly ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... hundreds of times in that work: to wit this; That whatsoever is first in the intention is last in execution, and e converso. Which is an error of that magnitude, that I cannot but wonder how a person of such acuteness and subtilty of wit could possibly be deceived with it. All logicians know there is no such universal maxim as he buildeth upon. The true maxim is but this: Finis qui primus est in intentione, est ultimus in executione. In the order of final causes, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... him over the same ground again the first thing in the morning. He felt sure that if he did not come to a bargain with the farmer, Bambridge would; for the stress of circumstances, Fred felt, was sharpening his acuteness and endowing him with all the constructive power of suspicion. Bambridge had run down Diamond in a way that he never would have done (the horse being a friend's) if he had not thought of buying it; every one who looked at the animal—even Horrock—was evidently impressed with its merit. To get all ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses. The most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... weary. In themselves the letters cannot stand, as mere writing, beside the letters of Cowper, or of Lamb. They are just the common-sense epistles of a man who to his last day remained too modest to believe in the extent of his own genius. The letters in this collection which show most acuteness on literary matters are not Scott's, but Lady Louisa Stuart's, who appreciated the Novels on their appearance (their faults as well as their merits) with a judiciousness quite wonderful in a contemporary. Scott's literary observations (with the exception of one passage ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... must be the sole grounds of popular belief. The ancient paradox of Plutarch, that atheism is less pernicious than superstition, acquires a tenfold vigor, when it is adorned with the colours of his wit, and pointed with the acuteness of his logic. His critical dictionary is a vast repository of facts and opinions; and he balances the false religions in his sceptical scales, till the opposite quantities (if I may use the language of algebra) annihilate each other. The ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... acute keenness of any sense, by reason of age or experience should be conserved.[14] Such acuteness is often the result of some need, and, unless consciously preserved, ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... governor visible, John?" was his address to the 429 footman who answered the door, and who, apparently not being favoured by Nature with any superfluous acuteness of intellect or sweetness of disposition, merely stared ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Lactantius, and a host of other theological authorities were all put in evidence against the Genoese mariner: he was confronted by the "conservatism of lawyers united to the bigotry of priests." Las Casas displays his usual acuteness when he says that the great difficulty of Columbus was, not that of teaching, but that of unteaching: not of promulgating his own theory, but of eradicating the erroneous convictions of the judges before whom ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... possible and successful. It is believed that no slave was ever recaptured that followed his directions. Sometimes the abolitionists were much annoyed by impostors, who pretended to be runaways, in order to discover their plans, and betray them to the slave-holders. Daniel Gibbons was possessed of much acuteness in detecting these people, but having detected them, he never treated them ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Britain where the Roman arm could never have reached it. Matthew Arnold saw these things in his day, and argued for the Neo-druidism of the sixth century. He was a man accustomed to deal in ideas. You may easily train your mind to an acuteness and sagacity in dealing with grammatical roots, and forms, that will not help you in ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... and the great light kindled in me a desire concerning their cause, never before felt with such acuteness. Whereupon she, who saw me as I see myself, to quiet my perturbed mind opened her mouth, ere I mine to ask, and began, "Thou thyself makest thyself dull with false imagining, so that thou seest not what ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... History of Art, his work is unquestionably the most valuable which has yet appeared in England. His research has been unwearied; he has availed himself of the best results of German investigation—his own acuteness of discernment in cases of approximating or derivative style is considerable—and he has set before the English reader an outline of the relations of the primitive schools of Sacred art which we think so thoroughly verified in all its more important ramifications, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... give those speedy and unembarrassed judgments that have so injured him with the profession. If he followed his course, he would see him, soon after the opening of the House of Lords, addressing their Lordships on some intricate question of Law, with an acuteness that drew approbation even from his opponents, or, on some all-engrossing political topic, casting firebrands into the camp of the enemy, and awakening them from the complacent repose of conviction to the hot ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... explain human emotions by their primary causes, and, at the same time, to point out a way, by which the mind might attain to absolute dominion over them. However, in my opinion, he accomplishes nothing beyond a display of the acuteness of his own great intellect, as I will show in the proper place. For the present I wish to revert to those, who would rather abuse or deride human emotions than understand them. Such persons will, doubtless think it strange that I should attempt to treat of ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... a curious episode. A classmate of mine, never distinguished for logical acuteness, came out in a leading daily paper with a violent attack upon me and my lecture. He lamented the fact that one who, as he said, had, while in college, shown much devotion to the anti- slavery cause, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... quite as much with the grinding monotony of his rheumatic pains as with their actual acuteness, the new discomfort of straining his eyes under the feeble rays of his night-light seemed almost ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... error in political economy, namely, that it is spending and not saving that gives employment to the poor. If Mandeville's aim had been less critical, and had he been less delighted with his famous paradox, we may infer from the acuteness of his reasoning on the subject, that he would have anticipated the true doctrine of political economy, as he saw through the fallacy of the mercantile theory. (2) He employs the term, luxury, with ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... you think that you have such acuteness, then, and I—" Nellie Hayden paused, raised her eyebrows a little coldly, and let the cockatoo ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... self-consciousness—or a too acute consciousness of others—that was unnatural in her. She had never been sensitive like this in her former life, but the fierce African sun seemed now to have thawed the ice of her indifference. She felt everything with almost unpleasant acuteness. All her senses seemed to her sharpened. She saw, she heard, as she had never seen and heard till now. Suddenly she remembered her almost violent prayer—"Let me be alive! Let me feel!" and she was aware that such a prayer might have an answer ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... uniformly victorious. Nor were his victories won over inferior opponents. The reputation of the lawyer is under ordinary conditions limited necessarily to a small circle. Even in that, considering the amount of intellectual acuteness and power displayed, it is an exceedingly transitory reputation. But the men against whom Cooper was pitted stood in the very front rank of their profession. They were leaders of the bar in the greatest state in the ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... his sacrifices. She was a plucky little woman, and in fact endowed with a more restless ambition than he. She was gifted with a rare insight into the motives that actuate mankind, and there is no doubt that much of Lincoln's success was in a measure attributable to her acuteness and the stimulus ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... proportion to what he knows, and one of the most striking and characteristic features of this great century is the advance of man through increase of knowledge out of childishness towards maturity. The insoluble problems which had been discussed with astonishing acuteness by the schoolmen of the preceding generation were giving place to a philosophy of more immediate application to the conduct and discipline of life. The 'Summa Theologica' of St. Thomas Aquinas not only treated with incomparable logic ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... seemed to have an almost supernatural acuteness of hearing, gave a violent start at this, and spoke up for the first time with real ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... nature. The tone of thought reminds us of Bishop Butler, whose writings, defaced by a style even more tiresome, though less pompous than Johnson's, have owed their enduring reputation to a philosophical acuteness in which Johnson was certainly very deficient. Both of these great men, however, impress us by their deep sense of the evils under which humanity suffers, and their rejection of the superficial optimism of the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Chapelain, asking if he could not discover the origin of the scourge and find remedies capable of stopping it. It was not only magnetism that interested him, but clairvoyance as well, fortune tellers and readers of cards, to whom he attributed an acuteness of ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... here looking up into heaven?" But this species of warfare was disapproved of even by the church; and Luigi Maraffi, the general of the Dominicans, not only apologised to Galileo, who had transmitted to him a formal complaint against Caccini, but expressed the acuteness of his own feelings on being implicated in the "brutal conduct of thirty ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... no necessity for these words. Perhaps any other man in the world, certainly most men of far less intelligence and less acuteness of feeling, would have known long ago just what she meant. He knew, indeed, that this girl loved him; but he did not believe that she or any other woman was capable of the sacrifice implied in ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... observer might have been inclined to think—which was, indeed, partly the truth—that he had relinquished his proper station in life for want of interest in it. Moreover, after looking at him one would have hazarded the guess that good-nature, and an acuteness as extreme as it could be without verging on craft, formed the frame-work ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... decay. Without there being anything tangible or very remarkable, I received the impression that there was not exactly the same vigour of mind which I have been used to admire in him, and what he said did not appear to me indicative of the strong sense and acuteness which characterise him. If he has no attack, I dare say he will be able to continue to act his part with efficacy for a long time to come. I asked him in what manner Government would prosecute the inquiry they had promised into the conduct of the Birmingham magistrates? ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... calamities that had afflicted Europe; and their practice was correspondent to the dogmatic positions they had laid down. The Empire and the Papacy it was their great object to destroy; and this, now openly avowed and steadfastly acted upon, might have been discerned with very little acuteness of sight, from the very first dawnings of the Revolution, to be the main drift of their policy: for they professed a resolution to destroy everything which can hold states together by ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... stone, surrounded by a herd of swine, that he seemed employed in keeping, he was seen in front, with his elbow resting on his knee, and his chin in the palm of his hand. The pensive and reflective attitude of this young man, dressed as a beggar, the power expressed in his large forehead, the acuteness of his penetrating glance, and the firm lines of the mouth, seemed to reveal indomitable resolution, combined with superior intelligence and ready craft. Beneath this figure, the emblems of the papacy encircled a medallion, in the centre of which was the head of an old man, the lines ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the long turmoil of the night and day had slipped away from her and she sat with closed eyes, surrendering herself to the spell of warmth and silence. But presently this merciful apathy was succeeded by the sudden acuteness of vision with which sick people sometimes wake out of a heavy sleep. As she opened her eyes they rested on the picture that hung above the bed. It was a large engraving with a dazzling white margin enclosed in a wide frame of bird's-eye maple ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... the country of Anga, called Vrikshaghata. In it there lived a rich sacrificing Brahman named Vishnusvamin. And he had a wife equal to himself in birth. And by her he had three sons born to him, who were distinguished for preternatural acuteness. In course of time they grew up to be young men. One day, when he had begun a sacrifice, he sent those three brothers to the sea to fetch a turtle. So off they went, and when they had found a turtle, the eldest said to his two brothers, "Let one of you take the turtle for our father's ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... of the sea are still cleverer in other ways. Their forefathers have lived on the sea for thousands of years, and their senses have been developed to the greatest acuteness and perfection. They know the regular winds, and can perceive from the colour of the water if a cold or warm sea current sweeps along below them. If now our friend the albatross, travelling westwards over the islands of Polynesia, wishes to be carried along by the wind, he ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... of John's character, its least amiable characteristic, which marred it amid many excellent qualities, was not wholly unknown to Melissa. She was by far the more clear-headed of the two, and she understood her lover with much greater acuteness than he was able to bring to the task of comprehending her. It was from intelligent perception and not merely from the feminine instinct for making excuses, that she said to herself that John was worn out with the strain ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... Adoniram Judson, a native of New England, the eldest son of the minister of Malden, in Massachusetts, born in 1788, and bred up first at a school near home, and afterwards at Brown University. His acuteness and cleverness from infancy were great, especially in arithmetic and mathematics. During his studies, he met with a clever and brilliant friend who had imbibed the deistical teaching of the French Revolution, and infected him with it, and he came home at seventeen ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... which he was particularly qualified to judge: "Let me add, that, in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of Martinus Scriblerus ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's Essay. In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the principal share."—See Preliminary Dissertation to ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... penetration and simplicity; the one interests while the other charms. Not knowing these truths, Mr. Ashburner had mentally resolved to enter upon this field of philosophical research. The simplicity, the humor, the acuteness of observation, the intelligence, and perhaps the pretty face of his companion, tended to interest him in an unusual manner. And she, too, seemed attracted by the young Englishman, whose education and intelligence rendered him an agreeable companion to any educated and intelligent person. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... more trying was the conduct of the day boys, who, with an acuteness which did them credit, seemed to have discovered our delicate situation, and resolved to make ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... at Vienna. The Marquis Lucchesini, born at Lucca in 1752, early entered the service of Frederick the Great, to whom he acted as reader. He advanced rapidly under his successor. His commanding demeanour and vivacity of speech, added to great powers of work, and acuteness in detecting the foibles of others, made him a formidable opponent. Further, his marriage with the sister of Bischoffswerder, until lately the King's favourite adviser, added to his influence, which, as was natural with a foreigner, inclined towards the attractive and gainful ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... recollecting our origin, we ought not to despair, but elevate our intellectual aim as high as we may; that all knowledge is not attributable to our present senses; for, if that were the case, all men would be equally wise, their senses being equal in acuteness; but a very large portion, and by far the surest portion, is derived from reminiscence of our former states; that each individual soul is an idea; and that, of ideas generally, the lower are held together by the higher, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... irremediable, and without hope; on the contrary, we doubt not but the Better Spirit will in time resume its pre-eminence, and colonists will be respected for their elevated sentiments and high sense of honour, rather than for their acuteness in driving a bargain. This evil, which is the natural consequence of their present condition as isolated atoms, unconnected together by those bonds of mutual respect which confine men in older countries, will cease as society becomes re-organized, and men feel themselves occupying ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... into the stroke. But as the crew settled down into the well known long sweep, what we may call consciousness returned; and while every muscle in his body was straining, and his chest heaved, and his heart leapt, every nerve seemed to be gathering new life, and his senses to wake into unwonted acuteness. He caught the scent of the wild thyme in the air, and found room in his brain to wonder how it could have got there, as he had never seen the plant near the river, or smelt it before. Though his eye never wandered from the back of Diogenes, he seemed to see all things ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... back its origin to the malice of Ralph, and the vindictiveness and avarice of Squeers. That, suspicion and proof being two very different things, they had been advised by a lawyer, eminent for his sagacity and acuteness in such practice, to resist the proceedings taken on the other side for the recovery of the youth as slowly and artfully as possible, and meanwhile to beset Snawley (with whom it was clear the main falsehood must rest); to lead him, if possible, into contradictory and conflicting statements; to ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... little chap he looked up and in a sharp, clear voice, he cried: "Good-bye! Come back soon!" These words cut into my soul. Was it possible that this little ragamuffin was the only one in that village who was sorry to see me depart and who desired my return? And the acuteness of this cut was not decreased by the remembrance that on several occasions when he had accompanied his mother to my lodging I ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... was obliged to embrace him closely with one paw, and run on three, and still in that manner he outran me. Keeping still his distance before me, he reached the Keys river, and there the last gleam of hope closed on me, for I could not swim while the ourang-outang, with much acuteness, threw the child across his shoulders, held him by the feet with one paw, and with the other three stemmed the river, though then in flood, with amazing rapidity. It was at this dreadful moment that my beloved babe ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... afterwards admitted that fourteen out of the seventy-three were wholly written by himself. John Pinkerton, whom Sir Walter Scott described as "a man of considerable learning, and some severity as well as acuteness of disposition," made clear conscience on the matter in 1786, when he published two volumes of genuine old Scottish Poems from the MS. collections of Sir Richard Maitland. He had added to his credit as an antiquary ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... as though they had not been seen before, and describes them with singular directness and vividness, not with morbid acuteness, with a large, wholesome joy of life. Nowhere is this more evident than in his insistent use of environment. I recall the passage in which he describes the street in which McTeague lives. He represents that street as it is ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... prominent positions in the body is so large that it may well be assumed as the rule of promotion. Mr. Raymond was nearly forty-six when he made his first speech in the House. While he still exhibited the intellectual acuteness and alertness which had always been his characteristics, there was apparent in his face the mental weariness which had come from the prolonged and exacting labor of his profession. His parliamentary failure was a keen disappointment to him, and was not improbably one among many causes ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... solicitations and intrigues of male and female favourites, the treachery of confidants, the petty jealousies and insignificant struggles of place-hunters, are the same, or nearly so, in every country; and it requires no great acuteness to detect, or courage to expose, their consequences—the name of Choiseul, or Uzeda, or Buckingham, or Bruhl, or Kaunitz, may be applied to such descriptions with equal probability and equal justice. But when the Tiers Etat are portrayed, when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... me, and whose age exempted them from sudden changes of inclination; I was considered as a man of parts, and therefore easily found admission to the table of Hilarius, the celebrated orator, renowned equally for the extent of his knowledge, the elegance of his diction, and the acuteness of his wit. ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Countess. She had consulted many learned lawyers about her unfortunate situation, and had finally come to Bamberg to have recourse to old Eichheimer; but he had directed her to young Engelbrecht, who, being less busy and equipped with excellent intellectual acuteness and great love for his profession, would perhaps be able to get a clue to the unfortunate will or furnish some other circumstantial proof of ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... will against a superior power; he was terrified at seeing those eyes always fixed, always directed toward an invisible object; he was terrified at seeing beat with the same movement that heart from which never a sigh arose to vary the melancholy state; sometimes the acuteness of pain creates the hope of the physician. Half a day passed away thus. The doctor formed his resolution like a brave man, like a man of firm mind; he issued suddenly from his place of retreat, and went ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... a hostage for the maintenance of the treaty made by the emperor Leo I. with his father, and had spent ten years, from his seventh to his seventeenth year, at Constantinople. Though he scorned to receive an education in Greek or Roman literature, he studied during these years, with unusual acuteness, the political and military circumstances of the empire. Of strong but slender figure, his beautiful features, blue eyes with dark brows, and abundant locks of long, fair hair, added to the nobility of his race, pointed him out for a ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... of this most useful class of men, that they commonly contribute, by their personal manners, no less than by the sale of their wares, to the refinement of the people among whom they travel. Their dealings form them to great quickness of wit and acuteness of judgment. Having constant occasion to recommend themselves and their goods, they acquire habits of the most obliging attention, and the most insinuating address. As in their peregrinations they have opportunity of contemplating the manners of various men and various cities, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... which William Dulan arose to take his leave, which he did in a choking, inaudible voice. As he turned to leave the room, his ghastly face and unsteady step attested, in language not to be misunderstood, the acuteness and intensity of his suffering. Alice did not misunderstand it. She uttered one word, in a ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... come that way, Mrs. Pindar. (With sudden acuteness.) It was on account of George, not Dr. Jonathan, that you wanted to get me out ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... shops at which she dealt, and getting into conversation with the masters or mistresses, quickly gleaned from them some of the desired information. Having, with much acuteness, made up her mind as to those most likely to respond to her appeal, she went forth the next morning, having deposited Margaret with Mrs Galbraith, to commence the series of visits ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... revealed by symptoms my hospital experience was invaluable. I have since found that my greatest service at the beds of the sick is as an interpreter of symptoms rather than a vender of drugs. The friends of the sick read indications for good or bad with wonderful acuteness, as a rule; and I have rarely found myself mistaken in my ability to read the condition of patients in the faces of the friends, even before I enter ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... invariably keep on high ranges, and from their acuteness of smell, are difficult to get at, and it is only to leeward that one can approach them. The bulls being the leaders of the herds are always singled out, and after a desperate and trying gallop over a rugged country, the huntsman finds himself going stride for stride alongside ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... ruins, creepers wreathing their fantastic garlands around the mouldering arches, gorgeous flowers flourishing in the midst of that decay! I almost forgot my search for the dear Phoebus, as I rambled with my friend Mr. Malone, the gardener, a man who would in any station be remarkable for acuteness and acquirement, amongst the august remains of the venerable abbey, with the history of which he was as conversant as with his own immediate profession. There was no speaking of smaller objects in the ...
— The Lost Dahlia • Mary Russell Mitford
... of Abano[56] and Doctor ——. The latter, a Talmudic legend, is probably the poorest of Browning's poems: it is rather farce than humour. The former is a fine piece of genuine grotesque art, full of pungent humour, acuteness, worldly wisdom, and clever phrasing and rhyming. It is written in an elaborate comic metre of Browning's invention, indicated at the end by eight bars of music. The poem is one of the most characteristic examples of that "Teutonic grotesque, which lies in the expression of deep ideas through ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... all of this with a charming picturesqueness. Professor Johan Albrecht Bengal was a teacher in the seminary in Denkendorf, Germany, in the eighteenth century. "He united profound reverence for the Bible with an acuteness which let nothing escape him." The seminary students used to wonder at the great intellectuality, and great humility and Christliness which blended their beauty in him. One night, one of them, eager to learn the secret of his holy life, slipped up into his apartments while ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... of no funeral garments for the old man but one shroud [Greek: speiron] (Odyssey, II. 102; XIX. 147); yet, being, by the theory, a character of late Ionian, not of genuine old AEolic epic, she should have known better. It is manifest that if even the acuteness and vast erudition of Helbig can only find such invisible differences as these between the manners of the genuine old epic and the late Ionian innovations, there is really no difference, beyond such trifles as diversify ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... rational Christians, are making us very irrational philosophers.... We are agreed that our old religious system is false; but I cannot say with you that it is a patchwork of bunglers and half-philosophers. I know nothing in the world in which human acuteness has been more displayed or exercised than in that."[158] Lessing was always for freedom, never for looseness, of thought, still less for laxity of principle. But it must be a real freedom, and not that ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... eighteen: she had at that period made, with a distinguished Dutch family, a stay on the Lake of Geneva. Maisie had in the old days been regaled with anecdotes of these adventures, but they had with time become phantasmal, and the heroine's quite showy exemption from bewilderment at Boulogne, her acuteness on some of the very subjects on which Maisie had been acute to Mrs. Wix, were a high note of the majesty, of the variety of advantage, with which she had alighted. It was all a part of the wind in her sails and of the weight with which her daughter ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... administration, I do not know in the whole compass of my reading, whether from ancient or modern authors, so able a work.' The Edinburgh Review says: 'The 'Federalist' is a publication that exhibits an extent and precision of information, a profundity of research and an acuteness of understanding, which would have done honor to the most illustrious statesmen of ancient or ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... if you must argue or discourse with me, I will endure your asperity for the sake of your acuteness; but it appears to me a more philosophical thing to avoid what is insulting and vexatious, than to ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Barnard, distinguished himself very early as a scholar, and for a logical acuteness, which does not often fall to the share of a boy. He was distinguished too both by land and by water; for while he was amongst the most informed of his time, in school hours, in the playing fields, on the water, with the celebrated boatman, my ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... garret in 1819 he was the same Balzac that we know in later life. Large-minded and far-seeing—except about his business concerns—he was from his youth a voyant, who discerned with extraordinary acuteness the trend of political events; and with an intense respect for authority, he was yet independent, and essentially ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... The acuteness and the significance of the Captain's eye as he cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words before ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... another interview with Una, and, for that purpose, offered, as before, to ascertain, in the course of that evening, at what time and place she would see him. This suggestion, in itself so natural, was adopted, and as Connor felt, with a peculiar acuteness, the pain of the situation in which he was! placed, he manifested little tendency to conversation, and the evening consequently passed heavily and ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... he was not likely to displace himself; his journeys were over and he was taking the rest that precedes the great rest. He had a narrow, clean-shaven face, with features evenly distributed and an expression of placid acuteness. It was evidently a face in which the range of representation was not large, so that the air of contented shrewdness was all the more of a merit. It seemed to tell that he had been successful in life, yet it seemed to tell also that his success ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... into one of the vestry-chairs, muttering something, inaudible to all ears save those which seemed fatally gifted with preternatural acuteness—the young bridegroom's. Nathanael fancied—nay, was certain—that he heard his brother say, "Oh, my poor Agatha." He looked suddenly at his bride, whose weeping had changed into silent but violent trembling. He dropped her hand, then ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... wax-making; life of the drone; life of the queen; democratic government; description of queen and drone; swarming; wildness of; favorite hives; mortality of; acuteness of sight. ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... knowledge. Religion to them consists in the above operations, and in giving a sum to the Auxiliary. I am speaking of the generality, There are many whom I cannot but feel to be Christians, but dimly. This can hardly be the result of low mental power alone. The Bechwanas show considerable acuteness when circumstances ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... first place, Segrais observes with much acuteness that they who blame AEneas for his insensibility of love when he left Carthage, contradict their former accusation of him for being always crying, compassionate, and effeminately sensible of those misfortunes which befell others. They give him ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... Deemster aside and told him (with expressions of shame, interlarded with praises of his own acuteness) a story of his brother. It was about a girl. Her name was Mona Crellin; she lived on the hill at Ballure House, half a mile south of Ramsey, and was daughter of a man called Billy Ballure, a retired sea-captain, and hail-fellow-well-met with all the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... laudable perseverance, of course discovering, like every penniless gambler, that, had he money to stake, he should infallibly make a fortune; predicting what colour would come out, and indulging, when he proved a true prophet, in a little subdued blasphemy because he was unable to profit by his acuteness. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... food may have on the body, are almost wholly confined to the stomach and bowels, and rarely injure the system at large. This food has also a beneficial influence on the powers of the mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, and liveliness of imagination, and acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live principally on meat. It should also be added, that a vegetable diet, when it consists of articles easily digested, as potatoes, turnips, bread, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., is ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... The most elaborate and energetic attempt to prove Shakspere classically learned is that made in the Critital Observations on Shakspere (1746) of the Rev. John Upton, a man of great erudition and much random acuteness (shown particularly in bold attempts to excise interpolations from the Gospels), but as devoid of the higher critical wisdom as was Bentley, whom he congenially criticised. To a reader of to-day, his arguments from Shakspere's diction and syntax ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... remembered that she was disliking this woman on the highest grounds, and as she ate she sent her eyes round the restaurant, knowing quite well the line of the thought she expected it to arouse in her. She was not, in fact, seeing things with any acuteness. There was a woman at a table close by wearing a dress of a very beautiful blue, the colour of the lower flowers of the darkest delphiniums, but the sight of it gave her none of the pleasant physical ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... whole, the expectation was more formidable than the reality. However much he disliked applying himself to business, no one understood it better. The value of his good sense, judgment, and acuteness was speedily felt. Mr. Nugent, the chairman, depended on him as his ally, and often as his adviser; and as he was thus made to feel himself of weight and importance, his aversion subsided, and he almost learnt to look forward to a chat with Mr. Nugent; or whether he looked ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of these words of course; but, at the same time, felt more reluctant than ever to quit the spot which his past happiness had consecrated. The presence of his wife had sanctified every surrounding scene, and, each day, as it gradually softened the acuteness of his suffering, assisted the tender enchantment that bound ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... a whole, not to a single State, to find and apply a remedy, in a constitutional way, for an unconstitutional measure of which an administration of the government might be guilty. His position is maintained with all the acuteness, ingenuity, and logical skill which mark his earlier writings. There is no sign of failure of mental power, of which those accused him who could not answer him. Such an imputation he resented with as much indignation as he did a charge of inconsistency, ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... a keener and more anxious watchfulness than those sad, deep-set, hazel ones; and as she was drawn along the train of its inevitable logic, a close observer might have seen how the shadows deepened over them. For, while others listened for the clearness of the thought, for the acuteness of the argument, she listened as a soul wide, fine-strung, acute, repressed, whose every fibre is a nerve, listens to the problem of its own destiny,—listened as the mother of a family listens, to know what were the possibilities, the probabilities, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... I hardly think that you are fit to measure wits with the Marshal Millefleurs, as your fellows have been good enough to call me. You appear to have given me credit for singularly little intelligence, which argues, if I may be allowed to say so, a want of acuteness upon your own part. Indeed, with the single exception of my thick-headed compatriot, the British dragoon, I have never met anyone who was less competent to carry ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... other Canipers and herself as the dullest of the family, and this morning she swept, dusted and polished in the old ignorance of her acuteness, nor would the knowledge of it have consoled her. She was puzzling over the cause which kept the man in Italy apart from the woman here, and when she gave that up in weariness, she tried to picture ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... Book called The Presbyterian Bramble; with several other Pieces, in Defence of the King and the Church. Now to shew you the Acuteness of his Wit, I will give you an Instance: The first year that Poor Robin's Almanack came forth (about Six and Twenty Years ago) there was cut for it a Brass Plate; having on one side of it the Pictures of King Charles the First, ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... during which they were practically without a home, and the one settled year of (as they thought) half wasted time, amidst the usual formalities, always galling to them both, or ordinary Church life; so that, with his usual acuteness of observation, he must have noted all their horror of routine, and learnt, more than anybody noticed, the reasons why the Churches had become divorced from the crowds and ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... being served, Ely Ives was summoned outside. Banneker, whose faculties had taken on a preternatural acuteness, saw, when he returned, that his face had whitened and sharpened; watched him write a note which he folded and pinned before sending it to Marrineal. In the midst of a story, which he carried without ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in your lap. But already I begin to notice that you may pretty well count on reaching the danger point (produced by alien autos) at precisely the right instant, never the wrong one, and this gives you a beautiful confidence in your luck and your driver: although the real secret must lie in the acuteness of your guardian angel or patron saint. Vedder, who when young was a champion boxer, is very superstitious, and Mr. Somerled allows him a large gold medal of St. Christopher on the dashboard. St. Christopher, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... been effected by means of these modern mental methods, and any one who denies this must surely be ignorant of the vast amount of steadily accumulating evidence in their favour. The many advantages of the system are doubtless pointed out with acuteness and insisted upon with vigour in the books which defend it, and need not be re-stated here. And yet, while I acknowledge all this; while I am forced to admit the many wonderful cures and much mental relief ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... and Mr. Tyrrel were present, that the conversation, in one of the most numerous sets into which the company was broken, turned upon the poetical talents of the former. A lady, who was present, and was distinguished for the acuteness of her understanding, said, she had been favoured with a sight of a poem he had just written, entitled An Ode to the Genius of Chivalry, which appeared to her of exquisite merit. The curiosity of the company was immediately excited, and the lady added, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... think them rather beholding; to their natural complexion, than to any goodness of their will, for these excellences; they look upon valor as a certain natural strength of the mind, and wisdom as a constitutional acuteness; whereas a man has it in his power to be just, if he have but the will to be so, and therefore injustice is thought the most dishonorable, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... his bantering tone, he delivered himself of a very delicate critical analysis of Catherine Elsmere's temperament and position, as in the course of several months his intimacy with her husband had revealed them to him. He did it well, with acuteness and philosophical relish. The situation presented itself to him as an extremely refined and yet tragic phase of the religious difficulty, and it gave him intellectual pleasure to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... imperfection of accurately discriminating ideas one from another lies, either in the dulness or faults of the organs of sense; or want of acuteness, exercise, or attention in the understanding; or hastiness and precipitancy, natural to some tempers, I will not here examine: it suffices to take notice, that this is one of the operations that the mind may reflect ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... shroud [Greek: speiron] (Odyssey, II. 102; XIX. 147); yet, being, by the theory, a character of late Ionian, not of genuine old AEolic epic, she should have known better. It is manifest that if even the acuteness and vast erudition of Helbig can only find such invisible differences as these between the manners of the genuine old epic and the late Ionian innovations, there is really no difference, beyond such trifles as ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... now, but she had lost the preternatural acuteness of her senses, and felt confused. She heard Barbara say: "I can take you to the door in my cab," and murmuring: "I will get ready," went into her bedroom. For a moment she was so utterly bewildered that she did nothing. Then every other thought ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... have liked to have gone myself," said John. "But your argument is a strong one. I am sure I can trust you and Arthur, and Duppo, from his acuteness, will be of great assistance to you; and yet I do not like you to run the risk of the dangers to which ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... spoke he grinned with so extraordinary and devilish a distortion of his countenance, and with such an appearance of every intention of carrying out his threat as to send the goose flesh creeping like icy fingers up and down our hero's spine with the most incredible rapidity and acuteness. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... drew the Deemster aside and told him (with expressions of shame, interlarded with praises of his own acuteness) a story of his brother. It was about a girl. Her name was Mona Crellin; she lived on the hill at Ballure House, half a mile south of Ramsey, and was daughter of a man called Billy Ballure, a retired sea-captain, and hail-fellow-well-met ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... weather-browned, clean-shaven face and straightforward gray eyes seemed to evince a power of manhood she instinctively felt and surrendered to. His were those elements which a woman of her nature must instantly recognize—physical strength and daring, combined with mental acuteness and indomitable will. The fact of his present unworthy employment added the fascination of mystery to his personality, for it was manifestly impossible to conceive that such a position was all this man had ever achieved ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... age. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand seemed destined for the task of uniting the society of the old regime with the France of the Revolution. To review his life would be to review the Revolution. With a reforming zeal begotten of his own intellectual acuteness and of resentment against his family, which had disinherited him for the crime of lameness, he had led the first assaults of 1789 against the privileges of the nobles and of the clerics among whom his lot had perforce been cast. He acted as the head of the new "constitutional" ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... as affect to make people stare at their high flown bombast language, or to please their phantasies with foolish jugglings, and pedantic or boyish wit; or to be admired for their ability in dividing of an hair, their metaphysical acuteness, and scholastic subtilty, or for their doughty dexterity in controversial squabbles.' And I add, had you joined herewith, such as vilify and trample upon the blood of the Lord Jesus, preferring the snivel of their own brains before him, you had herein but drawn your own picture, and given ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of Springfield. You will find it very entertaining and instructive; but perhaps the writer is somewhat too harsh in his judgment of this singular man. He estimates him fairly, indeed, and understands him well; but he unriddles his character rather by acuteness than by sympathy. Now, his life should have been written by one, who, knowing all his ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the young man, as a rule, that they are growing better, because he hopes to turn them to account. It is, however, always a purely empirical question; and in the solution of it, the observer's eye may acquire a singular acuteness by the comparative study of as many nations as possible, especially of those ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... in these duties. But they added to their merits an incessant earnestness in learning and science. A new era in intellect and subtlety of mind began with them; and a set of the most wonderful men in depth of application, logical acuteness, and discoveries in science distinguished this period. They were few indeed, in comparison of the world of ignorance that every where surrounded them; but they were for that reason only the more conspicuous. They divided themselves principally into two orders, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... individual man, in his moral, social, and political character, leading the whole long train of other improvements, which has most remarkably distinguished the era. Society, in this century, has not made its progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased speed round the old circles of thought and action; but it has assumed a new character; it has raised itself from beneath governments to a participation in governments; it has ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... imagination took fire at Mr. Redpath's glowing account of his own splendid success. I pictured myself returning to Canada after an absence of four or five years with a mountain of gold at my command, as the result of my own energy and acuteness. In imagination, I saw myself settled down with Alice in a palatial mansion on Jarvis Street, and living in affluence all the rest of my days. My uncle bade me consult my own judgment in the matter, but rather encouraged the idea than otherwise. He offered to advance me L500, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... to me was 'I did not then know how to manage it.' His distress became so intolerable, that he applied to Dr. Swinfen, physician in Lichfield, his god-father, and put into his hands a state of his case, written in Latin. Dr. Swinfen was so much struck with the extraordinary acuteness, research, and eloquence of this paper, that in his zeal for his godson he shewed it to several people. His daughter, Mrs. Desmoulins, who was many years humanely supported in Dr. Johnson's house in London, told me, that upon his discovering that Dr. Swinfen ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... might say, like tiny musical lamps set among the leaves, they seemed so many and so bright there, and the distant sounds so pleasant. I am not, as a usual thing, a noticing man, but while friend Hicks's daughter was within a few feet of me it seemed I noticed everything with considerable acuteness. I think this may be accounted for on the score that I was trying to notice something which failed me as I searched for it; and that was, if I were to Barbara what Barbara was to me. She was too friendly, and yet I would have her friendly: she was too cheerful, and yet I would have her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... gone through in receiving the officers of the newly-arrived troops, Reginald ordered that Khan Cochut and the slave should be brought before him. The only person present besides Burnett was Buxsoo, on whose judgment and acuteness Reginald knew that he could rely to elicit the truth from the slave, if not from Cochut, who was not at all likely to confess it unless from dire necessity. Both were subjected to a close cross-examination; and Buxsoo also examined them, in ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... give an idea of the entire plot of the Three Mousquetaires, which is, in fact, less a tale with a regular intrigue and denouement, than a narrative of adventures and incidents, extending over a period of nearly three years. D'Artagnan, whose enterprising character and Gascon acuteness qualify him admirably to take a part in the court intrigues of the time, soon finds himself almost at open war with the Cardinal, and engaged in serving the interests of Louis the Thirteenth's unhappy queen, Anne of Austria, who, by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... of this discourse, you will be apt to blame me for two things: First, Because I have not so beautified my matter with acuteness of language as you could wish or desire. Secondly, Because also I have not given you, either in the line or in the margent, a cloud of sentences from the learned fathers, that have, according to their wisdom, possibly, handled these ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... find no better guide to the aspirant for forensic fame than the speeches of the turbulent tribune. Cicero dwells on the fulness and richness of his flow of words, the grandeur and dignity of the expression, the acuteness of the thought.[572] They seemed to some to lack the finishing touch;[573] which is equivalent to saying that with him oratory had not degenerated into rhetoric. The few fragments that survive awaken our wonder, first for their marvellous simplicity and clearness: ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... with and caress me, and a kind uncle to instruct and delight me, were among the least of my misfortunes. Reading, that great field of enjoyment, which was daily opening more amply upon me, was totally cut off. My curiosity had been awakened, my memory praised, and my acuteness admired: in an instant, as it were, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... came a curious episode. A classmate of mine, never distinguished for logical acuteness, came out in a leading daily paper with a violent attack upon me and my lecture. He lamented the fact that one who, as he said, had, while in college, shown much devotion to the anti- slavery cause, had now faced about, had no longer the courage ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... good you have obtained from three perusals of the Commentaries on Scottish Criminal Jurisprudence?" said his companion. "I suppose the learned author very little thinks that the facts which his erudition and acuteness have accumulated for the illustration of legal doctrines, might be so arranged as to form a sort of appendix to the half-bound and slip-shod volumes ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... utterance,—his voice was gone! ... his lips were moveless as the lips of a stone image! Stricken absolutely mute, but with his sense of hearing quickened to an almost painful acuteness, he stood erect and motionless,—rage and fear contending in his heart, enduring the torture of a truly terrific mystery of mind-despair, . . forced, in spite of himself, to listen passively to the love-thoughts of his own dead Past revived ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... his mastery over himself that the small wild game began to believe by and by that he was not alive. Birds sang freely over his head and the hare hopped through the undergrowth. Yet the hunter saw everything and his very stillness enabled him to listen with all the more acuteness. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the criminals were put upon their trial at Frome, in Somersetshire, they were acquitted, not without difficulty, by the exertion of the better reason of the presiding judge, Lord Chief Justice Holt. Fortunately for the accused, Lord Chief Justice Holt was a person of sense, as well as legal acuteness; for he sat as judge at a great number of the trials in different parts of the kingdom. Both prosecutors and juries were found who would willingly have sent the proscribed convicts to death. But the age was arrived when at last it was to be discovered that fire and torture can extinguish neither ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... slightest sound could pierce through the solid rock. As soon as Tom found that Charley had reached the bottom, he also descended—holding his cutlass in his teeth—as actively as most men could have done with two hands. Peter and old John Trowel were directed to wait above. Peter said that from his acuteness of hearing he should be able to judge what progress they were making, and to let Captain Askew know where they ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... morally certain to carry along with it. Whatever may be said of the French practitioners as a body—and my professional brethren, I know, bring against them, as a national reproach, the charge of inefficiency in the treatment of disease, (remarkable for acuteness and truth as their diagnosis is allowed to be)—still I think it will not be denied, that chiefly to the Parisian physicians, and to the untiring energy of particular individuals amongst them, whom it would not be difficult ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... found Dr. Paltravi still alive, but very low and very much troubled because he had not heard from Jaqui. The latter soon perceived it would be utterly useless to try to deceive or in any way to mislead the old man, who, although in sad bodily condition, still preserved his acuteness of mind. Jaqui had to tell him everything, and he began with Florino and ended with himself, not omitting to tell how the lady had recognized the situation, and what she had said. Then, fearing the consequences of this revelation, he put his hand into his ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... general of artillery, with a good salary and a splendid title, to organize the artillery of the Grand Turk." Then follow plans for Joseph's appointment to the consular service, for a meeting at Leghorn, and for a further land speculation. At the close are these remarks, which not only exhibit great acuteness of observation, but are noteworthy as displaying a permanent quality of the man, that of always having an alternative in readiness: "It is quiet, but storms are gathering, perhaps; the primaries are going to meet in a few days. I shall take with me ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... and zealous an interest as he had done in the Northern Flowers, edited by his friend and schoolfellow. He not only contributed many beautiful poems to this periodical, but also several striking prose tales and other papers, in which, by the elegance and brilliancy of the style, and the acuteness and originality of the thoughts, the public found no difficulty in identifying Pushkin, though they appeared anonymously. He now visited Moscow, in order to superintend the printing of his Boris Godunoff, the tragedy which he had been so long ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... old cap or two, a pair of boots of a sort long out of fashion, an old broadsword, a shabby old Persian rug, an ivory spy- glass, and other articles. These were, in fact, the fairy presents, which had been given to the king at his christening, and by aid of which (and his natural acuteness) he had, in his youth, succeeded ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... great fabric of Gallican and Benedictine learning rises into being, under the hammer blows of a hostile research. The Catholics of Germany, says Renan, are particularly distinguished for acuteness and breadth of ideas. Why? Because of the 'perpetual contact of ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a hint of allusion to the manna. He neither believed these ancient deeds, nor the promise for to-morrow. Why not? Simply because he—wise as he thought himself—could not see any way of bringing it about. There are many of us yet who have the same modest opinion of our own acuteness, and go on the supposition that what we do not see is invisible, and what we cannot do, or imagine done, is impossible. Why should not the Lord 'make windows in heaven' if He please? Or, how does the pert objector know that that is the only way of fulfilling the promise? ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... have run them if you had thought they would be useless," she stated, perceiving the point with intuitive acuteness. ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... its exceptions, but the list of young men who have been advanced to prominent positions in the body is so large that it may well be assumed as the rule of promotion. Mr. Raymond was nearly forty-six when he made his first speech in the House. While he still exhibited the intellectual acuteness and alertness which had always been his characteristics, there was apparent in his face the mental weariness which had come from the prolonged and exacting labor of his profession. His parliamentary failure was a keen disappointment to him, and was not improbably ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Routh, president of Magdalen College, Oxford. This last editor has enriched his edition of these two dialogues with very valuable and copious philological and critical notes, in which he has displayed no less learning than judgment, no less acuteness than taste. He appears indeed to me to be one of the best and most modest of philologists; and it is to be hoped that he will be imitated in what he has done by succeeding editors of ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... no doubt useless to recall here the elementary fact that if manners change with the times, man himself is quite as strangely modified. If, according to education, and the manner of life, such or such a sense may develop an acuteness which confounds common experience—hearing in the musician, touch with the blind, etc.—we may estimate by this how much sharper certain senses may have been then than now. Several centuries ago visual ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... results. Causes, original things, being attended to, the right manners unerringly follow. Much is said, among artists, of "the grand style," as if it were a thing by itself. When a man, artist or whoever, has health, pride, acuteness, noble aspirations, he has the motive-elements of the grandest style. The rest is but manipulation, (yet ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... hotel, they talked about London, and he surprised her by an acuteness of observation that she had sometimes inwardly accused him of lacking. He seemed to have seen everything, to have examined, felt, compared, with nerves as finely adjusted as her own; but he said nothing of the pictures. ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... a Whistler exhibition. The periodical inflictions with which this gentleman tries the patience of a long-suffering public generally take some fantastic form to attract attention. It is an evidence of the painter's worldly acuteness that this should be so, for public attention may be drawn by such outbursts of eccentricity to such work as would never impress sensible people on ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... might have gone even farther, and demanded for it a spark of that creative power which is genius. But it must not be inferred that all the difficult passages in Shakespeare can be thus explained away. Despite all learning, or acuteness, or genius, there remains a considerable number that have never yet been solved, and never will be, in general acceptation, till the crack of doom. These, however, bear so small a proportion to the vast mass of perplexing riddles that have been satisfactorily settled that, like an infinitely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Versal's invitation to become one of the regenerators of mankind by embarking in the Ark, he was expressing his professional prejudice rather than his intellectual conviction. As Cosmo had remarked, Pludder had a good brain and great scientific acuteness, and, although he did not believe in the nebular theory of a flood, and was obstinately opposed to everything that was not altogether regular and according to recognized authority in science, yet he could not shut his eyes to the fact that something was going ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... you my compliments upon the acuteness of your perception," answered La Boulaye tartly. "You are right. There is to be ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Hindoostanee expressions, such as 'panee' (water), 'buree panee'[131] (the sea), etc. He was rather startled when I replied 'in Hindee,' but was delighted on finding I was an Indian, and entered freely, and with depth and acuteness, on the affairs of the East, most of which part of the world ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... several interests, the Chevalier de Grammont was informed by Jones, his friend, his confidant, and his rival, that there was another gentleman very attentive to Mrs. Middleton: this was Montagu, no very dangerous rival on account of his person, but very much to be feared for his assiduity, the acuteness of his wit, and for some other talents which are of importance, when a man is once permitted to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to give him, or which could be extracted from the quipus (the records of knotted cord), and from the commemorative pictures of his ancestors. Garcilasso had access, moreover, to the "torn papers" of Blas Valera, an early Spanish missionary of unusual sense and acuteness. Christoval de Moluna is also an excellent authority, and much may be learned from the volume of Rites and Laws ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... to try to divert the conversation entirely from what he knew would have a very injurious effect upon him; and Mr. Arnold, seeing the anxious way in which he glanced now and then at his pupil, and divining the reason, by the instinct of his affection, with far more than his usual acuteness, tried likewise to turn it aside, as often as it inclined that way. Still a few words were let fall by the visitors, which made Harry stare. Hugh took him away as ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... serviceable against their enemies, and they had before them the most animating prospect of rewards and promotion, if their conduct was distinguished. Under these circumstances, the native vigour, and activity, and acuteness of their minds, took the very direction which was likely, not merely to make them good soldiers, but to fit them for becoming great officers; and this ultimate destination of his experience, and ability, and valour, has a very manifest effect on the mind of the French soldier. We ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Intellectual acuteness, mastery of faculty, elegance of expression, are something very different from insight into the meaning of life. The cultured man is he who has learned his relations to his fellow-men, who recognizes his obligations ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... was ever quite frank about her likings? I don't think I was more of a cheat than others; but I never could tell of myself. It is quite true that this duplicity and reserve seldom deceives. Our hypocrisies are forced upon some of our sex by the acuteness and vigilance of all in this field of enquiry; but if we are sly, we are also lynx-eyed, capital detectives, most ingenious in fitting together the bits and dovetails of a cumulative case; and in those affairs of love and liking, have a terrible exploratory ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... verily believe, some hundreds of times in that work: to wit this; That whatsoever is first in the intention is last in execution, and e converso. Which is an error of that magnitude, that I cannot but wonder how a person of such acuteness and subtilty of wit could possibly be deceived with it. All logicians know there is no such universal maxim as he buildeth upon. The true maxim is but this: Finis qui primus est in intentione, est ultimus in executione. In the order of final causes, and ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... Bradshaw, commonly called by his last two names, was the son of a lawyer of some note for his acuteness, who marked out his calling for him in having him named after the great Lord Mansfield. Murray Bradshaw was about twenty-five years old, by common consent good-looking, with a finely formed head, a searching ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... common and characteristic deformity is an abnormal antero-posterior curvature, with its convexity backwards. The situation, extent, and acuteness of the bend vary with the region of the spine affected, the situation of the disease in the bone, and the number of vertebrae implicated. When the disease has destroyed the bodies of one or two vertebrae, a short, sharp, angular deformity results; when ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... for sluggards; tendency to mystery in his practice; fondness for surprising an opponent; an illustration of this remark; his treatment of associate counsel; nice discrimination in the selection of professional agents; their various characteristics; the same acuteness displayed in politics; anecdote on this subject that occurred during the contested election in 1800; great coolness and presence of mind in civil as well as military life; an example in the death of Mr. P.; commenced practice at the close of the revolution under the most favourable ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... breeding in her a self-consciousness—or a too acute consciousness of others—that was unnatural in her. She had never been sensitive like this in her former life, but the fierce African sun seemed now to have thawed the ice of her indifference. She felt everything with almost unpleasant acuteness. All her senses seemed to her sharpened. She saw, she heard, as she had never seen and heard till now. Suddenly she remembered her almost violent prayer—"Let me be alive! Let me feel!" and she was aware that such a prayer might have an answer ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... to awe. To the imagination of the Indian, it seemed as if a still voice, like that which is believed to issue from the grave, was heard in the place. Bending his body forward, he listened with the intensity and acuteness of a savage. He thought the smothered tones of Mark Heathcote were again audible, holding communion with his God. The chisel of the Grecian would have loved to delineate the attitudes and movements of the wondering boy, as he slowly and reverently withdrew from the spot. His look ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... manner, but most remarkable to us because the test of direct comparison with our own sense was permitted us, was their acuteness of hearing. Often while "jumping" a roaring rapids in two canoes, my companion and I have heard our men talking to each other in quite an ordinary tone of voice. That is to say, I could hear my Indian, and Jim could hear his; but personally we were forced to shout loudly to carry ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... every virtue founded, Whence hadst thou it?" And I: "The large outpouring Of the Holy Spirit, which has been diffused Upon the ancient parchments and the new, [93] A syllogism is, which demonstrates it With such acuteness, that, compared therewith, All demonstration seems to me obtuse." And then I heard: "The ancient and the new Postulates, that to thee are so conclusive, Why dost thou take them for the word divine?" And I: "The proof, which shows ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck. Mrs. Schimmelpenninck (nee Galton) remembered Priestley very well, and her description of him is worth quotation:—"A man of admirable simplicity, gentleness and kindness of heart, united with great acuteness of intellect. I can never forget the impression produced on me by the serene expression of his countenance. He, indeed, seemed present with God by recollection, and with man by cheerfulness. I remember that, in the assembly of these distinguished men, amongst whom Mr. Boulton, by his noble manner, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... resignation of the latter. The admiralty had, when the courts were thrown open, a standing counsel for the ordinary courts and a solicitor. Questions soon arose as to the respective claims of the admiralty advocate and the counsel to the admiralty, and their acuteness was increased when the courts were fused into one High Court of Justice. Upon the resignation of Sir James Parker Deane the office of admiralty advocate was not filled up. In like manner the proctor to the admiralty has disappeared. The office of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... means for cross-fertilisation by the aid of insects; but this occurs with the bracteae of the Marcgraviaceae, as the late Dr. Cruger informed me from actual observation in the West Indies, and as Delpino infers with much acuteness from the relative position of the several parts of their flowers. (10/51. 'Ult. Osservaz. Dicogamia' 1868-69 page 188.) Mr. Farrer has also shown that the flowers of Coronilla are curiously modified, so that bees may fertilise them whilst sucking the fluid secreted from the outside of the calyx. ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... and knees from each successive place of shelter till a proper distance is gained. The stalking is the most exciting sport in the world. I have frequently heard my own heart beat while creeping up to a deer. He is an animal of wonderful acuteness, and possessing the keenest scent; he is always on the alert, watching for danger from his stealthy foe the leopard, who is a ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... gloomy foreboding with respect to our own times. As a contribution to the History of Art, his work is unquestionably the most valuable which has yet appeared in England. His research has been unwearied; he has availed himself of the best results of German investigation—his own acuteness of discernment in cases of approximating or derivative style is considerable—and he has set before the English reader an outline of the relations of the primitive schools of Sacred art which we think so thoroughly verified in all its more important ramifications, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... and harrowing character, in the midst of which there was a suspense, twofold, agonizing, and intolerable. First of all, his suspense was for Ethel, and then for himself. In that narrow and restricted retreat his senses soon became sharpened to an unusual degree of acuteness. Every touch against it communicated itself to his frame, as though the wood of his inclosure had become part of himself; and every sound intensified itself to an extraordinary degree of distinctness, as though the temporary loss of vision had been compensated ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... nations uniformity of the institutions and customs. "I opposed him occasionally," says Mueller, "and he entered into discussion. Quite impartially and truly, as before God, I must say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of his understanding (not dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with astonishment, and his manner of speaking to me with love for him. By ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... "Rimes" of his own, and then Scottish Ballads, all issued as ancient, but of which he afterwards admitted that fourteen out of the seventy-three were wholly written by himself. John Pinkerton, whom Sir Walter Scott described as "a man of considerable learning, and some severity as well as acuteness of disposition," made clear conscience on the matter in 1786, when he published two volumes of genuine old Scottish Poems from the MS. collections of Sir Richard Maitland. He had added to his credit as an antiquary ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... case was grave—and she knew what she meant by that—he should have talked to her at all about what she might with futility "do"; or why on the other hand, if it were light, he should attach an importance to the office of friendship. She had him, with her little lonely acuteness—as acuteness went during the dog-days in the Regent's Park—in a cleft stick: she either mattered, and then she was ill; or she didn't matter, and then she was well enough. Now he was "acting," as they said at home, as if ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... usual acuteness, my good old friend discovered this immediately; and he began to woo her also, more for her secret than for her heart. But she was a perfect mystery—I never knew till her death who she was. Her residence was at no time mentioned, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... "Your cursed acuteness told you what I should do. Well, leave me here a week—and there's another problem for you. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... de ship ven she stay tranquil," he exclaimed, spreading out his hands horizontally, and making them slowly move round. "But ven she tumble bout, den," he put his hands on his stomach, exhibiting with such extraordinary contortions of countenance the acuteness of his sensations, that we all burst into hearty fits ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... showed in her complexion and high-bosomed, matronly figure, although she was so young. She had a large but charming face, full of the sweetest placidity; her eyes, as blue as the sky, looked out upon the world with amiable assent to all its conditions. It required no acuteness to predict this as an ideal spouse for a man of a nervous and irritable temperament; that there was in her nature that which could supply cushioned fulnesses to all the exactions of his. She sat on a high stool and sipped her ice-cream soda with simple absorption ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... awkward and capable, and, however conscious of a pressure, unconscious of a drama; whereas Gaston was effusive and appealing and ridiculous and graceful—natural above all and egotistical. Indeed a true young Anglo-Saxon wouldn't have known the particular acuteness of such a quandary, for he wouldn't have parted to such an extent with his freedom of spirit. It was the fact of this surrender on his visitor's part that excited Waterlow's secret scorn: family feeling was all very well, but to see it triumph as a superstition calling for the blood-sacrifice ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... account of Martha is very comfortable indeed, and now we shall be in no fear of receiving a worse. This day, if she has gone to church, must have been a trial to her feelings, but it will be the last of any acuteness. . . . Yesterday was a busy day with me. I went to Sydney Gardens soon after one and did not return until four, and after dinner I walked to Weston. My morning engagement was with the Cookes, and our party consisted of George and Mary, a Mr. and Miss B. who had been with us at ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... delightedly. 'It's all aboveboard. There's a devilish good business to be made; it depends only on the man. Why, Denbow has made as much as two hundred in a year out of printing for amateurs alone. It's his own fault that he didn't keep it up. I swear, Rolfe, that with capital and hard work and acuteness, that place can be made the establishment of the kind south of the Thames. Why, there's no reason why one shouldn't net a thousand a year in a ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... be true, if the game of political life were played as it seems to be on the surface, and my cousin was exactly the sort of woman to use ordinary faculties with ability and acuteness; but there are scores of things in which her interference would have been hurtful, and her secrecy dubious. I will give you an instance, and it will serve to show my implicit confidence in yourself. Now with respect to this man, Donogan, there is nothing ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... still in the possession of the travellers, was equally well understood. It was a common artifice to scatter the herds, and to profit by the confusion. But Mahtoree had, as it would seem in this particular undervalued the acuteness of the man he had assailed. The phlegm with which the squatter learned his loss, has already been seen, and it now remains to exhibit the results of his more ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Caius piqued himself on the possession of eloquence; and, strange to say, there are isolated expressions of his which seem to show that, in lucid intervals, he was by no means devoid of intellectual acuteness. For instance, there is real humour and insight in the nicknames of "a golden sheep" which he gave to the rich and placid Silanus, and of "Ulysses in petticoats," by which he designated his grandmother, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... over-scrupulous as to the perfection of his own handiwork when he could slur over a job without fear of detection; while the standard of morality which he set up for himself, certainly, to judge by his own daily life, did not speak much for the acuteness of his ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... never be seen together—were the Priests ABLE to map out the path of the former among the latter? Into that question we need not go. Sufficient to say that they succeeded; and their success—even with the very primitive instruments they had—shows that their astronomical knowledge and acuteness of reasoning were of no ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... who retained all his military acuteness. "But are you prepared,—don't you require time to ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... settling these questions—adjudication and compromise. The difficulties of adjudication were great; I think insuperable. Whatever acuteness and diligence could do has been done. One person in particular, whose talents and industry peculiarly fitted him for such investigations, and of whom I can never think without regret, Mr Hyde Villiers, devoted himself to the examination ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said she. "Certainly, right gladly and gratefully. My friend, if I was disappointed at the result, do not suppose that I fail to appreciate the labor. You have shown rare perseverance and great acuteness. The next time ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... introduced to me that morning by a friend on whose acuteness and judgment I felt I had many good reasons to rely. Without pretending any precise knowledge of the man, or, indeed, any knowledge at all, beyond what had been gathered from the individual himself in a very brief acquaintance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... and the same nature, and built according to one plan. They thus partake, in different degrees and on different planes, of many of the same elements and characteristics. Lucretius, with his usual mixture of acuteness and sophistry, objects to the doctrine that, if it were true, when the soul of a lion passed into the body of a stag, or the soul of a man into the body of a horse, we should see a stag with the courage of a lion, a horse with the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... and the custom gained ground; for in guilt conventional distinctions rapidly vanish, and mind speaks freely out to mind. The presence of the slave, however, restrained him, and after a momentary silence his natural acuteness, great when undisturbed by passion or pride, made him sensible of the wisdom ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
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