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More "Cursory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long, explicit speech for Mrs. Burrage, who dealt, usually, in the cursory and allusive; and she may very well have expected that Miss Chancellor would recognise its importance. What Olive did, in fact, was simply to inquire, by way of rejoinder: "Why did you ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... understood right, and that by swearing I mean all those cursory oaths, curses, execrations, imprecations, asseverations, and by whatsoever other names they are distinguished, which are used in vehemence of discourse, in the mouths almost of all men more or less, of what ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... not to speak in this cursory manner of the treasures of Art, pictures, sculptures, engravings, and the other riches which France lays open so freely to the stranger in her Musees. Any examination worth writing of such objects, or account of the thoughts they inspire, demands a place ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... art of measuring the depth of a hidden purse. He recalled the brilliant Casimir Wieniawski of eight years past—the curled darling of the hot-hearted ladies of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Singapore. In a glance of cursory inspection Alan Hawke had noted the doubtful gloss of the dress suit; it was the polish of long wear, not the velvety glow of newness. There was a growing bald spot, scarcely hidden by the Hyperion Polish curls; there were crows'-feet around the bold, insolent eyes, and the man's smile ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... fine new building in Zimmer Strasse near Koeniggraetzer was opened on the birthday of the Crown Princess, to receive the vast treasures accumulated, by gift, loan, and purchase, for the permanent exhibition. A cursory visit, though most interesting, is sometimes bewildering from the extent and variety of the collection. The centre of the edifice consists of a large court, roofed with glass and surrounded by two galleries. This is the place reserved ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... of the new importations. Young clergymen were not complete without a flower in their button-holes, and the tables of staid old professors groaned beneath the weight of huge pyramidal bouquets. The cursory examination of foreign literature had given rise to an eclecticism which reflected the distinguishing features of that of Cousin, yet went a step further in daring. Yet this was not an eclecticism that, gifted with the power of a king, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... such a virtuoso as Comrade Jackson), needs more snap, more go. All these putrid pages must disappear. Letters must be despatched to-morrow morning, informing Luella Granville Waterman and the others (and in particular B. Henderson Asher, who from a cursory glance strikes me as an ideal candidate for a lethal chamber) that, unless they cease their contributions instantly, you will be compelled to place yourself under police protection. After that we can begin ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... After a cursory examination of the stateroom he wandered out into the cabin. The blacks, sprawled about everywhere, but, conceiving it to be his duty to his Skipper, Jerry made it a point to identify each one. They scowled and uttered low threatening ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... shrine was locked up, and the parroco had gone into the country to visit a sick man, with the key in his pocket, while the ciborium was swathed in festival draperies. We therefore determined to satisfy ourselves with a cursory inspection, and arranged to return the next year; for the steamboats are not like suburban trains, missing one of which merely means a slight delay. Many of the islands have but one or two services in the week; and staying for the ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... material details of 1Kings vi., vii. are reproduced only in an imperfect and cursory manner, the act of consecration on the other hand, and the discourse delivered by Solomon on the occasion, is accurately and fully given (v. 2-vii. 10) in accordance with 1Kings viii.; such additions and omissions ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... that he will cast a "cursory glance" at a subject, what does he mean?—Combine and define cursory ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... the sovereign jurisdictions, I must observe, Sir, that whoever takes a view of this kingdom in a cursory manner will imagine that he beholds a solid, compacted, uniform system of monarchy, in which all inferior jurisdictions are but as rays diverging from one centre. But on examining it more nearly, you find much eccentricity and confusion. It is not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... may convey it more impressively to another; and so, although the lesson of the second parable had been more nearly identical with that of the first than it is, it would not have been expedient to dismiss it with a cursory notice. By a full examination of the principle under the picture of a precious pearl, we shall obtain the advantage which in moral questions, as in material operations, is often unspeakably great, of a second stroke on the same spot. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... suffice for the printing of one of his proposed four volumes of the Church History. This was a most complete, interesting and instructive work. Even today one profits by its perusal and an immense fund of worthwhile information and knowledge may be derived from even a cursory study of his Notes on ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... importance, judging by the modesty of his attitude. Dubkoff himself was in a silk dressing-gown and soft slippers, while Woloda—seated opposite him on a divan—was in his shirtsleeves, as well as (to judge by his flushed face and the impatient, cursory glance which he gave us for a second as he looked up from the cards) much taken up with the game. On seeing ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... Nevertheless, my stay in Brussels, including a short trip from there to Antwerp, had served to distract my thoughts a little. As I did not at that moment feel at all inclined to devote my precious time to looking at works of art, I contented myself in Antwerp with a cursory glance at its outward aspect, which I found less rich in antiquities than I had anticipated. The situation of its famous citadel proved peculiarly disappointing. In view of the first act of my Lohengrin I had presumed ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... A cursory view, when passing through your town on former occasions, had impressed me with the great advantages of your harbor, its easy entrance, its depth, and its extensive accommodation for shipping. But its advantages, and if facilities as they have been developed ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... ask her something as she passed him where he stood in the passage, getting on his coat to go over to the assay office, where he slept. I thought it was about Marcia, from the tone of his voice, and from Paulette's answer, cursory and indistinct through the closed door: "I know. I'm going to." She added something I could not hear at all, but I heard Macartney say sharply that ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... strengthened by calling to mind, that in this opinion I agree with all the wise men who have ever deeply considered the principles of politics; with Aristotle and Polybius, with Cicero and Tacitus, with Bacon and Machiavel, with Montesquieu and Hume.[22] It is impossible in such a cursory sketch as the present, even to allude to a very small part of those philosophical principles, political reasonings, and historical facts, which are necessary for the illustration of this momentous subject. In a full discussion of it I shall be obliged to examine the general frame of the most celebrated ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... keep in view; have regard to, heed, mind, take cognizance of entertain, recognize; make note of, take note of; note. examine cursorily; glance at, glance upon, glance over; cast the eyes over, pass the eyes over; run over, turn over the leaves, dip into, perstringe|; skim &c. (neglect) 460; take a cursory view of. examine, examine closely, examine intently; scan, scrutinize, consider; give one's mind to, bend one's mind to; overhaul, revise, pore over; inspect, review, pass under review; take stock of; fix the eye on, rivet attention on, fix attention on, devote the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... their skins, or bones, or other lifeless exuviae; that we are acquainted with none, or next to none, of their physiological peculiarities, beyond those which can be deduced from their structure, or are open to cursory observation; and that we cannot hope to learn more of any of those extinct forms of life which now constitute no inconsiderable proportion of the known Flora and Fauna of the world: it is obvious that the definitions ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of a member of parliament, Dun was carried before the commons, who voted him insane, and ordered his dismissal. The court of king's bench, however, committed Dun to prison for want of bail and securities, and looking upon facts only in a cursory light, the people believed that the government was determined to make away with the defender of their liberties. All this tended to render the cabinet so obnoxious, that Horace Walpole was apprehensive that there would have been some ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... most cursory view of the story of Beowulf, it is easy to recognise that the unity of the plot is not like the unity of the Iliad or the Odyssey. One is inclined at first to reckon Beowulf along with those epics of which ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... On a cursory inspection of the great works of art—the steam-engine, the printing-press, the power-loom, the mill, the iron foundery, the ship, the telescope, etc., etc.—we are apt to look upon them as having sprung into sudden existence, and reached their present ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... for my condition was getting worse every day. This was very clear to me—and very plain to my parents. They were anxious to do something for me and do it quickly, so they called in a skilled physician. They told him about my trouble. He gave me a cursory examination and decided that my stuttering was caused by nervousness, and gave me some very distasteful medicine, which I was compelled to take three times a day. This medicine did me no good. I took it for five years, but there was no progress made toward curing my stuttering. The reason was ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... Wimborne, more than at many places, the enlargers of the church have contented themselves with adding to the building without removing the work of their predecessors more than was absolutely necessary. A very cursory glance at the exterior of the building as one walks round it is sufficient to show that the church as it stands offers to the student of architecture examples of every style that has prevailed in this country from the twelfth century onward, and he will especially ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... permitted to take a cursory retrospect of Gustavus Adolphus in his victorious career; glance at the scene in which he alone was the great actor; and then, when Austria becomes reduced to extremity by the successes of the Swedes, and by a series of disasters is driven ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... was as sincere, though not so animated as his own: but this similarity in their feelings was of short duration, for when he enquired into what had passed at the castle, with the reasons of her quitting it, the pain she felt in giving even a cursory and evasive account, was opposed on his part by the warmest delight in hearing it: he could not obtain from her the particulars of what had happened, but the reluctance with which she spoke, the air of mortification with which she heard his questions, and the evident displeasure which ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... The most cursory examination of these analytical numbers is sufficient to show that a very close relation subsists between the different substances just described. Indeed, with the exception of vegetable caseine, they may be said all to present the same composition; ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... vegetables, and by this means drifts along with the current into far distant seas and strange climes. To this cause the occasional discovery of foreigners upon British coasts has been ascribed. With regard to the name of the cat-fish, one must not be quite so particular. There is, on a cursory glance, enough of the appearance of pussy about the head of this curious animal to explain how the title came to be applied to it. It strikes one as being rather a morose and surly creature, an impression that ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Such is a cursory view of the attitude of the opening century towards the great faiths of the world. Perhaps one word more than another sums it all up—especially as regards Christianity—and that word ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... an inventory—of the jewels and plate of the Priory of Mellerton, made in the same year, and similarly suppressed. But though both these houses were of the smaller sort, it is quite evident, from a cursory glance at these inventories that they were pretty rich in jewels and plate. By the term jewels is meant plate wherein jewels were set; as to the plate it was, of course, the sacramental vessels and appurtenances. ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... happened, as if by chance, into the department store of Temple & Sweet's. First she gave a cursory glance at the bargain counters where georgette blouses were being tossed about by eager shoppers like corks on the restless sea. She then looked in at the shoe department. Seeing nothing there to interest her she made her way to a lunch counter in the ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... as "containing every variety of person, from the excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney to the base situation of a lady who humbleth herself that she may be exalted." In saying this he was understating rather than overstating the case, since a very cursory inspection of the State papers will reveal the fact that the mistresses and bastards of every English King, from Charles II. to George II., drew their incomes from the Irish establishment free from the inquisitive ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... as it may, the progress of our respective courtships, now that the ice was broken, took on a more decided turn. At first it only amounted to meetings on the boulevards and a cursory greeting, but soon Mlle. Goldberg senior, delighted with my conversation, would deliberately turn to walk with me under the trees the while Fernand Rochez followed by the side of his adored. A week later the ladies accepted my ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... voice tense in his anxiety to prove his reliability, "I find that in the past I have taken only a cursory view of conditions. I see clearly that what you have outlined is a high order of statesmanship. You are constructive: I have been on the side of those who would tear down. I will gladly join hands with you and build up, so that the wealth and power of this country shall ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... gained by his proper delivery, to my friend Dr. Hawkesworth, who told me that in the art of pronunciation he was far inferior to Dr. Watts. Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language, that in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory sermons, but, having adjusted the heads and sketched out some particulars, trusted for success to his extemporary powers. He did not endeavour to assist his eloquence by any gesticulations; for, as no corporeal actions have ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... others, when they have not done so, predicting with assurance that we shall change a decided opinion upon the merits of a work of art; yet one of these two suppositions seems certainly to be implied. I do not say that it is impossible to conceive of either, only that such cursory reference to such conceptions is extremely strange. Again, if work by Jacopo de' Barbari is referred to, it might very well have been seen elsewhere than at Venice eleven years ago; and indeed the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... I had no opportunity of making any observations on the manners and customs of our neighbours. Occasionally Mrs. Tod mentioned them in her social chatter, while laying the cloth; but it was always in the most cursory and trivial way, such as "Miss March having begged that the children might be kept quiet—Mrs. Tod hoped their noise didn't disturb ME? but Mr. March was such a very fidgety gentleman—so particular in his dress, too—Why, Miss March had to iron his cravats with her ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... rulers of America are very anxious to "educate" foreigners in the free "institutions" of their new home. One can only pray that the persons submitted to this process will find some opportunity of adding to their "education" some cursory acquaintance with their own classics; so that when the hour arrives and we wake to find ourselves under the rule of trade-unions or socialistic bureaucrats, our new authorities will know at least something of the "institution," ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... far as a cursory glance enables us to judge, are edited with great care. Their uniformity of plan is very superior to hastily compiled biographies. Each memoir contains the life and labours of its subject, in the smallest space consistent with perspicuity; the dryness of names, dates, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... can give an explanation if it is desired. (To the DOCTOR.) Will you kindly note his temperature and pulse? My explanation must, of necessity, be cursory and brief. ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... extent by a portion of the Bear people moving across to Walpi. No important event seems to have occurred among them for a long period after the destruction of Sikyatki, in which they bore some part, and only cursory mention is made of the ingress of "enemies from the north;" but their village, apparently, was ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... the question, you must solve it; I can leave you only some cursory ideas, which I am satisfied are just, and upon which you may meditate at your leisure. Only for fools or the weak does materialism become a debasing dogma; assuredly, in its code there are none of those precepts of ordinary morals which ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... stirring character, were, however, awaiting them, and as these are intimately associated with the career of the subject of this biography, the delineation of whose life is the purpose of the writer, we will give them something more than a cursory notice. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... a powerful reading-glass in the professional manner those fellows use and gave the two specimens a cursory examination. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... jewelled fingers through genuflexions to the Balcony. Port has this in it: that it compels obeisance, master of us; as opposed to brother and sister wines wooing us with a coy flush in the gold of them to a cursory tope or harlequin leap shimmering up the veins with a sly wink at us through eyelets. Hussy vintages swim to a cosset. We go to Port, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... rolled him in on top of his friend, who had just recovered sufficiently to be thinking about getting out again. The pair of them lay there in a tangled heap. Charteris picked up the bicycle and gave it a cursory examination. The enamel was a good deal scratched, but no material damage had been done. He wheeled ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... school, if we have only escaped the ferula to come under the fescue of an Imprimatur; if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his pedagogue, must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extemporizing licenser? He who is not trusted with his own actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and standing to the hazard of law and penalty, has no great argument to think himself reputed ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... don't understand me. Do you think I'm a sneak? Do you suppose I'd ask you to act as a go-between? Nonsense! I merely ask you to go as a cursory visitor. I don't want you to breathe my name, or even think of me ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the Bibliotaph, 'gave me a vivid sense of the possibility of determining a man's profession by a cursory examination of his cuticle.' Lowell's conviction about N. P. Willis was well-founded: namely, that if it had been proper to do so, Willis could have worn his own plain bare skin in a way to suggest that it was a representative Broadway tailor's ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... I shall give a cursory detail, in the order in which they occurred [61]. He took possession of Picenum, Umbria, and Etruria; and having obliged Lucius Domitius, who had been tumultuously nominated his successor, and held Corsinium with a garrison, to surrender, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... be. Although I have a general idea of your situation, I am very desirous to know precisely how your affairs and those of your dear ones really stand. I feel aggrieved because you touch upon them always in a very cursory manner. From all I can make out, I must fear that the Princess has been cut off from her estate permanently and completely, and I must own that such losses are well adapted to upset one's equanimity. I also understand that you look ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... own compilation is greatly indebted, but merely to show that the etymological study of surnames has scarcely been touched at present, except by writers to whom philology is an unknown science. I have inserted, as a specimen problem (ch. xvi.), a little disquisition on the name Rutter, a cursory perusal of which will convince most readers that it is not much use making ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... of it a final anticlimax—by a remark from my uncle Augustus to his daughter: seated duskily in our group, which included two or three dim dependent forms, he expressed the strong opinion that Marie should go to bed—expressed it, that is, with the casual cursory humour that was to strike me as the main expressional resource of outstanding members of the family and that would perhaps have had under analysis the defect of making judgment very personal without quite making authority so. Authority they hadn't, of a truth, these all so human outstanding ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... certain, that either pride or humility must arise from this conjunction of relations; if the foregoing system be solid and satisfactory. And whether it be so or not, we may soon satisfy ourselves by the most cursory view of human life. ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is strictly and simply the Human Aspiration for Supernal ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... attempt is rather to relate, firstly, the origin and sources of our chivalry; secondly, its character and teaching; thirdly, its influence among the masses; and, fourthly, the continuity and permanence of its influence. Of these several points, the first will be only brief and cursory, or else I should have to take my readers into the devious paths of our national history; the second will be dwelt upon at greater length, as being most likely to interest students of International Ethics and Comparative ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... days to obtain even a cursory view of Liverpool and Birkenhead. We were very glad to be at sea again. The weather was hot, and running about all day was tiring work. Leaving the river, we steered along the Lancashire coast, but did not put into any of its ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... the fullest practical effect to the patriotic fervor that animates any modern nation, and so turn it to use in the most effective way, it is necessary to show that the demands of equity are involved in the case. Any cursory survey of modern historical events bearing on this point, among the civilised peoples, will bring out the fact that no concerted and sustained movement of the national spirit can be had without enlisting the community's moral convictions. The common man must be persuaded that right is on his ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... her steadily, as she gave me this relation, but could not hold her eyes in mine. She seemed more uneasy than troubled. There was a contused wound just below the right temple, which covered, with its livid stain, a portion of the cheek. A cursory examination satisfied me that, whatever might be the cause of his fall, congestion of the brain had occurred, and that but few chances for life remained. So I informed Mrs. Allen. At the words, I could see a shudder run through her frame, and an expression of something ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... what the gullet (oesophagus) would be in a man whose head had been cut off; that is, a truncated tube. Then comes the stomach, situated in the very midst of the liver; which latter may easily be distinguished, even by the most cursory glance at luncheon, from its dark color. The intestine also goes right through the liver, doubling backwards and forwards several times: and thus the digestive tube supplies itself with bile from the cask (to borrow ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... almost hopeless condition presents a warrantable excuse, (the vote-cribber has this moment passed into the cell to take a cursory glance at Tom,) Spunyarn slips nimbly into the vote-cribber's cell, withdraws a brick from the old chimney, and seizing the black neck of a blacker bottle, drags it forth, holds it in the shadow of ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... had not mistaken her previous interrogating look. Nor was it his only disturbing query; he was conscious of the same disappointment now that he could examine her face more attentively, as in his first cursory glance. She was certainly handsome; if there was no longer the freshness of youth, there was still the indefinable charm of the woman of thirty, and with it the delicate curves of matured muliebrity and ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... is the second factor of good organization. A cursory study of a well-organized chapter or merely passing attention to a well-organized lecture reveals at once a distinct difference in the emphasis on the various parts or elements of the subject. The proportional allotment of time or space, the number of illustrations, the number of questions ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... orang-utan. Though Borneo is a treasure-house for the naturalist, the botanist, and the ethnologist, the Dutch, as in New Guinea, have merely scratched its surface, almost no attempt having thus far been made to exploit its enormous natural resources. Thus I have arrayed for your cursory inspection the congeries of curious and colorful islands which constitute Netherlands India in order that you may comprehend the problems of civilization and administration which Holland has had to solve in those distant seas, and that you may be better ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... of a new book that was much admired, and asked Dr. Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON. 'I have looked into it.' 'What, (said Elphinston,) have you not read it through?' Johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, 'No, Sir, do YOU read ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... standpoints and methods for bringing about a solution of a perplexing situation; forecasts calculated to influence responses. It is only too easy to think that one accepts a statement or believes a suggested truth when one has not considered its implications; when one has made but a cursory and superficial survey of what further things one is committed to by acceptance. Observation and recognition, belief and assent, then become names for lazy acquiescence in ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... advanced. In fact, their critical examination may almost be said to have been the result of accident. Having made the birds of the United States his study for several years, the writer glanced over the bird carvings in the most cursory manner, being curious to see what species were represented. The inaccurate identification of some of these by the authors of "The Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley" led to the examination of the series as a whole, and subsequently to the discussion they had received ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... giving it a cursory looking over, but could find nothing out of the way, and every one of them ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... century gave a wonderful stimulus to inventive talent, directed mainly to useful practical results; and this, subsequently, was greatly encouraged by the system of patents, which secure to the originator a reasonable portion of the benefits of his skill. It is sufficient to refer in the most cursory manner to a few of these improvements; we appreciate at once how much they have done. The introduction of the saw-mill gave wooden floors to houses, banishing those of gypsum, tile, or stone; improvements cheapening the manufacture of glass gave windows, ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Copies of this Book were to be obtain'd here in England, besides that one, which the Publisher received from his Parisian Correspondent, and which affords him the opportunity of giving this, though but Cursory, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... a bank-note, and handed it to Chekalinsky, who, after examining it in a cursory manner, placed it ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... an Englishman) his Country can boast of. You & I, among others, have had the Honor of being abusd by Rivingtons Press. A labord Performance has lately crept out, called the Times. I have had a cursory reading of it. It appears to me so much like the Productions of certain Geniuses who figurd in Mr Popes Time, that had the Author been cotemporary with them, a Page might have been added to the Dunciad, to immortalize his Works. I ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... in fact, counting in every chance cursory acquaintanceship, we may well say that we have been intimate with two or ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... are likely to produce. The subjects which have engaged his attention are regarded with deep interest by the philanthropist, the philologist, the archaeologist, as well as many other liberal inquirers, both in Europe and America, who, amid the scanty facts, cursory observations, and hurried, random conjectures of those who have been favored with a comparatively near view of them, have lamented the want of such deliberate investigations and comparative examinations, continued with sober judgment through a long series of years, as are now offered to ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... red-haired beauty up and down, bestowing on her but a cursory glance. Fandor noticed that Bobinette was greatly troubled by it. Following this little by-play, he immediately got a very clear impression that if the lieutenant did not consider the pretty girl worthy of much consideration, she, on her side, seemed very much influenced by all ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... the detectives tell Norvallis they had found nothing. Anyway, if I don't miss my guess, they were so satisfied with something they're keeping up their sleeve that I don't believe they paid more than cursory attention to other details. Just gave everything a perfunctory once-over and let ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... DAYS has fallen into our hands. This is a paper for boys and girls, and, from the cursory examination we have been enabled to give it, we ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... books that one is enabled to arrive at a proper estimate of their worth. 'Continual use gives men a judgment of things comparatively, and they come to fix on what is most proper and easy, which no man, upon cursory view, would determine.'[57] ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... the young lady holding the post of governess in his house must be sent away at once, with a quarter's wages which he would be pleased to remit. To Peter he said nothing; he merely waited for an indignant scene, easily to be squashed with cold and cursory logic concerning allowances and future inheritance if his wishes were disregarded. But it was just there that he misjudged this gay, handsome nephew of his, possessed also of a fund of spirit and strong character which his uncle had not had the ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... had been awaiting the summons, welcomed them heartily; and Bobbie was relieved to see—on taking a cursory glance at the table—that besides the usual array of good things, there was a covered dish, which meant, as he ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... and afterwards heap the dirt symmetrically over a discarded body takes a little time, no matter how cursory is the proceeding. Casey ceased to hear Lucy Lily's raucous voice and so thought that she had settled down. He misjudged the red princess. He discovered that when he went back to where William ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... like some other Englishmen I have known, he has appeared, in delicate cases, to think I would take a comprehensive view. When I have inquired into the grounds of this discrimination in our favor, he has contented himself with saying, in the British-cursory manner, "Oh, I don't know; you are different!" I remember he remarked once that our impressions were fresher. And I am sure that now it was because of my nationality, in addition to other merits, that he treated ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... mastered the art of reading. The ability is acquired slowly, and the teacher must use discretion in what he exacts from the pupil in this regard. If the plan were followed persistently, there would be less time wasted in cursory reading, the results of which are fleeting. What is read in this careful way will become the real possession of the mind and, even if less material is read, more will ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... surface, however, he will find that these beautiful and touching letters give but an incomplete picture; and that, while writing them, Balzac was throwing much energy into schemes, which he either does not mention to his correspondent, or touches on in the most cursory fashion. Therefore the perspective of his life is difficult to arrange, and ordinary rules for gauging character are at fault. We find it impossible to follow the principle, that because Balzac possessed ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... Dodge," he said, "but a matter has just come up which necessitated merely a cursory examination of some purely formal letters which might have an important bearing on the discovery of the Clutching Hand. Your Aunt had no idea where you were, nor of when you might return, and the absolute necessity for haste in such ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... say as to the shoes from a cursory examination, without the instruments?" he inquired with ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... and judicious arrangement of the pictures in the hall of exhibition, No. 625 Broadway, a cursory survey only is required to enforce the conviction that the necessities of light and space demand the erection of a building especially adapted to the purposes of an academy of design, and we hope ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not our province in the present work to detail any thing not directly connected with our story; and therefore we shall pass on, after a cursory glance at the main facts in question. Sometime in March, a party of Wyandots made a descent upon Estill's station, which stood near the present site of Richmond; and having killed and scalped a young lady, and captured a Negro slave, were induced, by the exaggerated account which the latter ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... FACTOR IN PRODUCTION.—A cursory examination of modern industry would convince the observer that land, labor, capital, and cordination are important factors in production. There is, in addition, a factor which is so fundamental, and of such essential value, that it is sometimes overlooked altogether. ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... and took a cursory trot round the School Fields in search of his leader. No Dick was there, and no one had ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... of discontent broke out. The town tax was so strictly enforced at that time at all the gates of Berlin that even hacks entering the city were stopped and searched for provisions of meat or bread—a search which was usually conducted in a cursory and courteous manner. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... myself skilled in physiognomy, and concluded that she was not only perfectly happy, but also the cause of happiness. But here let me say how vain a thing it is for anyone to pronounce a man or woman to be happy or unhappy from a merely cursory inspection. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... abundantly proved; but that it is the only correct path to Scientific truth, that it is the best path to Scientific truth which will ever be known, or that in a rightly balanced Method it would be the main Process, is an averment for which there is no warrant. On the contrary, a very cursory examination of the Inductive Method will show defects which render it unavailable as the sole or the chief guide in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... silence with which the concluding passages of this Reading were always listened to, spoke more eloquently than any applause could possibly have done, of the sincerity of the emotions it awakened. A cursory glance at the audience confirmed the impression produced by that earlier evidence of their rapt and breathless attention. It is the simplest truth to say that at those times many a face illustrated involuntarily the loveliest line in the noblest ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... will do very nicely," Miss Merivale said, after giving the typewritten programmes a cursory glance and pushing them from her. Her eyes went back to Rhoda's face. She saw now that the fleeting glimpse she had got of her on the staircase had somewhat deceived her. Rhoda was not as pretty as she had thought. ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... prosperity, masterfulness, showing in their every word and gesture, in every line of their clean-cut, strong-featured faces. On this particular morning they were not looking their best, and the reason, as well as the explanation of their late rising might possibly be found in the disorder which a cursory glance around the room revealed. Dress coats, white ties, patent leather pumps and other paraphernalia of evening wear were scattered here and there, just as each article had been thrown down when they had returned home the ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for some appreciable time before transferring ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... touch occasionally, in passing, upon points which will be more thoroughly taught later. It excites the interest of the pupil. Thus the customary technical terms are sometimes made use of beforehand, and a needful, cursory explanation given of them.) That is right; you can tell them pretty well already; now we will repeat once more the names of the keys, and then we will stop for to-day. Just see how many things you have ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... theme. Suffice it to say that it had to do with the naming of a baby. And the naming of a baby is really one of the most momentous events upon which the sentinel stars look down. There is more in it than a cursory observer would suppose. Tennyson recognized this when his first son was born, the son who was destined to become the biographer of his distinguished sire and the Governor-General of our Australian Commonwealth. Whilst revelling in the proud ecstasies of early fatherhood, ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... point! When you left the room I was determined to be trifled with no longer, and I asked him, in a firm voice and very marked manner, whether I might command his immediate attention to important business. He professed to be at my service. I opened the affair by taking a cursory, yet definite, review of the principles in which my political conduct had originated, and on which it was founded. I flattered myself that I had produced an impression. Sometimes we are in a better cue for these expositions ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... borders, pale-green, mealy while young, and comparatively smooth when old; flowers whitish, very small, produced in compact clusters; seeds small, yellowish-white, round, a little flattened, about a line in diameter, and, on a cursory glance, might be mistaken for those of millet; they retain their vegetative powers three years; about twelve thousand ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... insufferable Britons, who, while preferring other countries to their own as places of residence; still, overflow with all the pompousness of national and individual vanity combined. "When I was on board the Audacious"—for a long time, was almost the invariable exordium to the fore-top Captain's most cursory remarks. It is often the custom of men-of-war's-men, when they deem anything to be going on wrong aboard ship to refer to last cruise when of course everything was done ship-shape and Bristol fashion. And by referring to the Audacious—an ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Republican Principles which have been admired by some of the greatest Characters, whom (if he is an Englishman) his Country can boast of. You & I, among others, have had the Honor of being abusd by Rivingtons Press. A labord Performance has lately crept out, called the Times. I have had a cursory reading of it. It appears to me so much like the Productions of certain Geniuses who figurd in Mr Popes Time, that had the Author been cotemporary with them, a Page might have been added to the Dunciad, to immortalize his Works. I will endeavor to get some ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... you don't understand me. Do you think I'm a sneak? Do you suppose I'd ask you to act as a go-between? Nonsense! I merely ask you to go as a cursory visitor. I don't want you to breathe my name, or even think of me while you ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... pension list as "containing every variety of person, from the excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney to the base situation of a lady who humbleth herself that she may be exalted." In saying this he was understating rather than overstating the case, since a very cursory inspection of the State papers will reveal the fact that the mistresses and bastards of every English King, from Charles II. to George II., drew their incomes from the Irish establishment free from the inquisitive prying of the English House of Commons. Although George III. ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... a very cursory part in the discussion, putting in a word here and there where contradiction or approval might further inflame ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... him steadily. She looked at him with a sort of queenly woodenness, as if he were behind a camera with a velvet bag over his head and had just told her to moisten the lips with the tip of the tongue. Her aspect staggered Lord Dawlish. A cursory inspection of his conscience showed nothing but purity and whiteness, but he must have done something, or she would not be staring at him ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... was stupid; yet, stupider men than he are now sprawling in Parliament, and lauding themselves as the authors of their own distinction. He was of a fat habit, even from boyhood, and inclined to a cheerful and cursory reading of the face of life; and possibly this attitude of mind was the original cause of his misfortunes. Beyond this hint philosophy is silent on his career, and superstition steps in with the more ready explanation that he was detested ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... John Burrough had leisure to take such a survey of the goods in his prize, as the convenience of the seas would admit; and seeing many inclined to commit spoil and pillage, he very prudently seized upon the whole in the name of her majesty. He then made a cursory inspection of the cargo, and perceived that the wealth would be fully answerable to expectation, and would be more than sufficient to content both the desires of the adventurers, and the fatigues and dangers of the captors. I cannot here refrain from acknowledging the great favour ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... after wasting a precious hour, that the clerk's description was altogether a wrong one, and that he resembled Hayle in no sort of way. We boarded the South African mail-boat, but he was not among her passengers; we overhauled the American liner, with an equally barren result. We paid cursory visits to the principal hotels, but could hear no tidings of him in any one of them. As a matter of fact, if the man had journeyed to Southampton, as I had every reason to suppose he had done, he must have disappeared into thin air when he got there. The whole affair was ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... by someone uncommonly clever, must have done that job," added Craig. "Well, there is nothing more to be done here," he added, after a cursory look about the office. "Mr. Andrews, may I have a word with you? Come on, Jameson. Good day, Mr. Kahan. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... beginning are no doubt few;—but, from the first, they are well marked, and go on with increasing rapidity. The acquisition of knowledge by them, and especially the application of it, are evident to the most cursory observer. For example, we see a child cling to its keeper, and refuse to go to a stranger;—we see it when hungry stretch out its arms, and cry to get to its nurse;—and when it has fallen in its efforts ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... Artist was gratifying himself with a cursory view of the works of art, and of the curiosities, Mr. Hope, of Amsterdam, the father of the gentlemen who have since become so well known in London for their taste in the arts, and their superb collections of pictures ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... millennium B.C. to its climax in the eighteenth dynasty, and throughout the period of its decline; and this applies not merely to the pictures proper, but to the forms of the hieroglyphic letters themselves, for it requires but the most cursory inspection to show that these give opportunity for no ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... and young Somerset's brain-work for the last six weeks lay under their eyes. To Dare, who was too cursory to trouble himself by entering into such details, it had very little meaning; but the design shone into Havill's head like a light into a dark place. It was original; and it was fascinating. Its originality lay partly ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... story of what electricity and its necessary precursor, fire, have done and promise to do for civilization, may have attraction in itself; so, also, may a review, though most cursory, of the work of the camera and all that led up to it: for the provinces here are as wide as art and science, and their bounds comprehend well-nigh the entirety of human exploits. And between the lines of this story we may read another—one which may ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... leaving the county, he ordered his housekeeper to furnish every thing needful for them as often as they wanted it, and to take care they were well used by the women with whom he had placed them; and delivered these commands not in a cursory or negligent manner, but in such terms as terrified any failure of obedience in this point would ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... in Greek, and both gave a cursory view of the earlier history: Dion. Hal. i. 6, Romaion hosoi ta palaia erga tes poleos Hellenike dialekto synegrapsan, hon eisi presbytatoi Kointos te Phabios kai Leukios Kinkios ... touton de ton andron hekateros ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... a democratic nicker and went forward briskly. And the rider turned his head, eyed the girl sharply as she came up, and nodded a cursory greeting. His horse lifted its head to look, decided that it wanted another swallow or two, and lowered its ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... of food. Gramper and Grammer were at first alarmed and there was talk of sending for a veterinary, the nearest to a professional man of medicine within miles and miles. But this talk died out after Gramper had made a cursory examination of the big yard, with especial attention to the lilac clump, where a pipe and other evidence was noticed. After that they not only became strangely reassured, but during their evening smoke on the little ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... question, you must solve it; I can leave you only some cursory ideas, which I am satisfied are just, and upon which you may meditate at your leisure. Only for fools or the weak does materialism become a debasing dogma; assuredly, in its code there are none of those precepts of ordinary morals which ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... close to the tree in which we supposed the nest to be, while I moved off around the mountain-side. It was not long before the youth had their secret. The tree which was low and wide-branching, and overrun with lichens, appeared at a cursory glance to contain not one dry or decayed limb. Yet there was one a few feet long, in which, when my eyes were piloted thither, I ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... on. (It is advantageous and psychologically correct to touch occasionally, in passing, upon points which will be more thoroughly taught later. It excites the interest of the pupil. Thus the customary technical terms are sometimes made use of beforehand, and a needful, cursory explanation given of them.) That is right; you can tell them pretty well already; now we will repeat once more the names of the keys, and then we will stop for to-day. Just see how many things you have ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... Tyre, the Phoenicians are said to have performed a voyage, which, if authentic, may justly be regarded as the most important that the annals of this people record: we allude to the circumnavigation of Africa. As this voyage has given rise to much discussion, we may be excused for deviating from the cursory and condensed character of this part of our work, in order to investigate its probable authenticity. All that we know regarding it is delivered to us by Herodotus; according to this historian, soon after Nechos, king of Egypt, had finished the canal ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... note of all this, or give the poor pawns thus parading for his purpose more than a cursory glance. When he did think, which was when he was halfway up the staircase, it was to look back upon a changed scene. For with his going, interest had flagged and the tableau lost its pointedness. No one had ventured as yet to leave his place, ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... One of them was named the Trinidad, from having been discovered on Trinity Sunday, and the other was called Herrera-yacu, after Major Ramon Herrera, of the Peruvian Army, who commanded the escort of the Commission. The supplies of the expedition were running too short to allow of any but a cursory examination of these two rivers. The Trinidad, trending to the westward, can only be of value as affording a water route to the plains lying between the Pichis and the Ucayali, but it is possible that the Herrera-yacu may furnish ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... one of who, a young officer, slender of form and gracefully alert of movement, wore the dark-blue uniform of the French Flying Corps. I knew him only too well. It was Jean-Herve-Marie-Olivier. But the glance I gave him was most cursory; my attention was focused hungrily on the two ladies in the tonneau. They had risen and were divesting themselves in leisurely fashion of a most complicated arrangement of motor coats ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... to scan the sky, roving from planet to star, from single stars to double stars, from double to coloured stars, in the cursory manner of the merely curious. They plunged down to that at other times invisible multitude in the back rows of the celestial theatre: remote layers of constellations whose shapes were new and singular; pretty ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... to the high character of the Revision. The changes in this noble poem are many, and were especially needed, for the rendering of the Book of Job has always been felt to be one of the weakest portions of the great work of the Revisers of 1611. Illustrations I am unable to give, in a cursory notice like the present, but I may again press the Revisers' version of this deeply interesting Book on the serious attention of every earnest student ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... thoroughly searched? Yes, there was the big bottom drawer in the wardrobe, in which Miss Carson kept her hats. She had looked into it once, but seeing that it apparently contained nothing but the few simple hats that the holiday governess owned, had pushed it to again. But now, feeling that that cursory glance had not been sufficient, Hilary knelt down before the wardrobe, and putting her hand to the back of the drawer, pulled out Margaret's morocco dressing-bag. It was the work of a moment only ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... his shoulders, aprons of wood extending downward a few inches upon his chest and back. From these aprons hung long tassels or switches of hair tapering from the outer edges toward the center which reached below the bottom of his torso. It required but the most cursory examination to indicate to the ape-man that these ornaments consisted of human scalps, taken, doubtless, from the heads of the sacrifices upon the eastern altars. The headdress itself had been carved to depict in formal design a hideous face that suggested both man and gryf. ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... order, this seems not an inappropriate place to notice one of the most curious peculiarities connected with the bats—their singular parasite, the Nycteribia.[1] On cursory observation this creature appears to have neither head, antennae, eyes, nor mouth; and the earlier observers of its structure satisfied themselves that the place of the latter was supplied by a cylindrical sucker, which, being placed between the shoulders, the insect had no option but ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... would you say as to the shoes from a cursory examination, without the instruments?" ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... accused of attempting to marry her, at a time when he was already engaged to another woman—Bishopriggs would find himself confronted with the owner of that terrible fist, which had justly terrified him even on a distant and cursory view. If, on the other hand she placed her interests in the care of her uncle—Bishopriggs had only to look at the captain, and to calculate his chance of imposing terms on a man who owed Life a bill of more than sixty years' date, and who openly defied ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... physiognomy, and concluded that she was not only perfectly happy, but also the cause of happiness. But here let me say how vain a thing it is for anyone to pronounce a man or woman to be happy or unhappy from a merely cursory inspection. ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova • David Widger
... display could impart was confined to spectators who studied its specialties for themselves and used their deductions for their individual advantage, and to those who read the sufficiently general and cursory reports made to their several governments by the national commissions. The official awards and reports of the exposition authorities amounted to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... its character and teaching; thirdly, its influence among the masses; and, fourthly, the continuity and permanence of its influence. Of these several points, the first will be only brief and cursory, or else I should have to take my readers into the devious paths of our national history; the second will be dwelt upon at greater length, as being most likely to interest students of International Ethics and Comparative Ethology ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... its maker, October 10, 1846, a cursory view of a Neptunian attendant. But the planet was then approaching the sun, and it was not until the following July that the observation could be verified, which it was completely, first by Lassell himself, and somewhat later by Otto Stuve and Bond of Cambridge (U.S.). ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... however, a distant or cursory glance that will give you a just idea of the importance of ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... earnestness which exacted attention. The gentleman who was in company with our youth, and from whom we deliver the story, being an Irishman, instantly recognizing in the petitioner, an unhappy countrywoman, stopped, surveyed her with more than cursory regard, and put his hand into his pocket in order to give her money. As there was in her aspect that which bespoke something that had once been better accommodated, and had claims above a common mendicant, he was ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... it were crowded with spectators, mostly women a pleasing mingling of the skating-rink and sewing-circle varieties—and gayety was apparently about setting in with the dusk. The rink and the, ground opposite the hotel were in full tilt. After supper King and Forbes took a cursory view of this strange encampment, walking through the streets of fantastic tiny cottages among the scrub oaks, and saw something of family life in the painted little boxes, whose wide-open front doors gave to view the whole domestic economy, including the bed, centre-table, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... he can cover up his postponements and neglect for a measurable time without censure. He can fail to set the house of his mind in order; he can sweep the dust of unfinished investigation into obscure nooks and corners; he can make fair the outside of the cup and the platter for cursory inspection. Herein lies his peculiar temptation. The public is prone to take his scientific spirit for granted, and is a long time in opening its eyes. Meanwhile he lives a life of delightful leisure, teaching as many hours a week as a business man labours in a ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... as they are, I can truly promise the reader that he will find nothing wilfully misrepresented, nor advanced without just authority; and if the rapid and cursory character of the observations, allusions, and anecdotes, shall enable an hour to pass agreeably that has no better employment, I am content, and gratified with the attainment of all I ever hoped or designed by an unpretending publication, which I cheerfully dedicate to all who ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... out. The town tax was so strictly enforced at that time at all the gates of Berlin that even hacks entering the city were stopped and searched for provisions of meat or bread—a search which was usually conducted in a cursory and courteous manner. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... be seen scattered about in the more sheltered bays. Some apparently remain till tolerably late in the spring as Mr. MacCulloch wrote me word that a pair of Scoters were killed in the last week in April, 1878, off the Esplanade; he continues, "I had only a cursory glance of them as I was passing through the market in a hurry, and I am not sure they were not Velvet Scoters. The male had a great deal of bright yellow about the nostrils." Mr. MacCulloch, however, told me afterwards, when I asked him more about them, and especially whether he ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... me from each meeting are to be read over from my elaboration at the next. Nobody is permitted to hold a pen or to make a note whilst they are being read. Afterwards I have your father's promise that not even he will ask for even a cursory glance at them. I deliver them sealed to ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... steps in. These customs, these symbols, these masks, all that tradition and atavism have jumbled together in the Japanese brain, proceed from sources utterly dark and unknown to us; even the oldest records fail to explain them to us in anything but a superficial and cursory manner, simply because we have absolutely nothing in common with this people. We pass in the midst of their mirth and their laughter without understanding the wherefore, so totally does ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... struck me in my very cursory perusal of Bryant. He asks where Chatterton could find so much knowledge of English events? I could tell him where he might, by a very natural hypothesis, though merely an hypothesis. It appears by the evidence, that Canninge ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... close the narrative of my explorations in 1840-1, it may not be out of place to take a brief and cursory review of the whole, and to state generally what have been the results effected. In making this summary, I have no important rivers to enumerate, no fertile regions to point out for the future spread of colonization and civilization, or no noble ranges to describe from which are washed ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... sometimes absorbed in study, sometimes equally ardent over a childish game; wild about philanthropic plans, and apparently forgetting them the instant a cold word had fallen on them; attempting everything, finishing nothing; dipping into every kind of book, and forsaking it after a cursory glance; ever busy, yet ever idle; full of desultory knowledge, ranging through all kinds of reading and natural history, and still more full of talk. This last was perhaps his most decided gift. To any one, of whatever degree, he would talk, he could hardly have been silent ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not excepted, whereof the characters seemed to him more blind and confused than those of the other. Continual use gives men a judgment of things comparatively, and they come to fix on that as most proper and easy which no man, upon cursory view, would determine. His soul was never so staked down as in an old bookseller's shop; for having (as the statutes of the college required) taken orders, he was restless till he had compassed some of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... endure great fatigues, they arrived at the principal town of the Five Nations. There, and elsewhere within the limits of that confederacy, our traveller abode two full years. The public must not expect to find in this brief introduction a cursory statement, much less a minute journal of his curious observations and discoveries during that period. The Editor would make a very bad use of the confidence reposed in him, if he were to attempt either. Public curiosity, however, will be gratified, for the highly ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... conclusion is supported is too subtle and complicated to be properly dealt with in a public lecture, and you will thank me for not inviting you to consider it at all.[13] I feel the more free to pass it by now as I think that the cursory account of the absolutistic attitude which I have already given is sufficient for our present purpose, and that my own verdict on the philosophy of the absolute as 'not proven'—please observe that I go no farther ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals, that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... what did he possess worth stealing? Nothing of any great value: a modest collection of masculine jewelry—stick-pins and the like; a quantity of clothing; a few fairly good pictures; a few rare books. But the merest cursory examination showed that these were intact, one and all. What cash he had was all upon his person. His desk, where the lamp had been lighted, held nothing valuable to anybody other than himself: manuscripts, account books, some personal papers ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... other countries to their own as places of residence; still, overflow with all the pompousness of national and individual vanity combined. "When I was on board the Audacious"—for a long time, was almost the invariable exordium to the fore-top Captain's most cursory remarks. It is often the custom of men-of-war's-men, when they deem anything to be going on wrong aboard ship to refer to last cruise when of course everything was done ship-shape and Bristol fashion. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... here go into any of the varieties, beyond giving a cursory glance at them as a whole. The double kinds are all beautiful, some superb and rare, as the ruby and crimson; the white, sulphur, mauve, magenta, and other less distinct double forms are more easily grown, and in some parts ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... man, seem to be. Although I have a general idea of your situation, I am very desirous to know precisely how your affairs and those of your dear ones really stand. I feel aggrieved because you touch upon them always in a very cursory manner. From all I can make out, I must fear that the Princess has been cut off from her estate permanently and completely, and I must own that such losses are well adapted to upset one's equanimity. I also understand that you look into ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... he took refuge in that of unimpeachable honesty. 'Fair and square! The best man wins!' This lasted for some time, but was not proof against 'Swedes, Mr. James. Mangolds, Mr. James. Stewing pears, Mr. James.' He began to get in a panic. His bow was cursory. He pocketed the money furtively and read his name in a low, apologetic tone. But this would never do! He must pull ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... They made a cursory search of the Pilgrim and found that he was not armed, and he was given to understand that he would be expected to stay around town until the coroner came and "sat" on the case. But he was treated to drinks ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... "Quadrumana," or four-handed creatures, adopted from the older anatomists [5] by Blumenbach, and unfortunately rendered current by Cuvier, should have gained such wide acceptance as a name for the Simian group. But the most cursory anatomical investigation at once proves that the resemblance of the so-called "hind hand" to a true hand, is only skin deep, and that, in all essential respects, the hind limb of the Gorilla is as truly terminated by a foot as that of man. The tarsal bones, in all important circumstances of ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... him. Nor when, on the preceding evening just before sunset, the lookout had sighted and reported the Clarice, did her appearance excite the least uneasiness. She was so small a vessel compared with the Truxillo, that nobody condescended to honour her with more than a glance of the most cursory description. Moreover, being discovered on the starboard bow, reaching out from the direction wherein land was known to be, with her yards artfully ill braced, her canvas badly set, her running gear hanging ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... I've been running madly up and down for you!" cried Lady Flora, suddenly descending on them, and carrying off her charge with a cursory nod to the Guardsman, marking the difference between a detrimental and even the ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with writing tables, some luxurious arm chairs, and a comfortable lounge, and every spare nook was filled with book shelves. The contents of these shelves were extremely varied. A cursory glance showed me Meyer's Neues Konversations-Lexicon, The Yacht Register, Whitaker's Almanack, Who's Who, Burke's Peerage, The Almanack de Gotha, the British and the Continental Bradshaw, a number of Baedeker's "Guides," fifty or sixty volumes ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... he made in an almost cursory tone. I could see that what was upmost in his mind was the fact that I had read 'Negations.' His pale eyes had for the first time gleamed. I felt as one who is about to be examined, viva voce, on the very subject in which he is shakiest. I hastily ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... to the fact that this monograph has no reference to the Manbos of Port San Agustin nor to the Manbos of the Libagnon River and its tributaries, nor to the Manbos that occupy the hinterland above Nasipit as far as the Bugbus River. I had only cursory dealings with the inhabitants of the last-named region but both from my own scant observations and from the reports of others more familiar with them, I am inclined to believe that there may be differences great enough to distinguish them from ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of Criticism," (a truly original work) there is a distinct chapter on architecture and gardening. He therein thus addresses the reader:—"These cursory observations upon gardening, shall be closed with some reflections that must touch every reader. Rough uncultivated ground, dismal to the eye, inspires peevishness and discontent: may not this be one cause of the harsh ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... the privilege before it was ended; but with the first and second the difficulties had disappeared; and, had she not felt somewhat ashamed of the occupation, she could have sat at her desk and written him letters all day. Brooke would answer them, with fair regularity, but in a most cursory manner,—sending seven or eight lines in return for two sheets fully crossed; but this did not discompose her in the least. He was worked hard at his office, and had hundreds of other things to do. He, too, could say,—so thought ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... grave and afterwards heap the dirt symmetrically over a discarded body takes a little time, no matter how cursory is the proceeding. Casey ceased to hear Lucy Lily's raucous voice and so thought that she had settled down. He misjudged the red princess. He discovered that when he went back to where ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... in her left leg and in her face—the lower part of her face. The surgeons, taking their cursory view of her, as they did of the rest of the sufferers, were not sparing in their remarks, for they believed her to be insensible. She had gathered that the leg was to be amputated, and that she ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... constructive skill. As regards the technical execution of Leonarda, its only obvious weakness is a slight want of vividness in the presentation of the thesis. The hiatuses between the acts leave perhaps too much to the imagination, and the play needs more than a cursory reading for us to grasp the full import of the actions and motives of its personages. Leonarda has not been previously translated into English; though Swedish, French, German and Finnish versions of ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... to be pure and strong without God, theologically the Pelagian heresy, is sufficiently answered by a cursory view of what humanity has done and does do. Even where the Christian religion has been accepted the accomplishment is hardly ground for boasting. The plain fact is (and you may account for it how you like, it remains in any case ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... unnecessarily alarmed. On that terrible slave question, over which wiser brains have puzzled, till they became lost in a labyrinth of self-contradiction, I purpose to speak only a few cursory words. It is beyond dispute that a vast extent of the richest land in the South can only be kept in cultivation by the Africans, who can thrive and fatten where the white man withers helplessly. No one that has realized the present state of our own West Indian colonies, will ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... distinct traces that another work has been made use of, more or less, as an aid in the compilation, we might almost say, as a framework to fill up. This is the itinerary of the German knight William of Boldensele, written in 1336 at the desire of Cardinal Talleyrand de Perigord. A cursory comparison of this with Mandeville leaves no doubt of the fact that the latter has followed its thread, using its suggestions, and on many subjects its expressions, though digressing and expanding on every side, and too often eliminating ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Republic, besides acting in London and other cities of Great Britain, and gaining extraordinary success upon the stage of Germany. To think of Edwin Booth is immediately to be reminded of those leading events in his career, while to review them, even in a cursory glance, is to perceive that, notwithstanding calamities and sorrows, notwithstanding a bitter experience of personal bereavement and of the persecution of envy and malice, Edwin Booth has ever been ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Mrs. Abbott, in her own homely language determined to take the bull by the horns. She sailed into the Occidental Hotel one afternoon and up the stairs without pausing at the desk. The clerk gave her a cursory glance. Mrs. Abbott went where she listed, and, ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... to the best of my ability, the beetles on the floor, I proceeded to expend my curiosity—and occupy my thoughts —in an examination of the bed. It only needed a very cursory examination, however, to show that the seeming bed was, in reality, none at all,—or if it was a bed after the manner of the Easterns it certainly was not after the fashion of the Britons. There was no framework,—nothing to represent ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... come, but won't be called a servant, and can pay her own fare. Very peculiar—but we read, you know, in that New England book, that that was just the independent way they felt about it. They can only induce slaves to be servants there, I believe." She gave this cursory view of the condition of affairs in the neighbouring States in an abstracted voice, and summed up her remarks by speaking out her decision in a more lively tone. "Well, we must have some one to help with the work. This girl looks strong, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... Boies Penrose is not all as he is pictured. At a cursory glance he might appear to be a physiological, psychological, and political anachronism. At least he is sufficiently different from his colleagues to be, if not actually mysterious, not easily understandable. There is something fundamental about him. He ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... The ordinary eye may fail to detect the difference, and innumerable forms are assigned by the popular judgment to the inorganic world which are nevertheless undoubtedly alive. And it is the same in the spiritual world. To a cursory glance these rudimentary spiritual forms may not seem to exhibit the phenomena of Life, and therefore the living and the dead may be often classed as one. But let the appropriate scientific tests be applied. In the almost amorphous organism, the physiologist ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... was a wide one, and they need not suppose that he was going to enter into the history of all Australian explorations that had taken place. He was sure that time would not admit of his making even cursory remarks upon these events. Mr. Forrest then alluded to the exploratory labours of Stuart—perhaps the greatest of Australian explorers—of McKinlay, of Burke and Wills, of Captain Roe, and the Gregorys, and ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... Spain, England and Germany. Italy came later. The superb set in the Cluny Museum in Paris, The Lady and the Unicorn, than which nothing could be lovelier in poetic feeling as well as in technique, is accorded to French looms. But as it is impossible in a cursory survey to mention all, the two most important cities are dwelt upon because it is from them that the greatest amount of the best ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... row was more elevated, no doubt overlooking cultivated fields beyond the confines of the ruin. No kivas were discovered, but if such exist they ought to be found in the mass of houses at the southern end. I thought we had found circular rooms in that region, but cursory excavations did not demonstrate their existence. As there is no reason to suspect the existence of circular kivas in ancient Tusayan, it would be difficult to decide whether or not any one of the large rectangular rooms was ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... printing: although its invention is placed in the middle of the fifteenth century, and almost the very year fixed, this can only be regarded as a matured stage of it. To illustrate this, I propose to begin with a cursory view of its primitive elements, of which the very first were no doubt initiative marks ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... population, but lost to some extent by a portion of the Bear people moving across to Walpi. No important event seems to have occurred among them for a long period after the destruction of Sikytki, in which they bore some part, and only cursory mention is made of the ingress of "enemies from the north;" but their ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... now be permitted to take a cursory retrospect of Gustavus Adolphus in his victorious career; glance at the scene in which he alone was the great actor; and then, when Austria becomes reduced to extremity by the successes of the Swedes, and by a series of ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... Alexander Finlay, the resident Chamberlain of his friend Lord Douglas, the state of his health at the time was so feeble, that he found himself incapable of pursuing his researches, as in better days he would have delighted to do, and was obliged to be contented with such a cursory view of scenes, in themselves most interesting, as could be snatched in a single morning, when any bodily exertion was painful. Mr. Haddow was attentive enough to forward subsequently some notes on the points which ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... prominent Americans are shamefully meagre, I was inclined to regard Rector Reed's sermon as a historical document of inestimable value. Being prone, however, to act upon the advice of St. Paul and "prove all things," I began a cursory investigation. Rector Reed neglected to give the source of his information, and to save me I could find but seven presidents, including Washington, who were Episcopalians, and now Col. Patrick Ford, of the Irish World calls my attention ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... throw myself into this case, heart and soul. Money, Justice, Law, Morality, are all concerned—One moment, my dear sir! If you must really go back to London, oblige me at any rate, with your address, and just state in a cursory way, whether you were christened or not at Dibbledean church. I want nothing more to begin with—absolutely nothing more, on my word of honor ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... powerful reading-glass in the professional manner those fellows use and gave the two specimens a cursory examination. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... on the Fifth Avenue side were two men who attracted more or less attention. Old Gripper Scott was known by sight to many of those present, and, being one of the great American money kings, naturally received more than cursory notice. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... and seating himself at the desk, proceeded to an examination of his newly acquired property. The newspapers in the scrap basket, mainly copies of the Evening Register, seemed to contain, upon cursory examination, nothing germane to the issue. But, scattered among them, the searcher found a number of fibrous chips. They were short and thick; such chips as might be made by cutting a bamboo pole into cross lengths, convenient ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Taste, in what are generally supposed to be Works of mere Amusement; or modest to direct its Judgment, in what is offered for its Entertainment; I would beg leave to introduce the following Sheets with a few cursory Remarks, that may lead the common Reader into some tolerable conception of the nature of this Work, and the design of ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... Having taken a cursory view of the ruins in the mead, we ascended the hill which borders upon it, and surveyed a prospect of the same nature, though in a more lovely and expanded style, than that which I beheld from Mosolente. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... circulation—not, perhaps, in this state alone. The state spends its money for the above institution, and, therefore, has a right to know what it is; a knowledge which can never be obtained from the reports of the authorities, the cursory observations of visitors, or the statements of ignorant ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... than heard the rapping, and, at the sight, went in quest of the dreaming operator without so much as embarrassing Miss Carmichael with an offer of his services. And presently the operator, whose official day did not begin for some two hours yet, appeared, much dishevelled from running and the cursory nature of his toilet, prepared to receive a message of ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... therefore, saw of her in a cursory view was very little; in truth, mainly something that was not she. The woman herself was a shadowy, conjectural creature who had little to do with the outlines presented to Sherton eyes; a shape in the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... evening he would show the completed sketch to Shirley, who would give it a cursory ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... here they are at last!" he cried joyfully, lighting up the room. Marya Shatov took a cursory ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... only by the study of their skins, or bones, or other lifeless exuvia; that we are acquainted with none, or next to none, of their physiological peculiarities, beyond those which can be deduced from their structure, or are open to cursory observation; and that we cannot hope to learn more of any of those extinct forms of life which now constitute no inconsiderable proportion of the known Flora and Fauna of the world: it is obvious that the definitions of these species can be only of ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... In their buildings, their customs, their worship, their religious faith, their extreme cleanliness, their costume, and in many other particulars, they are all nearly alike; and the Shaker of Kentucky does not to the cursory view differ from his brother of Maine. But I have thought it necessary, to a complete view of the order, to present some particulars of each society, as to its location, numbers, the quantity of land it ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... fact, he gave himself insufferable airs. He began his antics directly he caught sight of the young peasant girl waiting for him; slowly, with a swaggering step, he went up to her, stood a moment shrugging his shoulders, stuffed both hands in his coat pockets, and barely vouchsafing the poor girl a cursory and indifferent glance, he dropped on to ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... with peace of mind, was in the habit of pacing this noble hall, and watching the process of renewal and adornment; or, which suited him still better, of enjoying its great, deep solitude when the workmen were away. Parties of visitors, curious tourists, sometimes peeped in, took a cursory glimpse at the old hall, and went away; these were the only ordinary disturbances. But, one day, a person entered, looked carelessly round the hall, as if its antiquity had no great charm to him; then he seemed ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pronouncements regarding those for whose special benefit he has exercised it, and to childish insults of the Blacks whose doom must be sealed to secure the precious result which is aimed at. In view of this ill-intentioned omission, we shall offer a few cursory remarks bearing on, but not attempting to answer, those grave inquiries concerning the African people. As in our humble opinion these are questions paramount to all the petty local issues finically dilated on by the confident prophet of "The Bow ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... whose knowledge of things theatrical is merely cursory, scant or non-existent, the two signs given above may have exactly the same meaning, bear the same message in both cases. But to all those "in the know" as to stage matters the two signs tell two ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... acknowledge, that their tastes were elegant, sublime, and well-formed, with respect to works of sculpture, statuary, and architecture. As a proof of this, in behalf of the ancients, 'tis only requisite we should take a cursory view of those noble and magnificent productions of art, commonly called THE SEVEN WONDERS OF ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... said Morriston, "has made a cursory examination of the body. The autopsy will take place elsewhere. The police are making notes of everything important, and after dark will remove the body quietly by the tower door. So I hope the ladies will know nothing ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... rock, which to a cursory glance seemed as if composed of whiter stone on the top. "Gulls, I declare!" shouted Charley, at the same time ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... run the blockade, when an officer of the Miqueletes approached our carriage and demanded our papers. I showed my Foreign Office passport, with the visa of the Spanish Consulate at London upon it. He gave a cursory look at it, bowed, and returned it to me. Then came the turn of Barbarossa, and there was a flash of shrewd spitefulness ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... may, the progress of our respective courtships, now that the ice was broken, took on a more decided turn. At first it only amounted to meetings on the boulevards and a cursory greeting, but soon Mlle. Goldberg senior, delighted with my conversation, would deliberately turn to walk with me under the trees the while Fernand Rochez followed by the side of his adored. A week later the ladies accepted my friend's ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... as indications. In a mining town, one is astonished at the costumes seen on persons issuing from insignificant houses, and at the excellent bill of fare in a restaurant with the barest necessities of furnishing. Cursory observation often reads the signs of civilization wrongly. The eastern traveller, accustomed to the outward glitter and the finish of settled communities, fails to interpret the real efficiency of a more flexible society. West of the Mississippi, ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... peculiarities connected with the bats is their singular parasite, the Nycteribia.[1] On cursory observation, this creature appears to have neither head, antennae, eyes, nor mouth; and the earlier observers of its structure assured themselves that the place of the latter was supplied by a cylindrical sucker, which, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... evident from a cursory examination of the map. But its effect upon the people of that state is not generally known. It is about six hundred miles from Brownsville, at the bottom of the map, to Dallas, which is several hundreds of miles from the top of the map. Hence the following conversation in Brownsville recently ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the cursory look and plunged again into the unbroken wilderness. Two or three hours later he decided that he was being followed. He had not seen or heard anything, but it was a sort of divination. He sought to throw it aside, telling ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the three colleagues in the Odyssey are not to be easily distinguished by internal evidence. On trying the experiment by a cursory reading I confess (though a critic does not willingly admit his fallibility) that I took some of Broome's work for Pope's, and, though closer study or an acuter perception might discriminate more accurately, I do not think ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... Thespian Art; triumphant surely, since the whole Pit, which was of Twenty-five Millions, not only claps hands, but does itself spring on the boards and passionately set to playing there. And being such, be it treated as such: with sincere cursory admiration; with wonder from afar. A whole Nation gone mumming deserves so much; but deserves not that loving minuteness a Menadic Insurrection did. Much more let prior, and as it were, rehearsal scenes of Federation come and go, henceforward, as they ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... design was produced, and some of the later patrol boats were converted and called "P Q's." These vessels had the appearance of small merchant ships at a cursory glance. They would not, however, stand close examination owing, again, to their fine lines, but being better sea boats than the "P's," by reason of their greater freeboard, the design was continued, and they met ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... a magnificent plan but unfinished, known as Tirumala's Choultrie. There is so much of interest and detail connected with all of these Dravidian temples that one should plan to have more time to devote to them. The cursory examination we were afforded measures the disadvantage of an itinerary. We left after luncheon for Tuticorin, and ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... him that the package I had given him was of no value to any person but myself; that it was made up of various articles of writing, containing hundreds of names, many of which were familiar to me. He looked them over in a cursory ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... not only fought and defeated the Rebel cavalry on many sanguinary fields, but it had met the serried lines of their infantry also, as at Gettysburg, where the brave Farnsworth fell. Owing to this fatigue of our forces, our pursuit of the enemy was not as vigorous, it would seem in a cursory glance, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... had heard of plucking, but in a very vague and cursory way, and concluded that it was some ceremony performed corporally upon rebellious university youth. "I wonder you can look me in the face after such a disgrace, sir," he said; "I wonder you submitted to it as ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the European scholar, or in fact to any one whose mind is not bound by the doctrine of /S/ruti, it will certainly appear that all such attempts stand self-condemned. If anything is evident even on a cursory review of the Upanishads—and the impression so created is only strengthened by a more careful investigation—it is that they do not constitute a systematic whole. They themselves, especially the older ones, give the most unmistakable indications on that point. Not only are the doctrines ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... 'Collectanea Graeca Majora' for the Greek—about as well as most of the class; but the manner in which the ancient languages were then studied was deplorably superficial. It was confined to the most cursory reading of the text. Besides the Latin and Greek languages, we had a weekly recitation in Lowth's English Grammar, and in the Hebrew Grammar, without points; also in Arithmetic and History, the last from Millot's Compend as a text-book. In ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
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