"Perspicuity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and its reasoning more careful. Its search after truth is honest and impetuous, and its results would have appeared as interesting as they are indeed valuable, had they but been arranged with ordinary perspicuity, and represented in simple terms. But the writer's evil genius pursues him; the demand for exertion of thought is remorseless, and continuous throughout, and the statements of theoretical principle as short, scattered, and obscure, as they are bold. We question whether many readers may not be utterly ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... earlier editions. Webster's well-known complaints of Murray's unfairness, had a far better cause than requital; for there was no generosity in ascribing them to peevishness, though the passages in question were not worth copying. On perspicuity and accuracy, about sixty pages were extracted from Blair; and it requires no great critical acumen to discover, that they are miserably deficient in both. On the law of language, there are fifteen pages from Campbell; which, with a few exceptions, are well written. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... occasion, had inclined to the same view, and the man of talent was disbarred. By a clause in a statute, a layman or a disbarred lawyer might conduct a case for himself or for one of "his own family." Is a father-in-law one of a man's own family? "Yes," argued the orator: "No," with less grace and perspicuity, Nahinu, retained by the Portuguese. The laws of the tight little kingdom are conceived in duplicate for the Hawaiian hare and his many white friends. The native text appearing inconclusive, an appeal was made to the English, and I (as amicus ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason that talk depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of man, can talk to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to be taught in the Week-days' Universal Academy," we may admire the fertility, and sometimes the grandeur of his views. His lectures and orations[49] are of a very different nature from what they are imagined to be; literary topics are treated with perspicuity and with erudition, and there is something original in the manner. They were, no doubt, larded and stuffed with many high-seasoned jokes, which Henley did not send ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... first designed only to illustrate and vindicate the sentiments contained in the aforementioned letter; and it is but justice to say, the applause it has found among the learned, as well for the elegance of its diction, as the perspicuity of its precepts, is no more than what is truely due to it.——To this discourse is subjoin'd a latin translation, from the arabic of Rhazes's treatise on the small pox and measles, a copy of the original having been obtained ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... smallest possible amount of suffering, and the principle of ascertaining truth at the smallest possible cost of time and money. The Commissioners should be particularly charged to study conciseness, as far as it is consistent with perspicuity. In general, I believe, it will be found that perspicuous and concise expressions are not only ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the aberration of light in 1725, due to James Bradley, is one of the most important in the whole domain of astronomy. That it wus unexpected there can be no doubt; and it was only by extraordinary perseverance and perspicuity that Bradley was able to explain it in 1727. Its origin is seated in attempts made to free from doubt the prevailing discordances as to whether the stars possessed appreciable parallaxes. The Copernican theory of the solar system—that the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the statement of Miguel Siliceo, goldsmith, of San Estevan de Gormaz, as given in presence of Brothers Jehan and Hubert, only such portions being here set out as have relation hereto, for the sake of greater brevity and perspicuity. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... Chinamen delivered addresses at the anniversary. They spoke with remarkable simplicity, perspicuity and accuracy of English pronunciation. In view of their perfect self-possession and propriety of manner in the presence of the crowded congregation, one could scarcely realize that nearly all of them were utterly inexperienced ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... benignant beaming star, Guiding the homebound seaman from afar, Lighting the outbound wand'rer on his way, With all the lightsome perspicuity of day? Why not go out at once! and let be hurl'd Dark, dread, unmitigated darkness o'er the world? Why should the heavenly constellations shine? Why should the weather evermore be fine? Why should this rolling ball go whirling ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... often any want of perspicuity in Mistress Winter's admonitions, though there might occasionally be a little lack of elegance and gentleness. But plainly told or not, Agnes remained silent, scraped the wooden trenchers, a process which answered to the washing of earthenware, and duly mopped the walls, and ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life. He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence. But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite broken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... talk to me about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I owed to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method, and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... ideas, and can express himself faultlessly. Recently he gave me a lesson in sociology, touching the links between the France of to-day and the France of tradition, a lesson on our origins whose plain perspicuity was a revelation to me. I seek his company; I strive to imitate him, and certainly he is not aware how much influence ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... of his subject, but he seldom fails to take a clear view of it. The same turn of mind may be observed in the conversation of Frenchmen; even when their information is defective, they will very generally arrest attention by the apparent order and perspicuity of their thoughts; and they never seem to know what it is to be at a ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... and extracting complex documents, but I am not hasty in drawing inferences; the arrangement of the facts and arguments is always to me a considerable labor, and though aiming at nothing more than perspicuity and brevity, I am a very ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... police. He never heard of anything so terribly audacious. He, a loyal Castle tradesman, who had "well and truly" tried the case according to the recognised acceptance of the words, and who had "true deliverance made" after the fashion in favour with the crown; he whose "perspicuity, wisdom, impartiality," &c., had been appealed to and belauded so often by the Attorney-General, to be challenged to a hostile meeting, which might end, by leaving a bullet lodged in his invaluable body. The bare idea of ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... balance of the imagination and the reasoning powers, in which the perfection of the human intellect is regarded as consisting, the exact correspondence between the thought and the expression, "the free music of prosaic numbers in the most diversified forms of style," the calmness, and perspicuity, and order, even in the stormiest moments of inspiration, revealed in every department of Greek literature, were not a mere happy stroke of chance, but a product of unwearied effort—and effort too which was directed by the criteria which reason supplied. The ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Derby, coming on from his eastern home in loyal acquiescence to his friend's request, had designedly taken this train, it being understood that Dauntless would board it at Fenlock with his fair conspirator. We all know why Dauntless failed to perform his part of the agreement; Derby, with the perspicuity of a college man, finally advanced a reason for his inexplicable failure to appear. Eleanor had begun tearfully to accuse him of abandoning her at the last moment; Mr. Derby indignantly scouted the ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... It required no great perspicuity, Madeline thought, to see that Stillwell loved to talk, and the way he squared himself and spread his huge hands over his knees suggested that he meant to ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... upon a somewhat wide range of points, will constantly aim at as great brevity in statement as may be consistent with perspicuity, go into detail only so far as shall appear needful to the end in view, and feel amply compensated for his labors, if the developments and suggestions here made shall in any degree aid the ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... necessary to be a good man in order to divine what in certain circumstances a good and pure spirit will do. The Bishop of Beauvais had entertained no doubt as to what would happen. He knew exactly, with a perspicuity creditable to his perceptions at least, that, notwithstanding the effect which his theatrical mise en scene had produced upon the imagination of Jeanne, no power in heaven or earth would induce that young soul to content itself with a lie. He knew it, though lies were his daily bread; ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... under all the disguises that imitation, combination, and accommodation may have thrown around them, must require both parts and diligence; but it will bring with it no ordinary gratification. A book professedly on the 'History and Progress of Imitation in Poetry,' written by a man of perspicuity, an adept in the art of discerning likenesses, even when minute, with examples properly selected, and gradations duly marked, would make an impartial accession to the store of human literature, and furnish rational curiosity with a high regale." Let me premise that these notices ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... and she was afraid to try more of it than just a little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley watched her attentively—almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the tips of his fingers together, looked at her over this pointed rampart of polished nails as though she were ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... him alone, and when with innocent questionings she endeavoured to discover his trouble, the greatest mystification she encountered was that he had the power to make her feel that she was in some way taking a liberty, and showing her lack of tact and perspicuity. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... always been remarkable for the felicity of its arrangement of different subjects, and the perspicuity and appropriateness of the language it uses. But if this clause is construed to extend to territory acquired by the present Government from a foreign nation, outside of the limits of any charter from the British Government to a colony, it ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... life, national policy, and national action; as representative in Congress, and as intimate adviser of two consecutive Presidents, in his position as Secretary of the Treasury. His experience, the perspicuity of his intellect, and his lucidity of thought and expression, give particular value to his conclusions; the more so that to some extent they are the condemnation, regretfully uttered, of a scheme of political conduct with the main ideas of which he had been closely ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... there is left to say. Yes; one word there is to say of Sir William Logan, the creator of the Geological Museum there, and the head of all matters geological throughout the province. While he was explaining to me with admirable perspicuity the result of investigations into which he had poured his whole heart, I stood by, understanding almost nothing, but envying everything. That I understood almost nothing, I know he perceived. That, ever and anon, with all ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... proper way of proceeding, first of all to consider the phenomena of single and double vision, in order, if possible, to discover some general principle to which they lead, and of which they are necessary consequences; and, for the sake of perspicuity, we ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... prolonged mathematical reasoning, and the most intricate formulae, were given with almost infallible accuracy from the resources of his extraordinary memory. De Morgan's writings, however excellent, give little idea of the perspicuity and elegance of his viva voce expositions, which never failed to fix the attention of all who were worthy of hearing him. Many of his pupils have distinguished themselves, and, through Isaac Todhunter and E. J. Routh, he had an important influence ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... knew nothing of the woman they were committing to the grave. Glennard could not even remember at what season she had been buried; but his mood indulged the fancy that it must have been on some such day of harsh sunlight, the incisive February brightness that gives perspicuity without warmth. The white avenues stretched before him interminably, lined with stereotyped emblems of affliction, as though all the platitudes ever uttered had been turned to marble and set up over the unresisting dead. Here and there, no doubt, a frigid urn or an insipid angel ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... rejection of the proffered share of the settee, she answered with more emphasis than perspicuity demanded,— ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... most eloquent and finished performance. Hardly one galling circumstance of the indignities offered by the Directory of Regicide to the supplications made to that junto in his Majesty's name has been spared. Every one of the aggravations attendant on these acts of outrage is, with wonderful perspicuity and order, brought forward in its place, and in the manner most fitted to produce its effect. They are turned to every point of view in which they can be seen to the best advantage. All the parts are so arranged as to point out their relation, and to furnish a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... give to many of the Psalms, in the language of a recent commentator, "a greater degree of fitness, spirit, and grandeur"; and they impart to the history of David a certain decorousness of illustration and perspicuity of feature which it would not otherwise possess. They would produce upon it the same result as is achieved by the sister arts on this and other portions of the sacred volume, without marring the text or doing violence to truth. Not, let us repeat, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... friend, Major Beaufort distinguished himself by an harangue overflowing with gallantry and adorned throughout with amiable allusions to the greatest power of all, the power of Youth, Beauty, and Womanhood. The political perspicuity of the address was perhaps somewhat obscured by its being chivalrously pointed towards those fair beings who brighten our existence and lengthen our griefs. Without the Ladies, the speaker found, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... comparison are employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes found, buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but useful to those who know their value; and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity and polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety though less ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... returned Saracinesca, "you are on the way to saintship; you already enjoy the beatific vision; you see with a heavenly perspicuity." ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice expression. He united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... principles, to which the use of words apparently synonymous, yet of slightly different signification, might be distinctly and easily referred. It is in regard to the finer shades of meaning, the subtler touches of expression, the application of words and phrases where the strictest exactness and perspicuity are required, that an ordinary English style is apt to become loose and shadowy; and it is precisely here that we are entitled to expect the severest, chastest form of utterance. Coleridge used to complain of a general confounding of the word 'notion' with 'idea,' and was often at great ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... "Your perspicuity," Mr. Grex observed, "seems to be of a higher order than your manners. You are, perhaps, ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a model in arrangement and language. The lucidity and perspicuity of the language of the constitution have called forth expressions of admiration from all who have ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... worth to them the sale of a hundred copies. I take the liberty to send you herewith a humble volume. You may, perhaps, find in it some over-crude tones, some raw shades; but do not forbear to exercise your critical perspicuity. I submit myself in advance to your reproaches and to your reservations; to be censured by you is even a piece of good fortune, as your reprimands themselves are ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the first, and for some time the only one amongst the Ministers, who looked upon the dissolution of the Chamber of 1815 as equally necessary and possible. Undoubtedly personal interest had a share in his bold perspicuity; but I know him well enough to feel convinced, that his devotion to the country and the King powerfully contributed to his enlightened decision; and his conduct at this crisis displayed at least as ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... always appropriate and vivacious. He often reproached me, and others more than he, with "not spoiling him;" but I often gave him praise merited by few, and which belonged to nobody so justly as to him; it was, that besides having infinite ability and of various kinds, the singular perspicuity of his mind was joined to so much exactness, that he would never have made a mistake in anything if he had allowed the first suggestions of his judgment. He oftentimes took this my eulogy as a reproach, and he was not always ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... easily detected any ill-adapted or far-fetched expression. She could not bear those feeble imitators of Erasmus who bind the Latin language in the fetters of miserable proverbs; on the other hand, she approved a style chaste in its propriety, and beautiful by perspicuity, and she greatly admired metaphors, when not too violent, and antitheses when just, and happily opposed. By a diligent attention to these particulars, her ears became so practised and so nice, that there was nothing in Greek, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the regular powers of Government rested solely with the people, "from whom," he added, "all the powers of Government originate." The language he held upon this occasion is remarkable not only from its constitutional soundness, but for the perspicuity with which it states the actual question in contest, stripped of all disguises and evasions. "To assert an inherent right in the Prince of Wales to assume the Government, is virtually to revive those exploded ideas of the divine and indefeasible authority of Princes, which have so justly sunk ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... have not been translated; and, as if this were not sufficient to make them properly known, a translation of them has lately been made into Latin. It is not easy to say whether we are most pleased with the simplicity and perspicuity with which these letters are written, the modesty with which the author proposes every hypothesis of his own, or the noble frankness with which he relates his mistakes, when they were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... precise in their axioms, that they sometimes assume what might be proved, that they are occasionally redundant, and their arrangement sometimes imperfect, yet they still maintain their ground as a model of extreme accuracy, of perspicuity, and as a standard of exact demonstration. They were employed universally by the Greeks, and, in subsequent ages, were translated and ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the press MONSIEUR DELILLE has given the world another proof of the powers of his mind, and displayed the French language to vast advantage, in a more arduous strain of poetry that it had yet attempted. The perspicuity for which it has always been remarked, and to which it owes its charms in conversation as perhaps also the dificulty with which it is adapted to works of poetical imagination, is strongly exemplified ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... shows, with great perspicuity and certainty, both the extent and the limits of this withdrawal from human cognizance and help. In the main concern the exclusion is complete; but in some subordinate and incidental matters, it is only partial. As to the power ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Contradictions, and Multiplicity of obscure Passages, wherewith it abounds, shew plainly it could never, in its present Condition, be a Rule of Faith, &c. becoming an all-wise and perfect Being, to give to rational Creatures. Every good Man, Society, and State, study Perspicuity in all their Rules, Orders, and Statutes, dispensed to their Families, Members, and Subjects: and can we suppose, that He, who is perfect in Knowledge, would, in the Dispensation of his Laws, take less care of the everlasting State of his immortal Creature Man? ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... itself. A considerable part of the foregoing chapters had been related before, either by others or myself. I was however, unavoidably compelled to insert it, in order to preserve unbroken that chain of detail, and perspicuity of arrangement, at which books professing to convey information should ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... Academy. But, in truth, to ascertain the special doctrine of such a man on such a subject is vain. As we read these works we lose ourselves in admiration of his memory; we are astonished at the industry which he exhibits; we are delighted by his perspicuity; and feel ourselves relieved amid the crowd of names and theories by flashes of his wit; but there comes home to us, as a result, the singular fact of a man playing with these theories as the most interesting sport the world had produced, but not believing the least in any of them. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... though much under the sway of his spouse, is in his heart desirous to keep his engagement, and has called in the notary to draw the contract. At this moment the scene begins, the actors of which, for greater perspicuity and brevity, may be provided with stage ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... and plaine, as possibly I may, to the end the Reader may not be wearied, nor the patient deluded; and, if for these causes I may seem to bee censured, yet I am well assured, that to your selves brevity and perspicuity cannot, but bee acceptable. So wishing you all happinesse, I shall ever ...
— Spadacrene Anglica - The English Spa Fountain • Edmund Deane
... usual perspicuity, but in accordance with a common practice of believers in the miraculous, defines a miracle as a "violation of the laws of nature," or as "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... of the latitude afforded by the terms of the resolution under which he acted, the secretary had introduced into his report an able and comprehensive argument elucidating and supporting the principles it contained. After displaying, with strength and perspicuity, the justice and the policy of an adequate provision for the public debt, he proceeded to discuss the principles on which it should ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... brother of Thomas Warton; he published translations and essays and poems. Among the translations was that of the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, which is valued for its exactness and perspicuity. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... darkness has enabled us to lay before you upon this occasion the clearest and strongest proof that such a dark transaction will admit of. For poisoning is done in secret and alone. It is not like other murders, neither can it be proved with equal perspicuity. However, the evidence we have in this case is as clear and direct as possible, and if it comes up to what I have opened to you I make no doubt but you will do that justice to your country which the oath you have ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... who is not just 'busting' himself with Titanic intellectualities, but who is a readable dramatic critic.... Mr. Hale is a modest and sensible, as well as an acute and sound critic.... Most people will be surprised and delighted with Mr. Hale's simplicity, perspicuity and ingenuousness." ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... adjudications. Besides the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other adds a fresh embarrassment. The use of words is to express ideas. Perspicuity, therefore, requires not only that the ideas should be distinctly formed, but that they should be expressed by words distinctly and exclusively appropriate to them. But no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea, or so correct as not to include many equivocally ...
— The Federalist Papers
... logic, or to be capable of discovering for himself. The reader may, however, be referred, for every needful explanation, to Archbishop Whately's Elements of Logic, where he will find stated with philosophical precision, and explained with remarkable perspicuity, the whole of the common doctrine ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... was silent, absorbed in her own reflections. Baleinier did not seek to disturb her. In the first place, Mdlle. de Cardoville did not perceive the direction the coach was taking; secondly, the doctor was not sorry to ponder over what he had just heard. With his usual perspicuity, he saw that the Abbe d'Aigrigny was concerned in this inheritance, and he resolved instantly to make a secret report on the subject; either M. d'Aigrigny was acting under the instructions of the Order, or ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... nature of his dialogue being as different from that of the two Athenians as was his object in writing. His aim was to excite interest; and he availed himself of this mode of composition for the life and variety, the ease, perspicuity, and vigour which it gave to his discussions. His dialogue is of two kinds: according as the subject of it is beyond or under controversy, it assumes the shape of a continued treatise, or a free disputation; in the latter case imparting clearness to what is obscure, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... perspicuity and ingenuity and enterprise which only belongs to a certain passion, Mr. Foker began to dodge Miss Amory through London, and to appear wherever he could meet her. If Lady Clavering went to the French play, where her ladyship had a box, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of five hundred pages each. It was brought out without parade or pretension, and was announced as for the use of schools and colleges; but, though a work written for bread, not fame, such is its ease, perspicuity, good sense, and the delightful simplicity of its style, that it was well received by the critics, commanded a prompt and extensive sale, and has ever since remained in the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... observed instances which is preparatory to induction (including names for the classes which we artificially construct in virtue of those properties). For, although a definition would often convey the meaning, both time and space are saved, perspicuity promoted, and the attention excited and concentrated, by giving a brief and compact name to each of the new general conceptions, as Dr. Whewell calls them, that is, the new results of abstraction. Thenceforward the name nails ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... which ensure the transference of pollen by insects from one flower to another. It is impossible to describe adequately in a few words the wealth of facts contained in the Orchid book. A few examples may, however, be quoted in illustration of the delicacy of the observations and of the perspicuity employed in ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... importance, and others more properly belonging to an edition of the ‘Provincial Letters’ than of the ‘Pensées.’ But, whether it be the result of early association or of greater familiarity with M. Faugère’s pages, I own still a preference for this edition, while admitting the admirable perspicuity and intelligence of many of M. Havet’s notes, and the splendour of the edition of M. Victor Rochet, the most recent (1873) that has come under ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... programme might have been a little more elegantly expressed, but Waldo, as a rule, cared more for substance than form, and his speech possessed one merit, that of perspicuity. ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... to believe me gifted with sufficient perspicuity to recognize, under the difficult part you play to such perfection, a very superior gentleman—a ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... historical instance of the discovery of the relativity and irrationality of customary morality and the emergence of reflective standards of moral value is the Athenian period of Greek philosophy. The Sophists pointed out with merciless perspicuity the welter, the confusion, the essential irrationality of current social and religious traditions and beliefs. They went no further in moral analysis than destructive criticism. They pointed out the want of authenticity or reason in the traditional morality by which men lived. Socrates ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... sounds, in a rage for personification, the abstract made animate, far-fetched metaphors, strange phrases, metrical scraps, in every thing, in short, but genuine prose. Style is, of course, nothing else but the art of conveying the meaning appropriately and with perspicuity, whatever that meaning may be, and one criterion of style is that it shall not be translateable without injury to the meaning. Johnson's style has pleased many from the very fault of being perpetually translateable; ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... in the process is traced with admirable perspicuity and fullness by Mr. Geikie."—London ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... score through the tops of your t's, and open the loops of your l's—insuperable objections to the arrangements which I have proposed to you. There is much more to the same effect, occupying four good pages of paper, which a little attention to perspicuity and distinctness of expression might have comprised within as many lines. For, after all, Frank, it amounts but to this, that you will not do as I ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... reached its height. Not "to loiter into prose," of which Lyttelton bade him beware, was the grand aim; and in their eagerness to leave prose as far behind them as possible, the poets were in danger of outstripping the understanding and feelings of their readers. It was this want of ease and perspicuity in his longer pieces, which prevented Mickle from being as much a favourite with the public, as many who were far his inferiors in the other qualities of a poet. When a writer is obscure, only because his reasoning is too abstruse, his fancy too lively, or his allusions ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... road traffic for pleasure, and, more or less incompletely, he is catering for the wants of motorists, as did his predecessors for the traveller by posting-carriage or stage-coach. This particular landlord, though he looks like one of the old school, should be congratulated on a perspicuity which few of his confreres in ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... Lordship will observe, that the transitions of the Poet who breaks from his subject to exhibit an historical detail whose connection with it is remote, or who is solicitous to display the fertility of a rich imagination at the expence of perspicuity, when it is not supposed that his passions are inflamed: you will observe, my Lord, that his digressions are by no means so excusable as those of the other, because obscurity in the latter may be an excellence, whereas in the former ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... more finished style than you do," answered Mr. Franklin. "His expressions are more elegant, and there is more method and perspicuity in ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... I was very young, I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing that venerable old man in his 90th year, and even then, the calmness, the force, the perspicuity of his sermon, sanctified and adorned by the wisdom of grey hairs, and the authority of virtue, had such an effect upon my mind, that I never see a hoary-headed clergyman, without thinking of Mr. Walker.... He allowed no dissenter or methodist to interfere in the instruction ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... for from me? If the voyage be well executed and well told afterwards I shall have some credit to spare to deserving friends. If the door now open suits your taste and you will enter, it should be yours for the undertaking. A little mathematical knowledge will strengthen your style and give it perspicuity. Arrangement is the material point in voyage-writing as well as in history. I feel great diffidence here. Sufficient matter I can easily furnish, and fear not to prevent anything unseamanlike from entering into the composition; but to round a period ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... have come from the imagination of Mr. Webster. Everything is so skillfully and vividly put that the story, touched with description, has all the effect of an argument. One quality of it is its clearness, its perspicuity. It is noticeable also that very little imagery is used, that the language is plain language. But it is impossible to read these paragraphs without being most profoundly impressed ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... it would be a very hard Task to take in every Thing that belongs to it, and at the same Time avoid Confusion in Treating of it. This is my First Reason. The Second is: That to set forth and explain my Opinion on this Head to others with Perspicuity, would take up so much Time, that few People would have the Patience to hear it, or think it worth their while to bestow so much Attention, as it would require, on what the greatest Part of Mankind ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... the manuscript copy of an address pronounced lately before your society, by Dr. McAllister. The research on which it is founded, and its perspicuity and arrangement, entitle it to a form more permanent than manuscript. But if the results are true, which it attempts to substantiate, they present imperious considerations for ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... to come, the labour of interpreting these words and phrases with brevity, fulness, and perspicuity; a task of which the extent and intricacy is sufficiently shown by the miscarriage of those who have generally attempted it. This difficulty is increased by the necessity of explaining the words in the same language; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... markings which were indistinctly revealed to the eyes of Fontana and Huyghens in 1636 and 1659 will continue to be displayed to the astronomers of succeeding generations, though with greater fullness and perspicuity owing to improved means. True, there may possibly be variations in progress as regards some of the minor features, for it has been suggested that the visibility of certain spots has varied in a manner which cannot be satisfactorily accounted for ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... law-writers, and there is more taken from him in the Digest than from any other jurist, except Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this writer, one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity, he is said to be inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his contemporary. He has exercised a great influence on modern jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in Justinian's Digest. He was the chief adviser of Alexander ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... According to Mr Palliser, the words used in the Queen's Speech were not at all too cautious. The Members went out gradually, and the House became very thin during this oration; but the newspapers declared, next morning, that his speech had been the speech of the night, and that the perspicuity of Mr Palliser pointed him out ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the artist, in Mr. Grote; nor are the charms of style those which he has sedulously cultivated, or by which he is anxious to obtain attention. He writes in a manly, straightforward manner, and expresses his meaning with sufficient force and perspicuity: but there is no sustained elegance of diction; there is often all apparent disdain of it. At least we meet occasionally with quite conversational expressions, introduced—not, be it remarked, with that dexterous ease and felicitous taste which render them ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... beautiful devotions which only women's hearts know. It was William Dobbin's task to muse upon these movements of Amelia's, and to watch her heart; and if his love made him divine almost all the feelings which agitated it, alas! he could see with a fatal perspicuity that there was no place there for him. And so, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the diction and perspicuity, I will readily confess—but that it is in substance true, and contains much useful information, I must declare as an indisputable fact. And though the road I travelled was a new one, without compass, chart, or even star ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... his leave just yet. He sauntered with Lady O'Moy on the terrace above the wooded slopes that screened the village of Alcantara, and there discovered her mind to be even more frivolous and unstable than his perspicuity had hitherto suspected. Under stress Lady O'Moy could convey the sense that she felt deeply. She could be almost theatrical in her displays of emotion. But these were as transient as they were intense. ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... has put his case with very much warmth, and represented it in so lively a manner, that I see both his torment and tormentor with great perspicuity. This order of Platonic ladies are to be dealt with in a peculiar manner from all the rest of the sex. Flattery is the general way, and the way in this case; but it is not to be done grossly. Every man that has wit, and humour, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... not a stimulus to conversation as far as perspicuity went. A general tone of sympathy had to make up for it. "We should have ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING FACTS.—Truths like the foregoing possess, however, much more than a theoretical interest, and we should be greatly lacking in perspicuity did we not seek to derive from them something further than a foundation for mere speculation. Indeed, the whole tenor of these facts is opposed to such a course, for, view them as we may, the thought inevitably arises that here are things which contain the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... The mind instantly grasped at an explanation of so palpable a character and which required for its development neither the exercise of patient thought nor the aid of mathematical skill. The talent and perspicuity with which the Cartesian system was expounded, and the show by which it was sustained, contributed powerfully to its adoption, while it derived a still higher sanction from the excellent character and the unaffected piety ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... proceeded without a hitch. For a minute or two, it is true, I fancied that Sebastian betrayed a certain suppressed agitation—a trifling lack of his accustomed perspicuity and his luminous exposition. But, after meandering for a while through a few vague sentences, he soon recovered his wonted calm; and as he went on with his demonstration, throwing himself eagerly into the case, his usual scientific enthusiasm ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... apprehend through ignorance and in consequence of propensities fraught with Passion and Darkness, cannot, it has been said, be easily discarded.[769] Whatever objects again a person perceives in the mind (while wakeful) through the senses in a state of perspicuity are apprehended by the mind in dreams while the senses are obscured in respect of their functions.[770] The Mind exists unobstructedly in all things. This is due to the nature of the Soul. The Soul should be comprehended. All the elements and the objects they compose exist ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the details of the convict department was marked by a spirit eminently opposed to the colonial welfare. With singular acuteness and perspicuity Lord Stanley described the former systems as subject to local influence and subservient to local ends. Every governor, he alleged, was under a strong bias in favor of expense, as the patron of a multitude of officials. He stated that the executive council were ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... amor patriae acquire strength, and inspire us with a suitable respect for our own national character. We have, therefore, the fairest opportunity of establishing a national language, and of giving it uniformity and perspicuity in North America, that ever presented itself ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... customary love of paradox, we must at least confess, that it exposes, in a strong point of view, the poverty of that superficial religion which has been above condemned; and that it every where displays that happy perspicuity, and grace, which so eminently characterize all the compositions of its author. But after this willing tribute of commendation, we are reluctantly compelled to remark, that the work in question discredits the cause which it was meant to serve, by many crude and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... to come here to see him?" I proceeded, emboldened by her evident lack of perspicuity. "None of them?" I added, seeing her about to ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favourite is, "A penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his fortunes himself; and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though, at the same time, I can say this of ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... in its twin volume on Church Polity, there will be found in clear, strong, and singularly candid language, the first lines of the sciences of Church and State politics. It does not say much for the sense and perspicuity of the public mind, if two such books are allowed to fall aside, and such a farrago of energetic nonsense and error as Mr. Buckle's first, and we trust last, volume on Civilization, is read and admired, and bought, with its bad logic, its bad ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as any one would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes. Or, to give another illustration, to write naturally is the same thing in regard to common conversation as to read naturally is in regard to common speech. It does not follow that it is an easy thing to give the true accent and inflection ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... important that the statute laws should be made as plain and intelligible as possible, and be reduced to as small a compass as may consist with the fullness and precision of the will of the Legislature and the perspicuity of its language. This well done would, I think, greatly facilitate the labors of those whose duty it is to assist in the administration of the laws, and would be a lasting benefit to the people, by placing before them in a more accessible ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... cabinet-council to the nursery. The politicians to a man agree, that it is free from particular reflections, but that the satire on general societies of men is too severe. Not but we now and then meet with people of greater perspicuity, who are in search for particular applications in every leaf; and it is highly probable we shall have keys published to give light into Gulliver's design. Lord —— is the person who least approves it, blaming it as a design of evil consequence to depreciate human nature, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... is unavoidable, how much is that confusion increased, as regards scientific subjects, by the mass of memoirs written by parties, who, however acute their mental perceptions may be, yet, from want of early education, do not assign to words that accuracy of signification, and do not possess that perspicuity of style, which is absolutely necessary for the communication of ideas! Those, therefore, who, with different notions of language, read the writings of such as we are alluding to, either fail to attach to them any definite meaning, or attach one different from that which the authors ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... in this Book, which are as remarkable for their Perspicuity as their Justness. Such is the Description of the Disgust which sometimes attends Marriages. When Persons are in Love, they put the best Side outwards. A Man who is desirous of pleasing, takes a world of Care to conceal his Defects. A Woman ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... There was nothing affected or modish in his manner. He gave his readers an impression that he was clear in the conception of his own meaning, and he made it equally so to them. He aimed at no ornament: the beauty of his writings consisted in their perspicuity and strength. A verbal critic might discover inaccuracies in his compositions, but the man of sense would find in them nothing unmeaning—- nothing useless—nothing vapid. He was not a turner of fine periods—he was not a fine writer—but he wrote with strength, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... exhibit to his readers, with the utmost impartiality and perspicuity, and as briefly as their nature will permit, the views, creeds, sentiments, or opinions, of all the religious sects or denominations in the world, so far as utility seemed to require such an exhibition; but more especially to give the rise, progress, and peculiarities, of all the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... very glad that you think me stronger and more perspicuous. For the perspicuity, I ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... teachers, or may prefer learning by themselves." The Society commenced their labours by a set of Treatises, the first or "Preliminary Treatise," "On the objects, pleasures, and advantages of Science," being from the pen of Lord Brougham; and in perspicuity and popular interest, this treatise is unrivalled in our times. His Lordship is also understood, in conjunction with Mr. Charles Bell, to be engaged in illustrating with notes an edition of Paley's works, to be published by ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... tales of a light and satirical nature in vogue widely in France during the 12th and 13th centuries; many of the stories were of Oriental origin, but were infused with the French spirit of the times; La Fontaine, Boccaccio, and Chaucer drew freely on them; they are marked by all the vivacity and perspicuity, if also lubricity, of their modern successors in the French novel ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the effort to be clear are often wordy, and those who aim at brevity often lack perspicuity. The latter applies to Abraham Ibn Ezra, who might have said with the poet, "I avoid long-windedness, and I become obscure." Samuel ben Meir, on the other hand, grandson and pupil of Rashi, is, at least in his Talmudic commentaries, so long-winded and prolix that at first glance one ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... Mr. Falkland, but for the disturbance and inflammation of his mind, would be disposed to a similar communication. I shall interweave with Mr. Collins's story various information which I afterwards received from other quarters, that I may give all possible perspicuity to the series of events. To avoid confusion in my narrative, I shall drop the person of Collins, and assume to be myself the historian of our patron. To the reader it may appear at first sight as if this detail of the preceding ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... down the page her slender fingers went awandering till at a spot of knotted signs they stopped. "Why, here is something about thy Isis," exclaimed Heru, as though amused at my perspicuity. "Here, halfway down this chapter of earth-history, it says," and putting one pink knee across the other to better prop the book ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... elaborateness proves to how great perfection English artists have already carried the art of drawing on stone. Compared with some of their early productions, the present is a marvel of art: it combines the perspicuity of a pen-and-ink drawing with the freedom and fine effect of chalk drawing. We hope to hear nothing more of the uncertainty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... modern Orator can dare to enter the lists with Demosthenes and Tully. We have discourses, indeed, that may be admired, for their perspicuity, purity, and elegance; but can produce none that abound in a sublime which whirls away the auditor like a mighty torrent, and pierces the inmost recesses of his heart like a flash of lightning; which irresistibly and instantaneously convinces, without ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... and April numbers of the British Magazine of that year, and was entitled "Home Thoughts Abroad." Now it will be found, that, in the discussion which it contains, as in various other writings of mine, when I was in the Anglican Church, the argument in behalf of Rome is stated with considerable perspicuity and force. And at the time my friends and supporters cried out "How imprudent!" and both at the time, and especially at a later date, my enemies have cried out, "How insidious!" Friends and foes virtually agreed in their criticism; I had set out the cause which I was combating ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... Revolution. He was not of the first rank among his contemporaries as a scholar, as a preacher, as a writer on theology, or as a writer on politics: but in all the four characters he had distinguished himself. The perspicuity and liveliness of his style have been praised by Prior and Addison. The facility and assiduity with which he wrote are sufficiently proved by the bulk and the dates of his works. There were indeed among the clergy ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... plot is not only skilfully developed but artfully contrived as a vehicle for stage effect—for such merely, has the author evidently intended it; his arrangement of the machinery, such as it is, demands warm praise for its perspicuity and just order, and if the alarming and horrific be legitimate objects for a dramatist, Mr. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... is requisite that the language of an heroic poem should be both perspicuous and sublime. In proportion as either of these two qualities is wanting, the language is imperfect. Perspicuity is the first and most necessary qualification; insomuch that a good-natured reader sometimes overlooks a little slip even in the grammar or syntax, where it is impossible for him to mistake the poet's sense. Of this kind is that ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... of Abraham Lincoln's speeches will be very helpful. Two or three of Roscoe Conkling's arguments after he left the Senate are models of perspicuity. Mr. Potter's argument in the legal tender cases is a model—it is Euclid stated in terms of the law. Webster's arguments you will study, of course. Blackstone is one of the clearest writers who ever illustrated the great science to which you and I are ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... suffered cruelly at the hands of the same woman, though Frank incomparably the more cruelly of the two. Dick had the honesty to confess that Jenny had at least never actually broken faith with himself; but he had also the perspicuity to see that it came to very nearly the same thing. He knew with the kind of certitude that neither needs nor appeals to evidence that Jenny would certainly have accepted him if it had not been that Lord Talgarth ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... writing to a friend is to make yourself perfectly clear to him, therefore you make use of the simplest, plainest, readiest words—and such are ever the best for an essay, sermon, lecture, or even oration. This practice imparts ease and perspicuity, and it teaches that writing ought to be and may be as little difficult as conversation. It teaches every one not to say anything till he shall have something to say. A want of something to say is generally not felt in writing letters, especially by ladies; but it ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... written description of the character of an individual, giving all the minute points and shadings of character in the language of the examiner, and its value depends upon the perspicuity and literary expression of the writer not less than upon ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... and still more convincing experiments, and yet doubt persisted! 'I was not yet satisfied,' he says, further. 'I invited Eusapia to my house for three months. Alone with her and Ochorowicz, a man of penetrating perspicuity, I renewed my experiments in the best possible conditions of solitude and quiet reflection. We thus acquired a positive proof of the reality of the ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... by no means a proof of any remarkable perspicuity on M. Wilkie's part. As M. de Coralth never went to bed until two or three o'clock in the morning, he was by no means an early riser, and only some very powerful reason could explain the presence of his blue-lined brougham in the street before nine o'clock A.M. And ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... essays, letters, speeches, and considerations, from the first moment of its becoming the subject of public attention until now. The questions in general are put with great subtlety and judgment, and they are answered with such deep and familiar knowledge of the subject, such precision and perspicuity, such temper and yet such spirit, as do the greatest honor to Dr. Franklin, and justify the general opinion ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... encouragement from Duane, the Bland woman fell passionately in love with him. His conscience was never troubled about the beginning of that affair. She launched herself. It took no great perspicuity on his part to see that. And the thing which evidently held her in check was the newness, the strangeness, and for the moment the all-satisfying fact of his respect for her. Duane exerted himself to please, to amuse, to interest, to fascinate her, and always ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... years ago; and by his Hebrew Grammar, which has since appeared. In each of these works, in a masterly manner, he treats of every matter proper for the student to know. Each subject is displayed, in a new method, with perspicuity, conciseness, simplicity, and classic taste. His Greek Grammar, we may suppose, will exhibit the same traits, when it shall meet the public eye. This last labor he had finished, and committed to the printer a few months ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... said Mr. Octagon, anxious to prove his perspicuity, "the assassin may have stabbed her and then have ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... thinks very advantageously and at the same time very justly of this work. "That great man (says he, speaking of Grotius[487]) has discovered in this work all the capacity, accuracy, judgment, solidity, industry, perspicuity, honesty, and integrity, of a true historian. His impartiality would almost make him pass for a foreigner, who had no interest in what he relates: he appears a Dutchman, only by his thorough knowledge of the causes, motives, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... thus remarked upon: "That part of it which relates to the negotiations of peace, whether at London or at Utrecht, they admire exceedingly, and declare they never yet saw that, or any other transaction, drawn up with so much perspicuity, or in a style so entertaining and instructive to the reader ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... all the processes, all the instruments of modern physics have remained powerless, Fourier has completely solved without the necessity of having recourse to any new experiment. He has traced the law of the emission of caloric sought for, with a perspicuity which one cannot sufficiently admire, in the most ordinary phenomena of temperature, in the phenomena which at first sight appeared to be entirely independent ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... at first presents as seemingly insurmountable, but which I cannot help thinking to be mainly of his own creation, and which he himself, almost immediately afterwards, suggests a mode, though a very inadequate mode, of overcoming. His language here is not marked by his usual perspicuity, or rather—to speak without respect of persons—it contradicts itself in most astounding fashion; but his meaning is not the less certainly the following, for there is no other construction which his words ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... classed, and, consequently what duty they ought to pay. Mistakes with regard to this sometimes ruin the custom-house officer, and frequently occasion much trouble, expense, and vexation to the importer. In point of perspicuity, precision, and distinctness, therefore, the duties of customs are much inferior to those ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... of him as his "departed friend, whom I infinitely esteemed when living for the solidity of his thought, for the spring and the warmth and the beautiful turn of it; for the power and variety and fulness of his harmony; for the purity, the perspicuity, the energy of his expression; and, whenever these great qualities are required, for the pomp and solemnity and majesty of ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... were therein further ordered, "that, in transacting the business of their department, they should enter with the utmost perspicuity and exactness all their proceedings whatsoever, and all dissents, if such should at any time be made by any member of their board, together with all letters sent or received in the course of their correspondence; and that broken sets of such proceedings, to the latest period possible, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... emphatically a government of written laws. The statutes should therefore, as far as practicable, not only be made accessible to all, but be expressed in language so plain and simple as to be understood by all and arranged in such method as to give perspicuity to every subject. Many of the States have revised their public acts with great and manifest benefit, and I recommend that provision be made by law for the appointment of a commission to revise the public statutes of the United States, arranging them in order, supplying deficiencies, correcting ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... terms of the instruction, "when they persecute you in one city, flee into another." His writings long enjoyed a high popularity. The Religion of Protestants is characterized by much fairness and acuteness of argument, and was commended by Locke as a discipline of "perspicuity and the way of right reasoning." The charge of Socinianism was frequently brought against him, but, as Tillotson thought, "for no other cause but his worthy and successful attempts to make the Christian religion reasonable." His creed, and the whole gist of his argument, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... correct use of prepositions, the misuse of which is one of the most common of errors, and one of the most difficult to avoid, while their right use gives to style cohesion, firmness, and compactness, and is an important aid to perspicuity. To the text of the synonyms is appended a set of Questions and Examples to adapt the work for use as a text-book. Aside from the purposes of the class-room, this portion will be found of value ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Lord Ellenborough has been so frequently referred to in the foregoing pages, that for the sake of perspicuity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... then called upon for a speech, and responded in his usually felicitous style. He is certainly an orator as well as a warrior. He speaks, too, as he fights, with dash and daring. What he has to say he says with such perspicuity that no one doubts his meaning. Frequently there are flashes of eloquence worthy of a Demosthenes. His voice and diction seem to be well-nigh faultless. His speech to-day elicited frequent outbursts of applause, and the men cheered him enthusiastically at the close, and left his quarters ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... paper extracted from Mr. Brayley's laboriously-compiled Londiniana possesses more than a passing interest. Its neatness and perspicuity as a Journal will doubtless be appreciated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... utility of the work, but those who have been conversant in the writings of chronologers, and other learned men, upon these subjects, and seen the difficulties with which they were embarrassed. Great, undoubtedly, must have been the learning and perspicuity of a Petavius, Perizonius, Scaliger, Grotius, and Le Clerc; also of an Usher, Pearson, Marsham, and Newton. Yet it may possibly be found at the close, that a feeble arm has effected what those ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... so 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, and plain facts being admirably relieved by characteristic anecdotes of the party, and a brief but judicious summary of character by the editor. In the latter consists the original value of the work. The reader ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various |
