"Perspicuity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to cruelty, and that of a Tito leading to treachery, with perfect distinctness. She could enter into the generous aspirations of a Savonarola, and the selfish desires of a Grandcourt, with equal perspicuity. Her readers do not feel less familiar with the dull barrenness of Casaubon than with the pregnant vivacity of Mrs. Poyser. In the study of the inward workings of the human mind, George Eliot is unsurpassed by any novelist. Thackeray alone can dispute ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... we may term the dramatic proprieties that 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... entitled only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding times have admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages and lively images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest propriety of words and perspicuity of narration that ever was; which that it was not the effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept, is well witnessed by that work of his entitled De Analogia, being a grammatical philosophy, wherein he did labour to make this same Vox ad placitum to become Vox ad licitum, and to reduce ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... of providing a remedy for the suspension of 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... are nearly or quite free from those shadows of original concrete meaning which, in German, too often obscure the acquired abstract signification. Whoever has dealt in English and German metaphysics will not fail to recognize the prodigious superiority of English in force and perspicuity, arising mainly from the causes here stated. But while this homogeneity of structure in German injures it for philosophical purposes, it is the very thing which makes it so excellent as an organ for ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... 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
... exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... and even impetuous manner reduced my incessant interrupter to silence. What I had to say, I compressed in a few words, and adhered to perspicuity and candour with the utmost care. I still held the hand that I had taken, and fixed my eyes upon her countenance with a steadfastness that hindered her from ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... a Church of England Man" is written with great coolness, moderation, ease, and perspicuity. The "Argument against abolishing Christianity" is a very happy and judicious irony. One passage in it deserves ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... Roman Catholics for the present together, under the general term Christians: if you object to their being so classed together, I pray your pardon, but allow me to do so at present, for the sake of perspicuity, if for nothing else; and so classing them, I say that a change took place, about the time of Raphael, in the spirit of Roman Catholics and Protestants both; and that change consisted in the denial of their religious belief, at least in the external and trivial ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... 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," ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... finest work on copper, and its 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
... less than his 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 ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... indicated; it looked not to a defensive, but to an offensive movement, which was to be resumed as soon as circumstances appeared favorable. Much is made clear in these orders of General Joffre, which are characterized by perspicuity, foresight, and precision. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... by an analogous movement. 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... one when put into the water sinks to the bottom, and that the other stays to swim on the top; and the matter being the same, and the two bodies differing in nothing but in figure, they affirm that with all perspicuity they have demonstrated and sensibly manifested what they undertook. Nevertheless, I believe, and think I can prove, that this very experiment proves nothing against my theory. And first, it is false that the ball sinks and the board not; for the board will sink, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... necessary for the sake of perspicuity to suppose the country divided into districts, agreeing as nearly as could be ascertained with the boundaries of the respectives tribes. In these districts a section or two of land, well supplied with wood and water, should be chosen for ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... of 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 ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... Without 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
... couplet with such manifest pride and careful perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... discussion.... Long habit has given me great facility in collating, digesting, 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
... rare 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
... careless a defiance, as I might have done twenty years ago. Allow me, then, through you, to say what I think of the woman's rights movement, its objects, incitements, and limitations. If I may thus attain perspicuity, I can bear the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of the session, which, needless to say, he refused, not thinking it well, as he says, 'to quarrel with myself.' He also adds that Maria continues writing for children under the persuasion that she cannot be more serviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity) affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good amiable lady and his giant brood.' But this long friendly correspondence was coming to an end. The Doctor's letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth's answers with all their characteristic and lively ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... to me very 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 and intelligible ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... expressions, as 'Life according to Nature' (although this phrase belongs also to the Epicureans), the ideal 'Wise Man,' 'Apathy,' or equanimity of mind (also an Epicurean ideal), the power of the 'Will,' the worship of 'Duty,' the constant 'Advance' in virtue, &c. But perspicuity will be best gained by considering the Moral system under four heads—the Theology; the Psychology or theory of mind; the theory of the Good or human happiness; and the scheme ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... 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. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... breaking up of a sentence into clauses, the evasion of its categorical form, the resolution of abstract nouns into verbs and participles;—what is possible in Latin composition and what is not, how to compensate for want of brevity by elegance, and to secure perspicuity by the use of figures, these, and a hundred similar points of art, I illustrated with a diligence which even bordered on subtlety. Cicero became a mere magazine of instances, and the main use of the river was to feed the canal. I am unable to say whether ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... it is universally read, from the 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 ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... 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 best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the greatest ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... 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 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... encourage a drowsy fit that seems to be stealing upon me. If I have not written with the perspicuity I always aim at, allow, Lucy, for the time of night; for spirits not high; and for the subject, that having its delicacies, as well as uncertainties, I am not able ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... 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, ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... 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 it is ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... SMITH. By R.B. Haldane, M.P. "Written with a perspicuity seldom exemplified when dealing with ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... and I were at Browne's discussing the fate of "Walking-Stick Papers" over a jug of shandygaff, I told him this news. He hurried to the office in question through a drenching rain-gust, and has been there ever since. The publisher performed an act of perspicuity rare indeed. He not only accepted the manuscript, but its author ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... somewhat pleonastic for the sake of perspicuity; the original is clear in itself, but not to us who have no such practice. Twelve stakes were fixt in the earth, each having a ring at the top; the order in which they stood was so exact, that an ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... hand—draw a 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 ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... irresponsible body which has always been too much inclined to degenerate into an office-broking oligarchy, and thus degrade its high and important functions. Mr. Webster argued his proposition with his usual force and perspicuity, but the speech is strongly partisan and exhibits the disposition of an advocate to fit the Constitution to his particular case, instead of dealing with it ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... post; and on the afternoon of the sixth of January, Frank Garrow drove over to the station at Penrith to meet him. On their way back to Thwaite Hall there grew up a very close confidence between the two future brothers-in-law, and Frank explained with great perspicuity a little plan which he had arranged himself. "As soon as it is dark, so that she won't see it, Harry will hang it up in the dining-room," he said, "and mind you go in there before you ...
— The Mistletoe Bough • Anthony Trollope
... writing. The important thing was that most of what was written down was in the vernacular, Latin being used but sparingly. Thus a literary style was evolved which soon reached a high standard. This style, so forceful in its perspicuity, was effectively simple, yet rich in the variety ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... this occasion was hardly more than formal. He merely stated the nature of the accusation against Lady Mason, and the issue which the jury were called upon to try. Then got up Sir Richard Leatherham, the solicitor-general, and at great length and with wonderful perspicuity explained all the circumstances of the case, beginning with the undoubted will left by Sir Joseph Mason, the will independently of the codicil, and coming down gradually to the discovery of that document in Mr. Dockwrath's office, which ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... considers that Gibbon's account of the Crusades is the least accurate and satisfactory chapter in his history, and "that he has here failed in that lucid arrangement which in general gives perspicuity to his most condensed and crowded narratives." This blame seems to be fully merited, if restricted to the second of the two chapters which Gibbon has devoted to the Crusades. The fifty-eighth chapter, in which he treats of the First Crusade, leaves nothing ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... was a warm adherent of Charles I.; and was captured by the parliamentary forces in 1643. He died the next year. His double change of faith gave him the full range of the controversial field; and, in addition to this knowledge, the clearness of his language and the perspicuity of his logic gave great effect to his writings. Tillotson calls him "the glory of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... 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 ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... energy, to impede his great intelligence. There he sat, as above the common passions of humanity, surveying its doings with a mind unobscured by prejudice, as wide in its grasp as it was masculine it capability. His clearness of apprehension, his perspicuity of statement, his perfect self-command, his vast knowledge of every kind, were amongst the least of his qualifications for his high station. More preeminently than all was his heroic and almost chivalric devotion to the judicial office; his stern and unflinching love ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... 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 true idea ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Passages 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 knows still better how to dissemble. ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... work of Johnson, it is a curious object of inquiry how much may be traced in it of that style which marks his subsequent writings with such peculiar excellence; with so happy an union of force, vivacity, and perspicuity. I have perused the book with this view, and have found that here, as I believe in every other translation, there is in the work itself no vestige of the translator's own style; for the language of translation ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... himself is one of the most eminent writers of the age in which he lived. His commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars are written with a purity, precision, and perspicuity, which command approbation. They are elegant without affectation, and beautiful without ornament. Of the two books which he composed on Analogy, and those under the title of Anti-Cato, scarcely any fragment is preserved; but we may be assured of the justness of the observations ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... of this play lies in the fact that, beneath the surface, it vibrates with the quivering, intensely pulsating forces of life. The speeches breathe. The leading characters not only have perspicuity, but each has its own representative melodic theme. There is as music under the text, a constant accompaniment of exquisite passion, rising, sinking, and now rising once more, in a struggle with vacillating sensual pleasure and base inclination to ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... edition of this work, and have availed myself of much information which has been communicated to me by my friends, for the improvement of the present volume. If I have succeeded in expressing that I had to explain with perspicuity, I am aware that much of this clearness is due to my friend, Dr Fitton, to whom both the present and the former edition are indebted for such an examination and correction, as an author himself has very ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... IF truth, perspicuity, wit, gravity, and every property pertaining to the ancient or modern epitaph, may be expected united in one single epitaph, it is in one made for Burbadge, the tragedian, in the days of Shakespeare,—the ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... thought,—is such a strain upon the mind,—that it hardly can answer the purposes of relaxation. If you play, by all means read Franklin's Essay on the Morals of Chess. For clearness of head, for truth-telling simplicity and honesty of purpose, and for perspicuity and liveliness of style, Franklin ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... his modesty at first induced him to reject; but, afterwards, his liberality, to comply with. He then observes that, "in the compilation of the catalogue, he has studied brevity as much as it was consistent with perspicuity; and that he was once desirous of stating the value and price of the books, but was dissuaded from it by the advice of the more experienced, and by the singular ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Mr. Prendergast betook himself to the study, and there remained with his London newspaper in his hand. A dozen times he began a leading article, in which the law was laid down with great perspicuity and certainty as to the present state of Ireland; but had the writer been treating of the Sandwich Islands he could not have attracted less of his attention. He found it impossible to read. On that evening ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... separately, it received a thousand times more additional weight from its conjunction with the former, than what it had by itself. This odd phenomenon showed itself in other particulars, as in wit and judgment, philosophy and religion, justice and humanity, zeal and charity, depth of sense and perspicuity of style, with innumerable other particulars, too long to ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... universality; his entire freedom from the Mannerism. We read Goethe for years, before we come to see wherein the distinguishing peculiarity of his understanding, of his disposition, even of his way of writing, consists. It seems quite a simple style that of his; remarkable chiefly for its calmness, its perspicuity, in short its commonness; and yet it is the most uncommon of all styles: we feel as if every one might imitate it, and yet it is inimitable. As hard is it to discover in his writings,—though there also, as in every man's writings, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... of his renown for perspicuity, he gave her clearly to understand that he, being a man of experience, had divined that love alone had dictated Chanlouineau's ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... properly had belonged to him before the theft, he might be suspected of theft himself, and in this case a double conviction of the parties would ensue; that is, of him who did not take what he ought, and of him who had more than he was entitled to. This opinion, which is remarkable for its perspicuity and soundness, is to be found in the one hundred and second folio of Logerhedius, tome six ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... first Fifteen Psalms of David, translated into Lyric Verse: Proposed as an Essay, supplying the Perspicuity and Coherence according to the Modern Art of Poetry; not known to have been attempted before in any Language. With a Preface containing some Observations of the great and general Defectiveness of former Versions ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... the fruit of much study, was less characterized by force and compass than by elegance and perspicuity, and especially by good taste and urbanity, and a vein of delicate irony which, while it sometimes inflicted severe strokes, never passed the limits of decency and propriety. It was that of a man who, in the union of wit and good sense with politeness, had not ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... 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 should shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the greatest loss in significance and perspicuity." ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... really old ones with artistic worth are vanishing from the open market into knowing dealers' or collectors' hands, or the museums have them, but with true Latin perspicuity, when the supply ceased to meet the demand, the great modern Italian potters turned out lovely reproductions, so lovely that they bring high prices in Italy as well as abroad, and are frequently offered to collectors when in Italy as ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... to consider the different relations of action in reference to manner and time. We shall endeavor to be as brief as possible upon this subject, keeping in view meanwhile that candor and perspicuity which are indispensable in all our attempts to explain ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... 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.
... in future times, by his Latin Grammar, published about seven 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 ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... and society—the three great elements of civil life—have nowhere been so modified by the dominion of fancy over fact. Take the history of French republicanism, of Quietism, of court and literary circles; what perspicuity in the expression, and vagueness in the realization of ideas! In each a mania to fascinate, in none a thorough basis of truth; abundance of talent, but no faith; gayety, gallantry, wit, devotion, dreams, and epigrams in perfection, without the solid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 Book of Religions • John Hayward
... 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 of the souls committed ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... 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; he creates an impression of cleverness by never saying any thing in ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... our cordial subscription to the general scope and tenor of his views, which are in the main promulgated with a perspicuity and eloquence not always found in the same individual."—Church of ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... of the examination 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
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... of the ancient navigators, I refer him to the veracious statements of Maldonado, De Fonte, the later voyages of La Perouse and Anson, and the charts of 1640. In the charts of that day Spanish navigators reckoned longitude E. 360 degrees from the meridian of the Isle of Ferro. For the sake of perspicuity before a modern audience, the more recent meridian of Madrid was substituted. The custom of dropping a day at some arbitrary point in crossing the Pacific westerly, I need not say, remains unaffected by any change of meridian. I know not if any galleon was ever really ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... French Institute, made other 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 facts announced ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... Lucretius.—Chaucerism.—Paronomasia.—Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money. But we must not be too frequent with the mint, every day coining, nor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages; since the chief virtue of a style is perspicuity, and nothing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter. Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes; for they have the authority of years, and out of their ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... and that time of life, of consequence, when a 'fertile imagination,' and a 'rich fancy,' pour in ideas so fast upon a writer, that parentheses are often wanted (and that for the sake of 'brevity,' as well as 'perspicuity') to save the reader the trouble of reading a passage 'more than once.' Every man to his talent, (as I said before.) We are all so apt to set up our 'natural biasses' for 'general standards,' that I wondered 'the less' at the worthy Doctor's 'stiffness' on this ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... her shoulders. Her thoughts ran swiftly back to her home that used-to-be. She laughed as she recalled the deprecatory little man who had preached in the church she had occasionally attended. She compared the trim, bird-like perspicuity and wing-flap gestures of Rev. Mr. Beeve with the slow, huge turn and stand-fast ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... large and well-shaped, the expressive mouth telling of tortures without count, of unfathomable melancholy, of morbid desires, endless compassion, passionate envy. An epileptic genius whose very exterior speaks of the stream of mildness that fills his heart, of the wave of almost insane perspicuity that gets into his head, finally the ambition, the greatness of endeavour, and the envy that small-mindedness begets.... His heroes are not only poor and crave sympathy, but are half imbeciles, sensitive creatures, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... this, and a perspicuity in making arrangements for lessening her immediate embarrassment, which had some effect in softening Eleanor's anger. So she suffered herself to walk by his side over the now deserted lawn, till they came to the drawing-room window. There was something about Bertie Stanhope which gave ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... to record opinions that were inconsistent with those he had expressed on the same subject only a few weeks and even days before. But even in what follows I believe it is safe to discern his extraordinary perspicuity; for when he saw that the Government would not send Zebehr to Cyprus, he promptly concluded that it would be far safer to take or have him with him in the Soudan, where he could personally watch and control his movements, than to allow ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... de Monte Fiascone, A. B. C. author of the most inimitable (and non-pareil) treatise, Ebrietatis Encomium, to be left with that mirror of privative perspicuity, Signor Edemondo Curluccio, at the Bible and Dial, over ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... 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, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... down the tiny street towards the muffin which awaited him at home, well pleased with his perspicuity, and making mental preparations for the astonishing of his wife with ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... hand in tacit 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
... writer," he maintained, "should guard himself against the fastidiousness or stiffness which results from pedantry, and take great pains not only with the content of his thoughts, but with the language in which these thoughts are couched." Simplicity, perspicuity, and conciseness, these he taught by precept and example, and though he was accused of "Germanizing" the Hebrew language, he persisted in his labor until he attained the foremost ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... 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, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... 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 would be difficult ...
— 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
... Dante had done for Beatrice in poetry. But the vehicle of Comte's thoughts creaked. The exact language of science when applied to a woman becomes peculiarly non-piquant and lacking in perspicacity and perspicuity. No woman can be summed up in an algebraic formula, and when a mathematician does a problem to his lady's eyebrow, he forgets entirely that femininity forever equals x. Those who can write Sonnets from the Portuguese may place their loves on exhibition—no others ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... previous conversation were recapitulated by Mr. Micklewham, with as much brevity as was consistent with perspicuity; and the matter being duly digested by Mr. Snodgrass, that orthodox young man—as Mrs. Glibbans denominated him, on hearing him for the first time—declared that the notion of a pay-christening was a benevolent and kind thought: "For, is not the order to increase ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... a trick. Therefore, in order to pursue these studies with any good results, this hypothesis must be disposed of once for all. Now this is not easy. Most men are so made that they have a high opinion of their own perspicuity, but a very unfavourable one generally of that of other men. They always believe that if they had been there they could have quickly discovered the imposture. Consequently, no precaution must be omitted; all safeguards must be employed, ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... 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. ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... 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 ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... 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 ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... nations than the sword. He abounds 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 him, ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... 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 Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... in a given figure. The special canon of the first figure—will of course be practically equivalent to the Dictum de Omni et Nullo. All of them will be expressed in terms of extension, for the sake of perspicuity. ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... to them, "merely as vehicles of thought and passion, all modern languages are dull, ill-contrived, and barbarous." He thought that even the most accomplished of modern writers might still be glad to "borrow descriptive power from Tacitus; dignified perspicuity from Livy; simplicity from Caesar; and from Homer some portion of that light and heat which, dispersed into ten thousand channels, has filled the world with bright images and illustrious thoughts. Let the cultivator of modern literature addict himself to the ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... Cole's essay on "The Gods of Our Fathers" is the leading feature and, though not of perfect perspicuity nor faultless unity, is none the less noteworthy as a sincere expression of Pantheism. Mr. Cole keenly feels the incongruity of our devotion to Semitic theological ideals, when as a matter of fact we are descended ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... 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
... writes in a more finished style than you do," answered Mr. Franklin. "His expressions are more elegant, and there is more method and perspicuity in his composition." ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... 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 |
