"Brevity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... delivered in few. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumberance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... to bed early in hope that a long night's rest would steady his nerves for an interview which would not be the less trying for its brevity and which, he now saw, had been made inevitably dramatic. It was a perfect autumn morning, as he climbed into the car, with a scented mist rising before his eyes, under the mild warmth of a November sun; Lashmar Woods flaunted their last ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... very important feature of Army Paper Work. Neatness, brevity and clarity are to be sought—ceremonial ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... with a smile as he put away his pocket-book, "if people would only settle their affairs in that way, a good part of the occupation of lawyers would be gone. Brevity is the soul of wit; and the fear of simplicity ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... gratefully to his pillow. Nan was nervous, wide-awake, curious. She asked a number of questions. Keith answered with extreme brevity. He was temporarily exhausted. Shortly he fell asleep between ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... mapless Poland, and the political inefficiency of the great empire of Russia. There is not a single person in any English or American novel who can be said to represent his national type in the manner of Rudin. When we remember the extreme brevity of the book, it was an achievement ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... will with all care follow the method of the sage;[3] but if I should think fit to insert something[4] {of my own}, that variety of subjects may gratify the taste, I trust, Reader, you will take it in good part; provided that my brevity be a fair return for such a favour: of which, that {my} praises may not be verbose, listen to the reason why you ought to deny the covetous, {and} even to offer to the modest that for which they ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... most remarkable thing in this code, is its great reasonableness, clearness, and consistency; the businesslike brevity and directness of the various provisions, and the plainness and moderation of the language in which they are expressed. It is a clear, concise, and distinct series of enactments, savoring throughout of practical judgment and European good sense. When we turn from the ravings of the Zendavesta, or ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... it may be called the witness or testimony of a man's own conscience: and this moderate watchfulness is still the Law of Nature, but in a higher resurrection than the former. It hath many terms, which for brevity ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... 65 years old, and have never had any sickness in mine life, but I have such an averseness against writing, that only the sight of an ink-horn, pen and paper, make me feeling all sort of fevers of the whole medicinal faculty;—and so I pray that you would forgive me the brevity of mine letters. Following your order, I send you jointly the first proof prints of those plates still (already) finished. The plate of that beautiful head of an English artist, is not yet so far ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... to need comment here, but there were a few facts learnt by X. which should remove any idea amongst those who have not studied the question, that the laws were either harsh or intricate. Indeed, they seem to attain that brevity and simplicity which are the great desideratum when dealing with a native peasantry. Thus, a man need pay no rent until his land is in bearing. Coffee is the only product whose sale to Government is compulsory. All land is classified ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... there was no disposition to keep the holiday-makers waiting; the unhappy victims were led up, one after the other, before King Banda, and their supposed crimes very briefly recited to him, whereupon his Majesty, with equal brevity, pronounced their sentence—in all cases that of death—which was at once carried out, the only difference consisting in the mode of execution; some of the unfortunate wretches being secured to the ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... be noted is the impression of open air given by nearly all the branches of this romance, in spite of the brevity of the descriptions. We are in the fields, by the hedges, following the roads and the footpaths; the moors are covered with heather; the rocks are crowned by oaken copse, the roads are lined with hawthorn, cabbages ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... addressed them with the same brevity and force as at Carrick-on-Suir, where his hopes were far brighter. The two clergymen, Rev. Mr. Corcoran and Rev. Mr. Cahill, appeared by his side, and openly resisted his advice. But, with the people, their influence totally failed. Three thousand ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... This incapacity is confirmed by renewing the test, an essential condition of all good experiments; therefore my notes are full of examples similar to the one which I have just described. To relate them would be mere repetition; I pass them over for the sake of brevity. ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterized. This principle of preservation I have called, for the sake of brevity, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... after the bestowal of his youthful affections on Lieutenant Brandis—henceforward to be called "Coppy" for the sake of brevity—Wee Willie Winkie was destined to behold strange things ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... subject of pulpit denunciation. The two other figures, both clad in dark gray, showed the sobriety of Deacons; one was ridiculously tall and thin, like a man of ordinary bulk infinitely produced, as the mathematicians say; while the brevity and thickness of his colleague seemed a compression of the same man. These four talked with great earnestness, and their gestures intimated that they had revived the ancient dispute about the meeting- house steeple. The ...
— An Old Woman's Tale - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The utmost brevity is of importance in the letter of introduction, as it is usually read in the presence of the party introduced, and the pause must necessarily be awkward. You may in a letter of introduction use a few words of warm, cordial feeling toward your friend, but praise of ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... Pierpont, with face flushed to purple, threw down his manuscript under the box from which he was reading, and sat down. I then expected that the president would demand order. On the contrary, he stuck his hands straight into the air, and said: "Let us ask a blessing." This he did with singular brevity, and sitting down he helped himself from a plate of chicken that stood before him, and at the same time turning to Mr. Pierpont he said: "The listened very well, 'till you got to Greece. They ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... chiefly taken from the Old Testament. Again and again he cites continuous passages, and argues from them at length. But with Polycarp the case is different. The New Testament has exchanged places with the Old, at least so far as practical use is concerned. Notwithstanding its brevity, Polycarp's Epistle contains decisive coincidences with or references to between thirty and forty passages in the New Testament [94:2]. On the other hand, with the single exception of four words from the apocryphal book of Tobit [94:3], there is no quotation taken immediately from ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... the great father, "nine disks of wax. You see they are very small, but so they shall serve my purpose the better. Will each of you take one and retire from the table and write upon it the thing he most desires? Now, my dear friends, brevity is ever as the point of the lance. Wit is blunt and Truth half armed without it. I lay ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... but the soldier in her had but small reverence for a priest's opinions about war; so, in her answer to this charge she did not condescend to go into any explanations or excuses, but delivered herself with bland indifference and military brevity. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... We suppose that the best excuse newspaper editors now have for being less florid in their matrimonial announcements is, that where the papers formerly had one, they have now at least a dozen of these interesting notices; so that their brevity may be less owing to the want of gallantry than to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... some are laying aside all old spiritualism, romance and sentiment, is that their realisation takes up too much time, and Science, which is the soul of business, seeks in all things brevity and directness. It is probable that the phrase, "but to the point," has been oftener repeated during the past few years, than it ever was before, since Time begun, of which directness I shall ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... lie all of them in the words, and are plentifully confirmed by the Scriptures of truth; but I shall not at this time speak to them all, but shall pass by the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth, partly because I design brevity, and partly because they are touched upon in the explicatory part of the text. I shall therefore begin with the fifth observation, and so make that the first in order, in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of the senses is that of smelling, the diminution of which in old men, he describes with equal elegance and brevity in this manner: the almond tree shall flower. By which words he seems to mean, that old people, as if they lived in a perpetual winter, no longer perceive the agreeable odors exhaling from plants and ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... asked God to give His blessing with the food provided, and to send His Holy Spirit into the hearts of all present, so that they might be made to hunger and thirst for Jesus, the Bread and Water of Life. Then the poor people had scarcely recovered from their surprise at the brevity of the prayer, when they were again charmed to silence by the sweet strains of the harmonium. You see, they had not yet become blase and incapable of enjoying anything short of an organ. Indeed, ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... the problem of authorship partly as insoluble, partly as of slight importance for a literature which is manifestly popular. With even greater brevity may the problem of nationality be disposed of. Some critics have claimed an Italian, some an English, some a French, and some a German origin for the Carmina Vagorum. The truth is that, just as the Clerici ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... measure, they are, however, greatly more imposing than a lifeless Colossus, or an exaggerated giant. They are not overlaid by disquisition and description, but the characters naturally unfold themselves. Montaigne, indeed, complained of Plutarch's brevity. "No doubt," he added, "but his reputation is the better for it, though in the meantime we are the worse. Plutarch would rather we should applaud his judgment than commend his knowledge, and had rather leave ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... told me in one of his bursts of confidence; and a very pretty name it is, though for brevity's sake it may be convenient hereafter to particularise him by ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... "I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity:" he sure means brevity in breath, short-winded. "I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears thou art ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... romantic name. But do not confine yourself to such Lacedaemonian brevity, Maitre Bilot; be prolix! and relate to me, minutely, everything that you know ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... her brevity and the following silence. He left his hat on the washbench outside the door and ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... card-table bent their heads over the crumpled piece of note-paper spread out before them. Ross smoothed out its edges with his big hand, and the words became distinct enough; the very brevity of the message was touched with sensationalism. It ran: 'I am your brother. Save me!' and there was not another vestige of writing ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... plan, in short, and complete equality of execution, brevity, self-restraint, and an unerring sense of artistic propriety—these are the chief notes of the Ancient Mariner, as they are not, in my humble judgment, the chief notes of any poem of Coleridge's before or since. And ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... his deportment, would forbid our imputing this apparent deviation from his general goodness to any other than some latent cause, which it might not have been necessary or proper to disclose, or the statement of which the brevity of the inspired narrative precluded. But too frequently we misjudge, and even murmur against the divine proceedings, because our limited capacities cannot trace their ultimate design, or even their present connections and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... nor virtue would have held Lew long in the paths of propriety had not the rumour gone abroad that the Regiment was to be sent on active service, to take part in a war which, for the sake of brevity, we will call "The War ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, from the United Provinces—who opened the last meeting of the Indian National Congress at Lahore with a presidential address which lasted for two hours and a quarter, and wound up with an apology for its brevity on the ground that he had had no time to prepare it—testified, at any rate more loudly, to the sternness of his patriotic convictions than the equally swadeshi homespun, cut at least in European fashion, of ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... and to determine, in every case, what good usage dictates, is not an easy matter. Authors, like words, must be tested by time before their forms of expression may become a law for others. Pope, in his Essay on Criticism, laid down a rule which, for point and brevity, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... must be said, are incomplete and inexact to a degree that will shock any person with a scientific knowledge of Polish pronunciation. In the present instance brevity seemed of more ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... I called my cousin for brevity, could row, sail a boat, skate, and shoot; yes, she was a very fair shot, and never a winter passed but she gave a good account of duck, teal, mallard, pewit, and geese, as the result of ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... been than to the woman she actually was. Now the darkness of this lonely temple and the knowledge that it was Aphrodite's—she thought always of Hathor as Aphrodite—preyed again upon her spirit as when she first came to it. She felt the dreadful brevity of a woman's, of any woman's triumph over the world of men. She felt the ghastly shortness of the life of physical beauty. She seemed to hear the sound of the movement of Time rushing away, to see the darkness of the ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... sensational story which was now in Mr Jedwood's hands had perhaps more merit than 'Margaret Home'; its brevity, and the fact that nothing more was aimed at than a concatenation of brisk events, made it not unreadable. But Reardon thought of it with humiliation. If it were published as his next work it would ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... "a mocking bird has no voice of its own." It warn't a bad sayin', was it? I wish I had noted more of them, for though I like 'em, I am so yarney, I can't make them as pithey as he did. I can't talk short-hand, and I must say I like condensation. Now, brevity is the only use to individuals there is in telegraphs. There is very little good news in the world for any of us; and bad news comes fast enough. I hate them myself. The only good there is in 'em, is to make people write short; for if you have to pay for every word you use, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Norris's Ovid may be safely put into the hands of children, as it is a selection of the least exceptionable fables. To accustom boys to read poetry and prose nearly at the same period, is advantageous. Cornelius Nepos, a crabbed book, but useful from its brevity, and from its being a proper introduction to Grecian and Roman history, may be read nearly at the same time with Ovid's Metamorphoses. After Ovid, the pupil may begin Virgil, postponing some of the ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... 4th, 1770; "Correspondance secrete entre Marie-Therese et la Comte de Mercy Argenteau, avec des Lettres de Marie-Therese et Marie Antoinette," par M. le Chevalier Alfred d'Arneth, i., p. 29. For the sake of brevity, this Collection will be ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... in looking blue, asserted this relationship, for by the same glance it seemed to take in equally the farthest and the nearest; only over us in the boat it passed always as over vacant space. Yet any question was answered at once with quiet, willing brevity, not as if he had been interrupted in his thoughts, or was recalled to a recognition of our existence, but just as he would turn the tiller in steering his boat,—while the eye still continued its conversation with that impersonal, elemental company which he seemed to keep. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... in the mouths of contemptible characters. Some of the best literary criticism we have of the period, he presents through the medium of the parasite rhetorician Agamemnon. That happy phrase characterizing Horace's style, "curiosa felicitas," which has perhaps never been equalled in its brevity and appositeness, is coined by the incorrigible poetaster Eumolpus. It is he too who composes and recites the two rather brilliant epic poems incorporated into the Satirae, one of which is received with a shower of stones by the ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... his joke at the expense of his associate whose handling of the State Committee's saving aid had been masterly, Shelby went to his evening meal in a humor which even a second note from Mrs. Hilliard could not damp. In scent, brevity, and chirography it was the counterpart of the first, telling him that the nameless writer was wretched, and begging him to come to her. The appeal found him in a softened mood. Viewed at the close of an irksome day, Mrs. Hilliard's society had attractions which his hypercritical mind of ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... the common occupations of life, have little leisure to read, none for what is called study. In books they do not search for deep learning, but for amusement accompanied with information on general topics, conveyed with brevity; happy if, in seeking relaxation from the drudgery of business, they can pick up some new particles of knowledge. For this most useful and numerous portion of society, some adequate intellectual provision ought to be made. Nor ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... for this libellus is its brevity—no small recommendation in this age of "exhaustive treatment" when, in bibliography especially, it is difficult to see the wood for the trees. It is an inadequate expression of the writer's affection for the College in which he has spent ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... reference to their religion. As soon as Hetty's house was all in order, and her shrubs and trees set out, she went one morning to this House, and asked to see the physician in charge. With characteristic brevity, she stated that she had come to St. Mary's to earn her living as a nurse, and would like to secure a situation. The ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... your heads, O ye gates! and the King of Glory shall come in.' And once more, to express the lingering reluctance, ignorance not yet dispelled, suspicion and unwilling surrender, the dramatic question is repeated, 'Who is this King of Glory?' The answer is sharp and authoritative in its brevity, and we may fancy it shouted with a full-throated burst—'The Lord of Hosts,' who, as Captain, commands all the embattled energies of earth and heaven conceived as a disciplined army. That great name, like ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... unaccented (2d) beat, and is no longer than any other chord in the phrase. Despite its striking brevity, it is nevertheless a perfect cadence, disguised; it is the tonic chord of C major, with the keynote at top and bottom. See ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... "making" is somewhat too easy not to say negligent, and it reminds us of Mascagni, whose laurels are an inducement to all our young genius' to "go and do likewise". Even the plot with its Corsican scenery has a strong resemblance to Cavalleria Rusticana. Its brevity, both acts last but fifty minutes, is a decided advantage, for the easy-flowing melodies, which come quite naturally to the composer cannot fail to attract the public, without being able to tire them.—One of the most delightful, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... thanking his "good neighbours," and wishing them "a younger and worthier" member, might be found in some old file of the Norton Bury Herald still. Even the Norton Bury Mercury, in reprinting it, commented on its touching honesty and brevity, and—concluding his political career was ended with it—condescended to bestow on Mr. Halifax the usual ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... from Helen. It was not long. Mrs. Snow was a little inclined to feel hurt at its brevity. Her husband, however, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... untillable slopes for stock grazing. This industry is always a valuable ally to mountain agriculture on account of the manure which it yields; but in high altitudes, where the steepness or rockiness of the soil, cold and the brevity of the growing season restrict or eliminate cereal crops, it becomes the dominant occupation of the inhabitants, while agriculture takes a subordinate place, limited to the production of hay and fodder for the winter feeding of the stock. Above the line of tree ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... DEAR SIR: The essays submitted to us by Mr. Bliss, according to your announcement, numbered about twenty. Several could not be called essays from their brevity, and others were exceedingly incomplete. About twelve, however, required and were worthy of careful consideration. That of Mr. D. A. Compton, of Hawley, Wayne County, Pa., was, in the opinion of your committee, decidedly superior to the others as a practical treatise, ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... of these Free churches, and listened to a sermon from Dr. Lindsay, a comfortable-looking professor in some new theological school. It was quite common-place, though not so long as the Scotch ministers are in the habit of giving; for excessive brevity is by no means their besetting infirmity. At the close of the exercises, he announced that a third service would be held in the evening. "The subject," continued he, "will be the thoughts and exercises of Jonah in ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... line 534. 'In Catholic countries, in order to reconcile the pleasures of the great with the observances of religion, it was common, when a party was bent for the chase, to celebrate mass, abridged and maimed of its rites, called a hunting-mass, the brevity of which was designed to correspond with the impatience of the audience.'—Note to ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... exist between the atomic state and the gaseous—the state in which the chemical atoms are found, the recognized chemical elements; for our purposes we may ignore the liquid and solid states. For the sake of clearness and brevity in description, we have been obliged to name these states; we call the atomic state of the chemist elemental; the state which results from breaking up chemical elements, proto-elemental; the next higher, meta-proto-elemental; the next higher, hyper-meta-proto-elemental; then comes the ...
— Occult Chemistry - Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements • Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater
... to exhibit a scientific conception of morality in a popular form, and with a view to practical applications rather than the discussion of theoretical difficulties. For this purpose it has been necessary to study brevity and avoid controversy. Hence, I have made few references to other authors, and I have almost altogether dispensed with foot-notes. But, though I have attempted to state rather than to defend my views, I believe that they are, in the main, those which, ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... names, something of their fathers' genius. The fact is that American soil has proved singularly congenial to the growth of greatness. The length of America's scroll of fame is altogether out of proportion to the brevity of her history. The stirring epochs of her short career have developed a phenomenal wealth of leaders in all the arts and crafts of national life. In statesmanship, in arms, in letters, and in inventive science, she can produce ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... if he had possessed the power, I question whether much more he would have done, he looked upon impressive brevity as the very soul of such exercises in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... sheep-farmers did not look out and get fresh fields and pastures new, they would soon find that the agriculturist was all too near. That was a question that he enlarged upon, especially in another place; but as brevity seemed to be the order of the night, he would only ask them to drink the health of The Early Explorers, coupled with the name of Mr. ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... not withered only, but abolished; compressed into a film of indiscriminate PEAT. Consider what that peat is made of, O celebrated or uncelebrated reader, and take a moral from Jordan's Book! Other merit, except indeed clearness and commendable brevity, the Voyage Litteraire or other little Books of Jordan's have not now. A few of his Letters to Friedrich, which exist, are the only writings with the least life left in them, and this an accidental life, not momentous to him or us. Dryasdust informs me, "Abbe Jordan, alone of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... king's papers they found an envelope addressed to Kathlyn. It was in grandiloquent English. Brevity of speech is unknown to the East Indian. Kathlyn read it with frowning eyes. She gave it to her father to read; and it hurt her to note the way his eyes took fire at the contents of that letter. The filigree basket of gold and gems; the trinkets for which he had risked ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... taken from the volume called The Four Million, is a good example of O. Henry's method as a short-story writer. It is notable for its brevity. The average length of the modern short story is about five thousand words; O. Henry uses a little over one thousand words. This conciseness is gained in several ways. In his descriptions, he has the art of selecting significant detail. When Della looks out ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... his lips, as well as of his fingers, subservient to his master's interest. Not that be refuseth a brisk saying, or a cheerful sally of wit, when it comes unforced, is free of offence, and hath a convenient brevity. For this reason, he hath commonly some such phrase as this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and Mr. Sludge do. These might be called treatises, and are apart from the kind of poem of which I speak. They begin, indeed, within its limits, but they soon transgress those limits; and are more properly classed with poems which, also representative, have not the brevity, the scenery, the lucidity, the objective representation, the concentration of the age into one man's mind, which mark out these poems from the rest, and isolate them into a class ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... rest were officers from a German man-of-war lying in port, and the usual respectable town loafers. Then there were Leger, the bibulous carpenter; 'Liza, his black wife; a white policeman named Thady O'Brien, and a loafing scoundrel of a Samoan named Mataiasi, called "Matty" for brevity, who was the public flogger, and milked Mrs. MacLaggan's herd of seven imported Australian cows; and lastly the goat, and about thirty or forty of Bully Hayes's crew, and as many Samoans, who came to look at the dancing and see what they could steal, Leger and his ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... a digression, and, to my mind, a very delightful one. He began about the restrictions to which we are all more or less subject, the aspirations that are never destined to be fulfilled, but are mocked by life's brevity. And it was at this point that—probably thinking of his own case—he branched off into the subject of genius; and proceeded to show that a man possessing that divine quality finds existence a much sadder ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... sentences. Some writers use short sentences, others long and complicated sentences. In comparing recent authors with those of two or three centuries ago, it will generally be found that shorter sentences are now more frequent. This brevity and simplicity of predication has resulted in greater clearness. But the constant use of short, simple ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... a member for half a century of Pilgrim Church. We had one man of means—Philo Sherman Bennett, the friend of Mr. Bryan. The opening meeting was in the Hyperion Theatre. The creed was simple, and brevity itself: "This church is a self-governing community for the worship of God and the service of man." A Jewish Rabbi read the Scriptures, a Universalist minister made an address, and a judge of the city led in prayer. Part of my address ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... elaborate treatise, that they will proceed with great caution upon certain dark points, wherein all who are not vere adepti may be in danger to form rash and hasty conclusions, especially in some mysterious paragraphs, where certain arcana are joined for brevity sake, which in the operation must be divided. And I am certain that future sons of art will return large thanks to my memory for so ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... much consideration the only thing that Herr Schimmel found to say in answer to these important revelations was: "It is all the same to me," to which his dear wife, with like brevity, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... clamber, So when the circle we have run, The curtain falls and all is done. I might have mention'd several facts, Like episodes between the acts; And tell who loses and who wins, Who gets a cold, who breaks his shins; How Dan caught nothing in his net, And how the boat was overset. For brevity I have retrench'd How in the lake the Dean was drench'd: It would be an exploit to brag on, How valiant George rode o'er the Dragon; How steady in the storm he sat, And saved his oar, but lost his ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... lady might have been seen to smile at the brevity and colorlessness of this exchange, or possibly at the haste with which Amzi was crossing the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... the material of the introduction need be considered, it should be short. Even in momentous matters this is true. Notice the brevity of the subjoined introduction of a speech upon a ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... proceed to ascertain the Scripture doctrine in regard to the influence of the sacraments in general. For the sake of brevity and perspicuity, we shall present it in a concatenation of propositions, that in the end will cover the whole ground, and conduct us safely to ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... another peculiarity in this language which gives equal force and brevity to its forms ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... eyes glistened as they took in the well-filled board. There was fervour in the blessing which he asked that made amends for its brevity. Then he fell to. ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to delve too far into my past or relate what would be mundane and disconnected with my story, I will summarize with brevity what my situation was. I was a military man, an Air force pilot to be exact, and was on active duty patrolling the no-fly zones off the coast of China, it being, at that time, an area of very high tensions. The situation was grim, as any small incident promised to set the pendulums of war ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... succeeded, on the return of that gentleman to parliament for the borough of Stafford, to obtain from him an engagement for our heroine at the theatre-royal Drury Lane, of which he was at that time proprietor. 'Brevity is the soul of wit,'" said Crony: "I shall not attempt to enumerate all the parts she played there; suffice it to say, she was successful, and became a great favourite with the public. It was here she first attracted the notice of the rich old banker, who having just discarded ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... yesternight—the story over which his voice oftentimes fell with the hush of a cruel pain in it, and which he could have related to no other save herself. It had an intense melancholy and a strange beauty in its brevity and its simplicity, told in that gaunt, still, darkened chamber of the caravanserai, with the gray gloom of its stone walls around, and the rays of the golden sunlight from without straying in to touch ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... an amazed ejaculation of pleasure at the idea of any real relationship between that venerable man and herself; and he, with an answering look of kindred respect on both the astonished husband and his bride, replied to the former with the unstudied brevity of truth. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... perceptible on Mount Sinai in the morning, still God did not reveal Himself to the people until noon. For owing to the brevity of the summer nights, and the pleasantness of the morning sleep in summer, the people were still asleep when God had descended upon Mount Sinai. Moses betook himself to the encampment and awakened them with these words: "Arise from your sleep, the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... without knowing why, the public enemy. None speak to him or salute him or smile upon him—save ironically: long-esteemed friends pass him by without recognition, or, if pursued, reply to his most earnest questions with all possible brevity and caution. Most likely they do not know the "why" of the matter: they only know that orders have been given, and that into the [430] reason of orders it is not good to enquire. Even the street-children know this much, and mock the despondent victim of fortune; even the dogs seem instinctively ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... relate, with necessary brevity, what is most important of the little that is known of this interesting people. All records bearing upon the subject are imperfect, and the best of them are more profuse in speculation and surmise than in solid fact. The information possessed has been drawn bit by bit from the reluctant Japanese. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... perfect courtesy and not with unnecessary brevity, but if her words were polished, they were also as cold and hard as ice. Nothing that Miss Burton said could bring the glimmer of a smile athwart her features that were growing so thin and transparent that ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... races and classes less advanced in the scale of existence, who reproduce their several kinds with the greatest prolificness and in which generation follows generation most rapidly on account of the brevity of individual life. ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... hesitated for a moment, as if her decision wavered in this vital moment of plunging into unknown fates, but she took up the pen and wrote the note and address with commendable brevity. ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... a musty chronicle, written in intolerable Latin, and in it a chapter where every sentence holds a fact. Here is told, with harsh brevity, the strange history of a pair, who lived untrumpeted, and died unsung, four hundred years ago; and lie now, as unpitied, in that stern page, as fossils in a rock. Thus, living or dead, Fate is still unjust to them. For if I can but show ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... to our own country, and generally to recent times; for researches more curious, and eras more distant, would less forcibly act on our sympathy. If, in attempting to avoid the naked brevity of Valerianus, I have taken a more comprehensive view of several of our Authors, it has been with the hope that I was throwing a new light on their characters, or contributing some fresh materials to our literary history. I feel anxious for the fate of the opinions and ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... remarks: "Many persons, probably, who have no special devotion to Grecian history wish to study its main outlines in something higher than a mere school-book. To such readers we should certainly recommend Thirlwall rather than Grote. The comparative brevity, the greater clearness and terseness of the narrative, the freedom from diversions and digressions, all render it far better suited for such a purpose. But for the political thinker, who regards Grecian history chiefly ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... am to have any reputation for brevity I must now close these remarks. I remember a lesson in brevity I once received in a barber's shop. An Irishman came in, and the unsteady gait with which he approached the chair showed that he had been imbibing of the produce of the still run by North Carolina Moonshiners. He wanted ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... "Stalles et les Clotures du Choeur" of the Cathedral of Amiens, by MM. les Chanoines Jourdain et Duval (Amiens, Vv. Alfred Caron, 1867). The accompanying lithographic outlines are exceedingly good, and the reader will find the entire series of subjects indicated with precision and brevity, both for the woodwork and the external veil of the choir, of which I have no room to speak in ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... curiosity of the reader by the natural aridity of the subject, or without risking to fall into obscurity through a desire to be succinct. I can scarcely hope to escape these various evils; for if I appear too lengthy to a man of the world, a lawyer may on the other hand complain of my brevity. But these are the natural disadvantages of my subject, and more especially of the point which I ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... anything, on the side of brevity, but in the succeeding quarter of an hour Eve was able to gather from his careless talk, which sedulously avoided the pathetic note, a fair notion of what his existence had been from boyhood upward. It supplemented the account of himself she had received from him when they met for the first ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... what they have to offer us, I shall not go far afield, and shall exercise a brevity compatible with the purpose of mere illustration. To the moralists of ancient Greece, and, to a lesser degree, to those of the Roman Empire, to the Christian teachers who succeeded to their heritage in the centuries which followed, and ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton |
