"Brevity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... popularity; as Addison thought of "Chevy Chase," its commonness is its worth. But, it should be added, that such anecdotes are not told in the circumlocutory style of gossip, nor nipt in the bud by undeveloped brevity. We have Selden's pennyworth of spirit without the glass of water: the quintessence of condensation, which, we are told, is the result of time and experience, which rejects what is no longer essential. Here circumspection was necessary, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... 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 ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... passed away, he repeated the text with evident ecstasy, and added, 'What Spartan saying can be compared with this wonderful brevity? It is a Bible in itself!' And in his dying moments he again repeated the words, ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... late 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 his own life, Kathlyn's, ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... jottings—by Richardson himself on the structure of the novel and the virtues of the epistolary style. The statements of Skelton and Spence are unusual amongst contemporary discussions of Clarissa for their brevity, lucidity, and sustained critical relevance. Richardson's own comments, though disorganized and fragmentary, show that he was attempting to develop a theory of the epistolary novel as essentially dramatic, psychologically realistic, and inherently superior to 'the dry Narrative',[2] ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... such a phrase would seem obsolete and ambiguous, if not unmeaning: we are compelled to say that "Rome maintained friendly relations with the Aetolians," etc., using four words to do the work of one. I have tried to preserve the pithy brevity of the Italian so far as was consistent with an absolute fidelity to the sense. If the result be an occasional asperity I can only hope that the reader, in his eagerness to reach the author's meaning, may overlook the roughness of the road that ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... career are easy to trace and must be set down here with brevity. A minister's son, and descended from a very old and distinguished family, he was born at Elmwood in Cambridge in 1819. After a somewhat turbulent course, he was graduated from Harvard in 1838, the year of Emerson's "Divinity School Address." He studied law, turned ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... works of the great Greek painters have utterly perished, and imagination, though guided by ancient descriptions and by such painted designs as have come down to us, can restore them but dimly and doubtfully. The subject may therefore here be dismissed with comparative brevity. ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... unconnected with any great acts of duty or sacrifice, but it is connected with a great many of those acts of magnanimous politeness, of a kind of dramatic delicacy, which lie on the dim borderland between morality and art. "Charles II.," said Thackeray, with unerring brevity, "was a rascal, but not a snob." Unlike George IV. he was a gentleman, and a gentleman is a man who obeys strange statutes, not to be found in any moral text-book, and practises strange virtues nameless from ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... quotations of Gibbon have likewise been called in question;—I have, in general, been more inclined to admire their exactitude, than to complain of their indistinctness, or incompleteness. Where they are imperfect, it is commonly from the study of brevity, and rather from the desire of compressing the substance of his notes into pointed and emphatic sentences, than from dishonesty, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... commanding figure, of course on a larger scale, the same noble cast of feature and the same dignified mien. But in the man, more than in the woman, there was an air of gentle modesty which contrasted well with his powerful frame. He did not gesticulate much in speaking, and, judging from the brevity of his speech, he had not much to say, but what he said was listened to ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... mobilizing, rushed through the main street of the little town in the direction of the two barracks. I went with the current. My captain, whom I found in the middle of a part of the barracks, had not even had time to put on his uniform. He explained the situation to me with military brevity: ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... intention, and they hungrily fell to upon the excellent oysters, with her warning that we had better make the most of everything in its turn, for she had conformed her dinner to the brevity of the notice she ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... seven cow-punchers who responded to the gong presented a marked and pleasant contrast to the Shoe-Bar outfit. They greeted Stratton with some brevity, but after the first pangs of hunger had been assuaged and they learned where he was bound for, they expanded, and Buck was the object of much joking commiseration on the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... his head, "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
... began, speaking concisely, yet trying not in this eager brevity to lose the convincing effect that she would be the complete mistress of any enterprise to which she yielded her interest. "Dick Sherwood proposed to me again, and this time I said 'yes.' I saw that he was ready for anything, ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... Superintendent, being communicated with by telephone, arrived upon the scene. The matter in hand having been laid before him with curt official brevity, he asked for the keys, called to himself a constable, and was preparing to set out, when Philip ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... should have had a proof sheet (which was promised to me) before now. I must contrive to include all I have to say on the subject in three parts. They will admit, they tell me, a fourth if I please, but evidently they would prefer as much brevity as I could vouchsafe. Only two poets are in the first notice, and twenty remain—and neither of the two ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... antiquarian, essential for its illustration, and the proof of the various propositions which it contains. In the Civilisation Europeenne, and Essays on the History of France, however, the general results are given with equal clearness and greater brevity. We do not hesitate to say, that they appear to us to throw more light on the history of society in modern Europe, and the general progress of mankind, from the exertions of its inhabitants, than any other works in existence; and it is of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... help the reader who happens to have both books before him if I made occasional references that would direct him to solutions and analyses in the later book calculated to elucidate matter in these pages. This course has also obviated the necessity of my repeating myself. For the sake of brevity, Amusements in Mathematics is throughout referred ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... in a sentence. I received a note from her as you are aware. Its earnest brevity forewarned me that the call involved something of serious import; and I was not mistaken in this conclusion. On calling, and asking for Mrs. Dewey, I noticed an air of irresolution about the servant. 'Mrs. Dewey is ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... florist heroine, Genevieve, is a slightly idealized figure, the story and general character-treatment are realistic to a painful degree. There is more power of simple pathos shown here than is common in the works of George Sand. Andre is a refreshing contrast, in its simplicity and brevity, to the inflation of Lelia and Jacques. It was an initial essay, and a model one, in a style with better claims to ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... wherein nothing has been exaggerated; no fact produced which cannot be proved, and none which has been produced in any wise forced or strained, while thousands have, for brevity, been omitted; after so candid a discussion in all respects; what slave so passive, what bigot so blind, what enthusiast so headlong, what politician so hardened, as to stand up in defence of a system calculated for a curse to mankind? a curse under which they smart and groan ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... understood her directly, and told me she desired to know if I would have some 'farkoett,' mutton. I undertook the task of answering for myself, and exclaimed aloud, with striking brevity, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... is as far from right as such a distribution of mile-stones would be to the overworked prads. The great fault of modern poetasters arises from their extreme love of spinning out an infinite deal of nothing. Now, as "brevity is the soul of wit," their productions can be looked upon as little else than phantasmagorial skeletons, ridiculous from their extreme extenuation, and in appearance more peculiarly empty, from the circumstance of their owing their existence to false lights. This fault does not exist with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... to bear herself upon the favor of Christ for the bestowing thereof upon her. So it must be with every faithful Christian in this particular; he must roll himself upon the power, and faithfulness, and truth of God, and wait for His mercy (I will join them both together for brevity's sake, tho the latter be a fourth step and degree of faith); I say he must not only depend upon God, but he must wait upon the Holy One ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... observe before I proceed any farther, that though the ideas of cause and effect be derived from the impressions of reflection as well as from those of sensation, yet for brevity's sake, I commonly mention only the latter as the origin of these ideas; though I desire that whatever I say of them may also extend to the former. Passions are connected with their objects and with one another; no less than external bodies ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... in later times, and was looked up to as final authority. Who has not heard and read repeatedly the now common-place injunctions to be appropriate and consistent in character-drawing; to avoid, on the one hand, clearness at the cost of diffuseness, and, on the other, brevity at the cost of obscurity; to choose subject-matter suited to one's powers; to respect the authority of the masterpiece and to con by night and by day the great Greek exemplars; to feel the emotion one wishes to rouse; to stamp the universal with the mark of individual ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... proposed a game of stud-poker but Babbitt refused with brevity, and Joe contentedly went to bed at eight. Babbitt sat on the stump, facing the dark pond, slapping mosquitos. Save the snoring guide, there was no other human being within ten miles. He was lonelier than he had ever been in his life. Then he was ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Keith fell 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
... way of conjecture, on the text. This is especially needed. The recent volumes of Messrs. Collier, Singer, and Dyce, show that even editors of Shakspeare scarcely know the history of all the emendations. Let their precise pedigree be in the last case recorded with the most absolute brevity; simply the suggestion, and the names ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... know, there are repetitions, digressions, excursions into adjacent fields that may be open to criticism. We really do not aim to make this critical review an exhibition of scholarly attainments with all the necessary brevity, clarity, scientific restraint and etiquette. Such style would be entirely out of our line. Any bookish flavor attaching itself to our work would soon replace a natural fragrance we aim to preserve, namely our close contact with the subject. Those interested in the ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... administration of the Queen-Regent, dwelling at great length upon the extraordinary benefit which must accrue to the French nation from the contemplated alliance with Spain; and he was followed by the Duc de Guise, who, with more brevity but equal force, maintained the same argument. "No deliberation," concluded the Duke, "can be required upon so advantageous a proposal. We have only to thank God that her Majesty has so happily accomplished the noble purpose ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... of a risk which it needed a brave man to run. Angus, the head of the existing branch of the Douglas family, who had already risen into much of the power and importance of his forfeited kinsman, answered with equally grim brevity "I'se bell the cat." But while he spoke, the general enemy, mad with arrogance and self-confidence, and not believing in any power or boldness which could stop him in his career, forestalled the necessity. He came to the kirk, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... smoothing out on her knees the black gloves which, in her nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild brevity, and as if the young man's words had ...
— Different Girls • Various
... Whether man be the vibrion or the heir to immortality, the bundle of carbon or the care of angels, one fact is indisputable: he suffers agonies, mental and physical, that are wholly out of proportion to the brevity of his life, while he is too often weighted from infancy with hereditary maladies, both of body and of character. This is reason enough, I think, for us all to help each other, even though we feel, as you ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Plain and Authentic Narrative of the Stamford Ghost," "Remarks on the Tendencies of 'Don Juan,'" a poem on Napoleon, and a satire entitled "Hypocrisy." His best known work, however, was "Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words," published in 1820. These aphorisms want the terse brevity of Rochefoucauld, and are in many instances vapid and trivial. A passion for gaming at last swallowed up Colton's other vices, and becoming involved, he cut the Gordian knot of debt in 1828 by absconding; his living was then seized and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... trunk up garret for you again; for of course you won't go," Tom remarked, with the disdainful pity which small boys affect when they get into their teens. I was wavering in my secret soul, but that settled the matter, and I crushed him on the spot with martial brevity— ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... for a moment to sign a cheque for $10,000 and throw it out of the window, and then went on, speaking still with the terse brevity of ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... of much money is commonly a subject to be managed with brevity and aversion by one who sits down with the right reverence for sheets of clean paper. To bewail is painful. To affect lightness, on the other hand, would, in this age, savour of insincerity, if not of downright blasphemy. More than a bare recital of the ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... the Vicar did not shine in the more spiritual functions of his office; and indeed, the utmost I can say for him in this respect is, that he performed those functions with undeviating attention to brevity and despatch. He had a large heap of short sermons, rather yellow and worn at the edges, from which he took two every Sunday, securing perfect impartiality in the selection by taking them as they came, without reference to topics; and ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... priest: which may be considered as a proof that the evangelists were habituated to the manner of speaking then in use, because they retain it when it is neither accurate nor just. For the sake of brevity, I have put down from Josephus only a single example of the application of this title in the plural number; but it is ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... 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
... gentle reader, thou shouldst ever visit these regions with an intention to examine their productions, perhaps the few observations contained in these wanderings may be of service to thee. Excuse their brevity: more could have been written, and each bird more particularly described, but it would have been pressing too hard upon ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... sheep-farmer, and if the 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 ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... for shunning the duties of humanity? was the sight of death a motive for neglecting the claims of benevolence? ought it not rather to have hastened your fulfilling them? and should not your own suffering experience of the brevity of life, have taught you the vanity of all things ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... at any moment, pick up a boulder which has travelled further, and passed through more strange vicissitudes, than he can well have done himself; perhaps, with Shakespeare, to read “Sermons in Stones,” and to moralise on the brevity of human life, with all its ailments, compared with those ages untold, through which the pebble in his hand slowly {91c} travelled on its long, laborious journey, to rest at length as a constituent element of the locality, where he himself ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... and magnify these reports; still, he had no fears that they would be of any permanent injury to him, since his friend, coroner Van Valkenburgh, had agreed to hold an inquest, and there would be no difficulty in proving his innocence. He begged her to excuse the haste and brevity of the note, as he only had time to dash off a few lines to assure her that all was well, and to warn her not to become alarmed at anything she might see in the newspapers. The letter was signed: "Ever your loving ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... advanced Harvey grew increasingly bitter; grew morbid and increasingly self-conscious also. He began to think that people were smiling behind his back, and when they asked about Sara Lee he met with almost insulting brevity what he felt was half-contemptuous kindness. He went nowhere, and worked all day and until late in the night. He did well in his business, however, and late in March he received a substantial raise ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... for their keen analysis, their brevity, their wit. You will like "Brass Tacks" if you like to get somewhere and get there quickly. There is entertainment and inspiration. It is the kind of book you re-read—and find new meanings ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... see your wife and baby," he said, with considerate brevity. He added to himself, as Edward vanished up the stairway, "A case of special ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... the determination of the will, and being as often weighty in their consequences, as the contrary actions, may, on that consideration, well enough pass for actions too: but this I say, that I may not be mistaken, if (for brevity's ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... is yet 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
... there must be in a man who is in this condition a firmness of mind which fears neither death nor pain, because death is void of all sensation; and pain, if it is of long duration, is a trifle, while if severe it is usually of brief duration; so that its brevity is a consolation if it is violent, and its trifling nature if it is enduring. And when there is added to these circumstances that such a man has no fear of the deity of the gods, and does not suffer past pleasures to be entirely lost, but delights himself with the continued ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... random, among the multitudes of similar facts which modern research has established; but when the student seeks for an explanation of them from the supporters of the received hypothesis of the origin of species, the reply he receives is, in substance, of Oriental simplicity and brevity—"Mashallah! it so pleases God!" There are different species on opposite sides of the isthmus of Panama, because they were created different on the two sides. The pliocene mammals are like the existing ones, because such was the plan of creation; ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the above queries would have admitted further remarks, but I wish to set an example of obedience to the recent editorial injunction on brevity. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... his own mountains remind him; many countries are small, and some nations: but the dreams of Man make up for our faults and failings, for the brevity of our lives, for the narrowness of our scope; they leap over boundaries and are away and away. But this great mountain belittled the world and all: who gazed on it knew all his dreams to be puny. Before this mountain Man ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... objections raised to the League of Nations which could not with equal force be applied to the Four-Power and Naval Treaties. The Four-Power Treaty was the main object of attack, and Senators Lodge and Underwood were greatly embarrassed in attempting to explain its meaning. Its "baffling brevity" demanded explanations, but no satisfactory explanations were forthcoming. They talked in general terms about the tremendous importance of the treaty, but they dared not state the real fact that the treaty was drafted by Mr. Balfour and Baron Kato as the most convenient method of terminating ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... and silver, which he magnificently bestows upon his followers or sells as cheap as lands in Jamaica. The language they use is barbarous, as being but a dialect of pedlar's French or the Egyptian, though of a loftier sound, and in the propriety affecting brevity, as the other does verbosity. His business is like that of all the schools, to make plain things hard with perplexed methods and insignificant terms, and then appear learned in making them plain again. He professes arms not for use, but ornament only, and yet makes the basest things in the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... have had in view in writing this book has been to present an account of Greek philosophy which, within strict limits of brevity, shall be at once authentic and interesting—authentic, as being based on the original works themselves, and not on any secondary sources; interesting, as presenting to the ordinary English reader, in language freed as far as possible from technicality and abstruseness, the great thoughts of ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... Armstrong," Roberts repeated, the smile still on his face, the hand still extended; then, when there still came no response, the voice lowered until it was just audible, but nevertheless significant in its curt brevity: "Shake whether you want to or not. There are seven pairs of eyes watching from behind that trellis ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... could be worn at any inspiring angle which would most attract the passing eye. Even before the War, shapely legs, feet and ankles had begun to play an increasingly interesting part in the scheme of the Universe—as a result of the brevity of skirts and the prevalence of cabaret dancing. During the War, as a consequence of the War Work done in such centres of activity as the slice of a house in Mayfair, these attractive members were allowed opportunities such as the world had not ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... vehement and loving is an aspiration, the more truly is it a spiritual lightning-flash. These transports or aspirations, of which we have so many formulas, are the better the shorter they are. One of St. Bruno seems to me excellent on account of its brevity: O goodness of God; that also of St. Francis, My God and my all! and that of St. Augustine, Oh! to love, to go forward, to die to ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... in my classes lessons in "how to tell a story" with ease, brevity, and point, promising to give an anecdote of my own suggested by theirs every time. This pleased them, and we had a jolly time. The first girl who tried to tell ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... for a perpetuity, I was privileged on a recent evening to escort the ALLBUTT-INNETT ladies to the Empire of India Exhibition, upon which I shall now pronounce the opinion of an expert, though space forbids me to describe its multitudinous marvels, save with the brevity of ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... alone, with brevity and seeming reluctance—have enumerated and characterised all Dryden's plays. We have decided only to speak of them very generally, and that for the following reasons:—1st, We are reprinting none of them; 2dly, From what we have read of them, we are certain ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... latest time, have added valuable knowledge from their own varied stores, and at last furnished to American students a work superior in its kind to any that has preceded it here or abroad. It combines in a remarkable degree the copiousness of a Thesaurus with the brevity and convenience for ready reference of a school-dictionary. Citations abundantly sufficient to meet the wants of ordinary readers are given in full, while distinct references guide the more exacting scholar over a much wider field ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... answers. "Well, there's a great deal of it, you know," he remarked. I bowed. I knew, having written it. "Well, call in a week's time." I retired, silently blessing the British Army Officer for his blunt courtesy, his admirable brevity ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... at its post, as devout, as fervent as before. The candles were burning low in their sockets, casting a fitful glare upon the pale faces of the worshippers, reminding them of the flight of time, of the brevity of life, of the inevitable moment when repentance will come too late, when the account of one's good and ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... long lapse of time, beneath these great men's immortality. Possibly, however, the young artist may have underestimated the durability of his material. Other faces there were, too, of men who (if the brevity of their remembrance, after death, can be augured from their little value in life) should have been represented in snow rather than marble. Posterity will be puzzled what to do with busts like these, the concretions and petrifactions of ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... order must be a man who did not believe in wasting anything. There was no penalty attached, and they were at liberty to believe anything they chose; just the plain command to get out, and somehow it seemed more impressive because of its brevity. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... The brevity of the answer caused Mrs. Baynes's bright smile a moment's hesitation; she disguised it by a quick movement, and spreading her skirts afresh, said: "Why, my dear—he's quite the most harum-scarum person; one never pays the slightest attention ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... accustomed to the brevity of the earl's speech, proceeded to the task enjoined him. Warwick next summoned ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his lands, which lie very near yours—that I too despatch other messengers for this purpose, in order that he might have greater assurance, and that you might hold more certain his embassy, ordering and charging me especially that I do it with much diligence and brevity. Therefore I am sending three ships with crews, who will give the very full and true reason of all this; and you may be able to receive satisfaction, and regard as more certain all that I shall say to you, for I thus ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... 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 dwindling recklessness ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... the commissioners have not detailed all the reasons which led to it, but have given a summary of such as appeared to them most conclusive; and, as well in this as in stating the facts, have aimed at as much brevity as appeared to them to consist with perspicuity. If they shall be found in any instances obscure, a reference to the claim and proofs will probably elucidate them. When the claim is provided for by existing laws, the opinion of the commissioners refers the claimant ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... of man, and except that by eating His flesh and drinking His blood, that is, except by participating in His divine-human life, or except in His spirit, there is no assurance of life everlasting to any man; but perhaps it has never been defined all round with greater brevity and precision than it is by Ruskin in his "Praeterita," under the impression that the time is come when one should say a firm word concerning it: "The total meaning of it," he says, "was, and is, that the God who made earth ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... were 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 ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... with the simplicity and brevity of the scriptural account and of its paucity of incidental details, is the mass of circumstance supplied by the imagination of men, much of which is wholly unsupported by authoritative record and in ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... be seen that this tale, which is from the French, bears a curious resemblance to Grimm's story of "The Iron Stove," except that the latter retains a brevity and German simplicity, not found here. This family likeness may be traced in the fairy tales of all countries. I merely refer to it to show that the repetition of incidents was ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... than anywhere else Miss Martineau shows the true quality of the writer, the true mark of literature, the sense of proportion, the modulated sentence, the compact and suggestive phrase. There is a happy precision, a pithy brevity, a condensed argumentativeness. And this literary skill is made more telling by the writer's own evident interest and sincerity about the real lives and characters of the various conspicuous people with whom she deals. It may be said that she has no subtle insight into the complexities of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... President Jonathan Edwards, provokingly leaves out his method of teaching, "for the sake of brevity," and from his own diary little is to be gathered but accounts of his state of feeling through endless journeyings and terrible prostrations of strength. He was always travelling about—now to the Susquehanna, now back to New England—apparently ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... said Defarge. He had had it conveyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife's elbow as she knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity. ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... therefore to be treated with suitable respect, he said, "Nevertheless, if it be the device of Satan, please it the Lord we will resist him, and the foul slave shall fly from us.—Pearson," he said, resuming his soldierlike brevity, "take four file, and see what is yonder—No—the knaves may shrink from thee. Go thou straight to the Lodge—invest it in the way we agreed, so that a bird shall not escape out of it—form an outward and an inward ring of sentinels, but give ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... that little profit can be drawn from it. The only good thing in it, in my judgment, is this, that after having discoursed of many ancient painters, and particularly of those cited by Pliny, he makes brief mention of Cimabue, Giotto, and many others of those times; and this he did, with much more brevity than was right, for no other reason but to slip with a good grace into a discourse about himself, and to enumerate minutely, as he did, one by one, all his own works. Nor will I forbear to say that he feigns that his book was written by another, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... him, thrilled with the glamour of adventure, was chafing at the delay, and resentful of these poor creatures as of so many obstacles to the beginning of all the brisk and exciting things that lay behind the mysterious brevity of the advertisement; the other, pitifully alive to the tragedy of the occasion, was grateful ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... having arguments with a friend of mine who is a learned and practised speaker, but who admires in pleading nothing so much as brevity. I allow that brevity ought to be observed, if the case permits of it; but sometimes it is an act of collusion to pass over matters that ought to be mentioned, and it is even an act of collusion to run briefly and rapidly over points which ought to be dwelt upon, to be thoroughly driven ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... being brevity, I shall bring forward a little of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and whether there be any such things as superfoetations, or a second conception in a woman (which is yet common enough), ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... the ideas, nor does he open the deeper vein of thoughts that touch the mind with a sense of mortality. Yet the verse has a masculine brevity that renders effectively the attitude in which men may well be content firmly ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... two fundamentally different types of structure: that in which the architecture—and even the ornament—is one with the engineering; and that in which the two elements are separable, not in thought alone, but in fact. For brevity let us name that manner of building in which the architecture is the construction, Inherent architecture, and that manner in which the two are ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... minutes past two and left it again at twenty-three minutes past; for, directly he entered, the hall porter had handed him a telephone message. The telephone attendants at London clubs are masters of suggestive brevity. The one in the basement of Brown's had written on Bill's slip of paper the words: '1 p.m. Will Lord Dawlish as soon as possible call upon Mr Gerald Nichols at his office?' To this was appended a message consisting of ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... result is that ideas vary according to the composition of the object, and this Trope also brings to confusion the existence of outward objects, and leads us to reserve our opinion in regard to them.[2] This Trope is illustrated by Diogenes with exceeding brevity.[3] ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... afterwards, I had an interview with Isturitz at the palace, and for the sake of brevity I shall content myself with saying that I found him perfectly well disposed to favour my views. "I have lived long in England," said he; "the Bible is free there, and I see no reason why it should ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Frankie was busy. It was rushed off to convey the good news of promotion, and must necessarily have a business ring. In spite of its brevity, however, it contained two ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... (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 also Ex. 23, ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... defend this Confection, with Philosophicall Reasons, against any whosoever will condemne this Drinke, which is so wholesome, and so good, knowing how to make the Paste in that manner, that it may be agreeable to divers dispositions, in the moderate drinking of it. And so, with all possible brevity, shall distinguish and divide this Treatise into foure poynts, or Heads. In the first place I shall declare, what Chocolate is; and what are the Qualities of Cacao, and the other Ingredients of this Confection; where I shall treate of the Receipt set downe by the ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma
... specimens in the precise order in which they occur in the work, or to show the consecutive or connected interest of the several articles. In many cases we select them for their brevity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... supporting hand as to the clew which might—when nature had had its way—lead her back out of this labyrinth of pain. But surely he would let her sorrow awhile!—would sorrow with her. Under the strange coldness and brevity of his letter, she felt like the children in the market-place of old—"We have mourned unto you, and ye have ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the credo of the mercenary spirit. It is characterized by brevity. For the mercenary man, the law and the prophets are contained in this one axiom: With money you can get anything. From a surface view of our social life, nothing seems more evident. "The sinews of war," "the shining mark," "the key that opens all ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... be, patent to any one who will compare the style of the Apostles and Evangelists with that of the monkish hagiologists. The calm, the simplicity, the brevity, the true grandeur of the former is sufficient evidence of their healthy- mindedness and their trustworthiness. The affectation, the self- consciousness, the bombast, the false grandeur of the latter is sufficient ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... shall, for brevity's sake, suppose the world created. In the beginning, the orb was placed in vacuum, stationary, and with its axis perpendicular to the plane of what is now called its orbit. Its only revolution was ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... estate, he must make upon the present occasion." Aware of the watchful and formidable opponent who would in due time answer him, and also of being himself entitled to the general reply—to the last word—Mr. Subtle proceeded to state the nature of the plaintiff's case with the utmost brevity and clearness. Scarcely any sound was heard but that of the pens of the short-hand writers, and of the counsel taking their notes. Mr. Subtle, having handed up two or three copies of the pedigree which he held in his hand to the judge, the jury, and his opponents, pointed ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... probably continue to supply posterity, with a very vast and various body of authentic history. For even the briefest epistle in the ordinary chirography is dangerous. There is scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may not be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of Caesar's by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatory veni and vidi. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of qualification in candidates. Already have statesmanship, experience, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... cheville no less emphatically than the laws of verse; and the cheville, I should perhaps explain to some of my readers, is any meaningless or very watered phrase employed to strike a balance in the sound. Pattern and argument live in each other; and it is by the brevity, clearness, charm, or emphasis of the second, that we judge the strength ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... many letters, chiefly on business, and these she answered with manlike brevity, in a strong, provincial hand. They took up much of her time, and mercifully, for it was now the last week in November and the young men did ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... no way comparable in taste, or magnificence to a well-grown, fat yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other public entertainment. But this, and many others I omit being studious of brevity. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... whom the subject interests, the land system in Java is too well known 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 ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... set forth some of the unwarranted statements to which frequent reference has been made in the foregoing pages, that they may be examined and analyzed, and their utter unreliability demonstrated by comparison with established facts and figures. These latter data, for the sake of brevity, are in somewhat statistical form. A few further incidents, which I did not learn of or understand until long after they ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... home and placed in a military school. Here he was trained in marching, sham fighting, and gymnastics. He learned to sing warlike songs and in conversation to express himself in the fewest possible words. Spartan brevity of speech became proverbial. Above all he learned to endure hardship without complaint. He went barefoot and wore only a single garment, winter and summer. He slept on a bed of rushes. Every year he and his comrades had to submit to a flogging before the altar of the goddess Artemis, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... the far-away stars, Job sat at his tent door and as he meditated on the brevity and vanity of human life, its hopes deferred that make the heart sick, the sound of the clods as they fall upon the coffin lid, he asked the question that has quivered down the ages—"If a man die, ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... 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
... has often prayed her to show him some favor. Elsewhere he finds it necessary to apologize for the brevity of part ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... terms which will be used, must here be given. With seedlings, the stem which supports the cotyledons (i.e. the organs which represent the first leaves) has been called by many botanists the hypocotyledonous stem, but for brevity sake we will speak of it merely as the hypocotyl: the stem immediately above the cotyledons will be called the epicotyl or plumule. The radicle can be distinguished from the hypocotyl only by the presence of root-hairs and the nature of its covering. The meaning ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... part of our subject, the testimony of the past, there is one more question to consider, though with brevity. The great empires or imperial races of the past, Hellas, Rome, Egypt, Persia, Islam, represent each a distinct ideal—in each a separate aspect of the human soul, as the characterizing attribute of the race, seems incarnate. In Hellas, for example, it is Beauty, to kalon; in Rome, it is Power; ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... at her as if something in her eagerness struck him as unusual. But he made no comment upon it. He merely with his customary brevity proceeded ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... at the table next to theirs. He was in a kind of holiday costume; that is to say, he had a more than usually high collar, fastened behind and rather the worse for the weather, and his long-tail coat had been replaced by a black jacket of quite remarkable brevity. He had faded brown shoes on his feet, his trouser legs were grey with dust, and he wore a hat of piebald straw in the place of the customary soft felt. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... conciseness &c. adj.; brevity, " the soul of wit", laconism[obs3]; Tacitus; ellipsis; syncope; abridgment &c. (shortening) 201; compression &c. 195; epitome &c. 596; monostich[obs3]; brunch word, portmanteau word. V. be concise &c. adj.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... eyes. This tone of deep and respectful observance went all currently down with Owen; but my father looked a little closer into men's bosoms, and whether suspicious of this excess of deference, or, as a lover of brevity and simplicity in business, tired with these gentlemen's long-winded professions of regard, he had uniformly resisted their desire to become his sole agents in Scotland. On the contrary, he transacted many affairs through a correspondent of a character perfectly different—a ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... nothing of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles on the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... requisite to fill up a mental picture, and impress it on the memory, and, though brevity is certainly the soul of wit, it cannot be said to be infallible in enforcing description to do its duty—that of painting a panoramic picture on ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... the truth, the show languished. Nothing but the happy acquisition of a Chinese giant nearly eight feet high, with slanting eyes and a long pigtail,—a man who did penance in his height for the undue brevity of his undersized ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... no pecuniary resources were at his disposal sufficient for his maintenance as a public man. Then or never must he make some bold and comprehensive movement to countervail the majority of the assembly. The issue of this conflict has been presented by the author, in another of his works, with such brevity, that he cannot hope to offer a more complete condensation. It was as follows:—"On the 1st of December a proclamation was put forth dissolving the assembly, and calling upon the people by universal suffrage to accept a government identical with the scheme of Napoleon ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... dragon-fighters, and the like, whose exploits, though never witnessed by mortal eye, have made such a noise in the world of fancy, fog, and moonshine. Though he could confine himself to facts with modest brevity when speaking of his achievements to white people—as we have already noticed—the Fighting Nigger, it must be owned, was something of a long-winded boaster, with a proneness to slide off into the fabulous, when blowing his own trumpet ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... refer, as might be understood, to the wonderful picturesqueness of the Southern mountains and valleys, their ever-varying beauty of sunshine and shadow, nor to the spiritual, moral or intellectual condition of the people; but is a salutation, embodying in its brevity an invitation to the stranger to dismount from his horse, or step down from his carriage, and rest himself beneath the shade of the trees. "Light, stranger, light and shade," is the laconic, epigrammatic ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 3, July, 1900 • Various
... all into five lines. Five lines, rather straggling, rather shapeless lines that told him with a surprising brevity that his wife had decided on an ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... demeanour in the House of Commons was singularly well adapted to the situation. When the Irish members insulted him, he turned a deaf ear. When they pelted him with controversial questions, he replied with brevity. When they lashed themselves into rhetorical fury, he smiled and "sat tight" till the storm was over. He was not a good speaker, and he had no special skill in debate; but he invariably mastered the facts of his case. He neither overstated nor understated, and he was blessed with a shrewd and sarcastic ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... columns of social news and the persons concerned in the wedding are of any importance socially, the wedding may be given a stickful. Such an account would confine itself entirely to names and facts and would be characterized by very decided simplicity and brevity. Usually nothing more would be given than the names and address of the bride's parents, the bride's first name, the groom's name, the place, and the name of the minister who officiated. Occasionally the name of the ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... tact, and pleasing manners contributed, together with his talents, to insure his popularity. He became a soldier in the nineteenth year of his age, and hence his works display all the best qualities which are fostered by a military education—frankness, simplicity, and brevity. His earliest literary triumph was as an orator, and, according to Quintilian, he was a worthy rival of Cicero. When he obtained the office of Pontifex Maximus, he diligently examined the history ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... him; for as I know that he is much too clear a thinker not to perceive the validity of these considerations, I am willing to believe that the substance of them was omitted from his essay merely for the sake of brevity; but, for the sake of less thoughtful persons, I have deemed it desirable to state thus clearly that the problem of Theism cannot be solved on grounds of Materialism alone. [This note was written before I had the advantage of ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... volumes, replete with technicalities, and unfit for the general reader; therefore the author of this book has endeavored to present the evidences of mental action, in creatures lower than man, in a clear, simple, and brief form. He has avoided all technicalities, and has used the utmost brevity consistent with clearness and accuracy. He also believes that metaphysics has no place in a discussion of psychology, and has carefully refrained from using this ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax. De Beranger has ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... judiciously modeled to imitate the brevity of Lucilla's note. "You have made me a happy man again. When may I follow the vase?" There, in two ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... side-table on which writing materials were placed. "You shall breakfast in peace, you old fidget," he replied, and addressed himself forthwith to Mr. Darch, with his usual Spartan brevity of epistolary expression. "Dear Sir—Here I am, bag and baggage. Will you kindly oblige me by being my lawyer? I ask this, because I want to consult you at once. Please look in in the course of the day, and stop to dinner if you possibly can. Yours truly. ALLAN ARMADALE." ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... importance), that thoroughly well naturalised [plants] are in general very different from the aborigines (belonging in large proportion of cases to non-indigenous genera) is most important always to bear in mind. Once for all, I am sure, you will understand that I thus write dogmatically for brevity sake. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... subscribers would cancel, et cetera. To get my thoughts published I had to publish them myself; and people bought for the very reason for which the editors said they would cancel. The readers wanted brevity and plain statement—the editors ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... women who neglected me also: yet you, O my God, protected me, for accidents were incessantly happening to me, occasioned by my extreme vivacity; I fell. A number of accidents happened to me which I omit for brevity. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... the Beast is everywhere growing more and more out of the thing that had been Man. And John Burley, still unconquered, but clean lost to his senses, fancies himself a preacher, and drawls forth the most lugubrious sermon upon the brevity of life that mortal ever beard, accompanied with unctuous sobs; and now and then in the midst of balderdash gleams out a gorgeous sentence, that Jeremy Taylor might have envied, drivelling away again into a cadence below the rhetoric ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... we found that an officer of Lord Wellington's staff had just arrived from the lines, and was occupied in making known the general order from headquarters; which set forth, with customary brevity, that the French armies, under the command of Massena, had retired from their position, and were in full retreat,—the second and third corps, which had been stationed at Villa Franca, having marched, during the night of the 15th, in the direction of Manal. The ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... lions, a little the way Christian did in similar circumstances. After waiting a while she was shown into the office of an affable young man, with efficient looking eye-glasses and a keen sort of voice, and told him with admirable brevity that she wanted to learn to draw, as a ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... goes well!" he said, with dramatic brevity. He had made the plans which were so definite in the bold outline to which he held all subordinates in a cooerdinated execution; and I should meet the men who had carried out his plans, from artillerists who had ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... soul of wit is brevity; we want a place for an approaching combat between my friend here and a brave from town. Passing by your broad acres this fine morning we saw a pightle, which we deemed would suit. Lend us that pightle, and receive our thanks; 'twould be a favour, though ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of Britain, however, excepting that of Albion, or Olbion, just before mentioned, has been liable to as many derivations as the origin of the Britons; we shall content ourselves (for brevity's sake) with the following extract from Camden, who has given (in our humble opinion at least) the best and most ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... lit. Palmyra-bannered. Without using such compounds, the 'brevity' of the sentences ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... is mingled with the gaiety which it excites; but when expressive of grief, it also gives birth to a sweet sentiment. The heart beats more quickly while listening to it, and the satisfaction caused by the regularity of the measure, by reminding us of the brevity of time, points out the necessity of enjoying it. You no longer feel any void, any silence, around you; life is filled; the blood flows quickly; you feel within you that motion which gives activity to life, and you have no fear of the external obstacles ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... no one else being present but myself - sitting in armchairs over the fire, finishing their bottle of port, Lord Lynedoch told the wonderful story of his adventures during the siege of Mantua by the French, in 1796. For brevity's sake, it were better perhaps to give the outline in the words of Alison. 'It was high time the Imperialists should advance to the relief of this fortress, which was now reduced to the last extremity from want of provisions. At a council of war held in the end of December, it was decided ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... there is the counterbalancing advantage that the matter comes with the full effect of force and completeness from the author. Another admirable circumstance is brevity, by the rejection of all useless details. After weighing the pour and the contre, I think it not impracticable to retain in my case the benefit of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... for students even, who have formed the habit of thinking by points, to allow brief headings, consisting of single words or short phrases, to represent entire thoughts. Although such headings, on account of their brevity, may be useful, they are merely names for the thought, not statements of the thought itself; and it means the loosest kind of thinking to stop with them. A mere title, as a lecture "About Russia," for instance, designates only the outside limits to which a person confines ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... more than I find myself able to perform whilst I am in them. It has been said by many that they wanted time to make their discourses shorter; and if this be a good excuse, as I think it may be often, I lay in my claim to it. You must neither expect in what I am about to write to you that brevity which might be expected in letters or essays, nor that exactness of method, nor that fulness of the several parts which they affect to observe who presume to write philosophical treatises. The merit of brevity is relative to the ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... three virtues of a narration, brevity, probability and perspicuity. The epic poet should diligently strive to attain the second and third, and may learn how to do it from the masters ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... nature rose in revolt against the merciless brevity and gracelessness of that reply. "I wish to God," he broke out fervently, "I knew English enough to take your place at Mr. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins |
