"Cursory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appliances here to administer an anaesthetic or do anything else properly," answered Morris impatiently, "and no one can tell from a cursory examination whether or not there are other injuries, to say nothing of the danger from septicaemia if the work is done ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... Infallibility pass with uplifting of jewelled fingers through genuflexions to the Balcony. Port has this in it: that it compels obeisance, master of us; as opposed to brother and sister wines wooing us with a coy flush in the gold of them to a cursory tope or harlequin leap shimmering up the veins with a sly wink at us through eyelets. Hussy vintages swim to a cosset. We ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... was with characteristic sangfroid to order these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... was in answer to a look of surprise on my face when I peered curiously into the bare hall and made a cursory mental inventory of ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... room with a low, stealthy tread, and looked me over in a cursory way and yet with the ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... after the cursory look and plunged again into the unbroken wilderness. Two or three hours later he decided that he was being followed. He had not seen or heard anything, but it was a sort of divination. He sought to throw ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... characteristics are common to forged writing, to make them available in formulating an opinion from an analysis they must be substantiated by every other occurring in the writing. It must be clearly kept in view that general impressions derived from a cursory examination of a disputed or reproduced signature should have no weight in the mind of the examiner before proceeding with the analysis, as such an impression is apt to lead the investigation into a particular line of research and it should be understood that the ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... stay in Brussels, including a short trip from there to Antwerp, had served to distract my thoughts a little. As I did not at that moment feel at all inclined to devote my precious time to looking at works of art, I contented myself in Antwerp with a cursory glance at its outward aspect, which I found less rich in antiquities than I had anticipated. The situation of its famous citadel proved peculiarly disappointing. In view of the first act of my Lohengrin I had presumed that this citadel, which I imagined ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... year just mentioned. Now look at the second. It also is an inventory—of the jewels and plate of the Priory of Mellerton, made in the same year, and similarly suppressed. But though both these houses were of the smaller sort, it is quite evident, from a cursory glance at these inventories that they were pretty rich in jewels and plate. By the term jewels is meant plate wherein jewels were set; as to the plate it was, of course, the sacramental vessels and appurtenances. And judging by these entries the whole ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... A cursory glance must be given to the use of purls and other fancy threads, but these are mostly used nowadays for badges on uniforms, or for masonic purposes, and are carried out by the trade. These threads, when tarnished, are very difficult to clean, ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... the whole apparatus, means, machinery, and dependences of that system—a revolution begun, carried through, and perfected within the period of my own personal experience—merits a word or two of illustration in the most cursory memoirs that profess any attention at all to the shifting scenery and moving forces of the age, whether manifested in great effects or in little. And these particular effects, though little, when regarded in their separate details, are not little in their final amount. On the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... that the videttes fell back on the town, bringing word that the allies were advancing, that the girl noticed so marked a change in her mother that she sent for the army surgeon, and that she had done wisely was shown by his gravity after a very cursory examination. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... mutineers, having been served with tobacco and brandy, had lighted their pipes and provided themselves, each man, with a stiff rummer of grog. A cursory observer would possibly have thought the scene grotesque; but the four men ranged at the foot of the table speedily detected in the countenances of their self-constituted judges, an expression of stern determination which caused ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... final visit to make positive that I was comfortable. But that one night's sojourn in the hospital almost completely unnerved me. I could not sleep, and to my alarm I found that no one ever came in to take even a cursory glance at the patients. I got up in the darkness and went to the door. To my astonishment I found it to be locked! I turned to one cot. It contained a French invalid who was jabbering away excitedly to himself, but I could not understand a single word. I turned to the next ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... road, turned the corner, and a minute later was approaching the house she had designated. It was one of a row. His pace slowed to a nonchalant stroll again. It was still quite light, and he was by no means the only pedestrian on the street; a moment's preliminary, even if cursory, examination of the exterior would not be amiss! Counting the numbers ahead of him, he had already located the house. He frowned a little. A light burned in the upstairs front room. There was a ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Roman historian, records the attempt of Nero to charge the Christians with the burning of Rome, he has patience for no more than the cursory remark that the sect originated with a Jew who had been put to death in Judea during the reign of Tiberius. This province was small and despised, and Tacitus could account for the influence of the sect which sprang thence ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... tense in his anxiety to prove his reliability, "I find that in the past I have taken only a cursory view of conditions. I see clearly that what you have outlined is a high order of statesmanship. You are constructive: I have been on the side of those who would tear down. I will gladly join hands with you and build up, so that the wealth and power of this country shall come to equal ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... days after Christmas John was sitting in his room in the evening when there came a knock at the door, and to his "Come in" there entered Mr. Harum, who was warmly welcomed and entreated to take the big chair, which, after a cursory survey of the apartment and its furnishings, he did, saying, "Wa'al, I thought I'd come in an' see how Polly'd got you fixed; whether the baskit [casket?] was worthy of the jew'l, as I heard a feller say in a ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... satisfied merely with a cursory view of the place, as he hung up the receiver and thanked the maid politely for allowing him to ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... state the question, you must solve it; I can leave you only some cursory ideas, which I am satisfied are just, and upon which you may meditate at your leisure. Only for fools or the weak does materialism become a debasing dogma; assuredly, in its code there are none of those precepts of ordinary morals which ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... through more elaborate solutions of worse complexities, to a greater conclusion. Each one comes here to finish but one book of life, which, during the progress of its various parts, grows spiral-wise on an ever-increasing radius. So, while each segment may appear different from the others at a cursory glance, they all really lead back ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... placket-hole and sagging waist-band, sketched in No. 45, is an all too familiar sight that advertises the fact that too few women take even a cursory look at their backs. Fathers and brothers who wish to protect their womankind from adverse criticism frequently give impromptu lectures upon this very subject, as this slovenly arrangement of skirt and basque is ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... occasions, I had no opportunity of making any observations on the manners and customs of our neighbours. Occasionally Mrs. Tod mentioned them in her social chatter, while laying the cloth; but it was always in the most cursory and trivial way, such as "Miss March having begged that the children might be kept quiet—Mrs. Tod hoped their noise didn't disturb ME? but Mr. March was such a very fidgety gentleman—so particular in his dress, too—Why, Miss March had to iron his cravats with her own ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... applying to the poor only, and operative on them exclusively. The inordinately rich were beyond all law, seeing that they could either manufacture it, or its interpretation, at will. Among the conspicuous, audacious capitalists the fraud of a few paltry millions shrank to the modesty of a small, cursory, off-hand operation. Yet, in the aggregate, these petty frauds constituted great results, and for that reason ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... sight appear from what has been said that the literature of the sexual life of the child was extremely voluminous, but this is not in reality the case. Almost always, this important question is handled in a casual or cursory manner. A thorough presentation of the subject has not, as far as my knowledge extends, hitherto been attempted. Freud rightly insists that even in all, or nearly all, the works on the psychology of the child, this important ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... the danger increasing with the fever, and therewith his horror of his father's knowing. It was of no use for his mother to hang over him, hold his hands, and assure him that she knew (as, in fact, she did, for Bernard had been obliged to make a cursory explanation), and that nothing could hinder her loving him still; he forgot it in the next interruption, and turned from her with terror and dismay, and once he nearly flung himself out of bed, fancying that the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to a knife-like pain in his left side; the brunt of the blow, it seemed, had met him slantways between rib and hip. A cursory examination made Mahony ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... line and its equipment that the first cursory glance at these pictures of it will certainly cause the beholder to imagine that he is looking at presentments of some portions of the London and North-Western Railway or of some other well-known, full-grown railway. But his eye, on gazing a little longer at ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... foliage. We dare not suppose that He went expecting to find Figs; far less, that in a moment of disappointed hope, He ventured on a capricious exercise of His power, uttered a hasty malediction, and condemned the insensate boughs to barrenness and decay. The first cursory reading of the narrative may suggest some such unworthy impression. But we dismiss it at once, as strangely at variance with the Saviour's character, and strangely unlike His wonted actings. We feel assured that He literally, ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... one to another of those who lay slain; in turn stooping over each corpse, and scrutinising it—to some giving but a cursory glance, to others more careful examination—then leaving each with an air of disappointment, and a ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... the present Lecture go back to the age of Queen Anne, and endeavour to give a cursory account of the most eminent of our poets, of whom I have not already spoken, from that period ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... residence; still, overflow with all the pompousness of national and individual vanity combined. "When I was on board the Audacious"—for a long time, was almost the invariable exordium to the fore-top Captain's most cursory remarks. It is often the custom of men-of-war's-men, when they deem anything to be going on wrong aboard ship to refer to last cruise when of course everything was done ship-shape and Bristol fashion. And by referring to the Audacious—an ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... feelin's towards Rufus partook more of a element of impatience than of admiration. He said as one night when he was there he was most dumbfounded to see how little attention she paid with Rufus discoursin' on trilobites 'n their relations to the cursory strata. Dr. Cogswell sighed 'n' said he was afraid he'd have to admit as he feared that was mebbe only too likely to be true. He said he felt a sadness because every trilobite as was related by Rufus was of profound value to any scientific student. He said Rufus was one at whose feet them ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... appreciation of the beauties of scenery, in the taste with which he has performed that difficult task of selecting the groups of trees requisite for landscape, while cutting down a forest; and the most cursory view of his library can leave no doubt that his was a highly-cultivated mind. I will add no more, lest I be led insensibly to trench upon the privacy of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... and seating himself at the desk, proceeded to an examination of his newly acquired property. The newspapers in the scrap basket, mainly copies of the Evening Register, seemed to contain, upon cursory examination, nothing germane to the issue. But, scattered among them, the searcher found a number of fibrous chips. They were short and thick; such chips as might be made by cutting a bamboo pole into cross lengths, convenient ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to follow Mrs. Farnham's argument: it would require a review rather than a cursory notice. She shows that there is an intuitive recognition of the superiority of woman in the universal sentiments of humanity, that man's love when pure assumes the superior qualities of the woman loved, that he looks to her to aid him in his aspirations for a better life than he ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... distinction. The French are, beyond all manner of doubt, the most good-humoured people on the surface of the earth; if we understand at least by the term, good-humour those minor courtesies, those considerate kindnesses, those cursory attentions, which, though they cost little to the giver, are not the less valuable to the receiver; which soften the asperities of life, and by their frequent occurrence, and the constant necessity in which ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... Principles which have been admired by some of the greatest Characters, whom (if he is an Englishman) his Country can boast of. You & I, among others, have had the Honor of being abusd by Rivingtons Press. A labord Performance has lately crept out, called the Times. I have had a cursory reading of it. It appears to me so much like the Productions of certain Geniuses who figurd in Mr Popes Time, that had the Author been cotemporary with them, a Page might have been added to the Dunciad, to immortalize ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... declared to be "flatly opposed to the fundamental doctrine of creation." Even the London Times admitted a review stigmatizing Darwin's Descent of Man as an "utterly unsupported hypothesis," full of "unsubstantiated premises, cursory investigations, and disintegrating speculations," and Darwin himself as "reckless ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... a man of the intellect. No other author of modern times, perhaps no other English author of any time, appeals so directly as he to the educated classes. Even a cursory reading of his pages, prose or verse, reveals the scholar and the critic. He is always thinking, always brilliant, never lacks for a word or phrase; and on the whole, his judgments are good. Between his prose and verse, however, there is a marked difference, both in tone ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... convenient season. At length Mr. Latrobe himself undertook to pay a visit to Gippsland. He was a splendid horseman, had long limbs like King Edward Longshanks, and was in the habit of making dashing excursions with a couple of troopers to take cursory views of the country. He set out in the month of May, 1844, and was introduced to the settlers in the following letter by ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... had no need to claim notice by an ostentatious display of his parts, and had too much good sense to imagine that such a vain display would conciliate any acute and sensible person. Johnson, in fact, throughout his cursory and careless "Life of Akenside," is manifestly labouring under deep prejudice against the poet—prejudice founded chiefly ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... had left behind or had never had at all, and who were walking, potentially, toward a promising future in which he could take no share. Most of these had been commonplace young fellows enough—noisy, philistine, glaringly cursory and inconsiderate toward their elders; but a few of them—one now and then, at long intervals—he would have enjoyed knowing, and knowing intimately. On these infrequent occasions would come a union of frankness, comeliness and elan, and the rudiments of good manners. But no one ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... room, or talk with her in his slow, kind way, and Wallace always drew her into his absurd games or his sessions at the piano. But Gunther neither watched nor chattered, he simply was, seeming to draw a silent and complete satisfaction from her nearness. Of the men he took only cursory notice, talking sometimes with Stefan on art, or with Farraday on life, but never ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... to face had, as yet, of late, contrived to count but little, between them, either for the sense of opportunity or for that of exposure; inasmuch as the lifelong rhythm of their intercourse made against all cursory handling of deep things. They had never availed themselves of any given quarter-of-an-hour to gossip about fundamentals; they moved slowly through large still spaces; they could be silent together, at any time, beautifully, with much more comfort ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... attempting to marry her, at a time when he was already engaged to another woman—Bishopriggs would find himself confronted with the owner of that terrible fist, which had justly terrified him even on a distant and cursory view. If, on the other hand she placed her interests in the care of her uncle—Bishopriggs had only to look at the captain, and to calculate his chance of imposing terms on a man who owed Life a bill of ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... the convention may have succeeded in this part of their work, will better appear on a more accurate view of it. From the cursory view here taken, it must clearly appear to have ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... scientific doctrine of Energy would seem to be pregnant with momentous consequences for Philosophy, and it is worth while for metaphysicians to devote to this subject the deepest and most deliberate thought. The results cannot easily be grasped by a mere cursory perusal of memoranda, in which we have only sketched a few salient aspects of the doctrine. We deprecate unwarrantable assurance, and are fully conscious of the difficulty of adequately expressing thought on such a theme; but we have not ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... rarely if ever occur in complete separation; they are blended in very varying proportions. Religion we have seen was in the last century regarded mainly in its theoretical aspect as a doctrine. Greek religion for example meant to most educated persons Greek mythology. Yet even a cursory examination shows that neither Greek nor Roman had any creed or dogma, any hard and fast formulation of belief. In the Greek Mysteries (See my "Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion", page 155, Cambridge, 1903.) only we find what we should call a Confiteor; and this is not a confession ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... is catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to pass by unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is searching for rare and remote things, will neglect those that are obvious and familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory words have been inserted with little illustration, because in gathering the authorities, I forebore to copy those which I thought likely to occur whenever they were wanted. It is remarkable that, in reviewing my collection, I found the word ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... city just half ground down and solidified into a mountain. On the western bank, numerous handsome facades and porticos have indeed been hewn out; and mightily interesting they were to wander through, with their elaborate tablets and cursory inscriptions, their hieroglyphical scrolls, their sculptured gods and symbols, and all the luxury of their architectural ornaments. But the grandest impressions are to be sought for on the other side, whence the materials of whole capital cities must have been removed. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... from the most cursory glance. A more careful one picked up other facts fully as startling and impressive. The books were choice; the invention to all appearance a practical one; the art of a high order and the music, such as was in view, of a character of ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... in and sat by me, but after a few cursory observations he left me to my own devices and talked to Miss Ruth. I was a little disappointed at this, for I preferred him infinitely to his wife, and I had always found his sermons very helpful; but I heard afterward that he never liked ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... greaser seemed to content himself with a cursory examination of the forage and baggage wagon and presently came slouching back to the fire again. He had some scrap of harness in his hand and Pike longed to know what, but it was too far from his post of observation. He decided ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... it may, the progress of our respective courtships, now that the ice was broken, took on a more decided turn. At first it only amounted to meetings on the boulevards and a cursory greeting, but soon Mlle. Goldberg senior, delighted with my conversation, would deliberately turn to walk with me under the trees the while Fernand Rochez followed by the side of his adored. A week later the ladies accepted my ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... officer looked the red-haired beauty up and down, bestowing on her but a cursory glance. Fandor noticed that Bobinette was greatly troubled by it. Following this little by-play, he immediately got a very clear impression that if the lieutenant did not consider the pretty girl worthy of much consideration, she, on her side, seemed very much influenced ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... lines of investigation followed in the foregoing pages, a great deal might be said as to how far the religious idea has been perpetuated by an exploitation of purely social qualities. It must be obvious to even the cursory student that a great deal of what is now being put forward as religious is really no more than a sociology with a religious label. The feeling for truth, beauty, justice, the desire for social intercourse, ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... reread—and his power of assimilation was great. To be shut in with a few books and to master them thoroughly sometimes does more for the development of character than freedom to range at large, in a cursory and indiscriminate way, through wide domains of literature. This youth's mind, at any rate, was thoroughly saturated with Biblical knowledge and Biblical language, which, in after life, he used with ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... found here," declared Roy after a cursory examination; "I guess this shack was put up by lumbermen or hunters. It doesn't seem to have been occupied for ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... tradition and atavism have jumbled together in the Japanese brain, proceed from sources utterly dark and unknown to us; even the oldest records fail to explain them to us in anything but a superficial and cursory manner, simply because we have absolutely nothing in common with this people. We pass through the midst of their mirth and their laughter without understanding the wherefore, so totally do they ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... who told me that in the art of pronunciation he was far inferior to Dr. Watts. Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language, that in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory sermons, but, having adjusted the heads and sketched out some particulars, trusted for success to his extemporary powers. He did not endeavour to assist his eloquence by any gesticulations; for, as no corporeal actions have any correspondence with ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... suddenness of his decease has never been clearly accounted for. The precise nature of his malady was not known, since with quiet hopelessness he had refused to take medical advice. His friend Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was the only physician who had an opportunity to take even a cursory view of his case, which he did in the course of a brief walk and conversation in Boston before Hawthorne started with Mr. Pierce; but he was unable, with that slight opportunity, to reach any definite ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... colleagues in the Odyssey are not to be easily distinguished by internal evidence. On trying the experiment by a cursory reading I confess (though a critic does not willingly admit his fallibility) that I took some of Broome's work for Pope's, and, though closer study or an acuter perception might discriminate more accurately, I do not think that the distinction would be easy. This may be taken to confirm the common ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... a powerful reading-glass in the professional manner those fellows use and gave the two specimens a cursory examination. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... test his prize would not allow of more than a very cursory inspection of the general contents of the volume. So far as he could make out, it seemed to be a political satire veiled under the transparent garb of an Eastern story. Parthenio was represented as a holy man—a Spiritualist or Mystic—who had lived ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... possible—stayed at Clonbrony Castle for a month; and yet, when Lady Clonbrony came to London, never took the least notice of her. At last, meeting at the house of a common friend, Mrs. Dareville could not avoid recognising her ladyship; but, even then, did it in the least civil manner and most cursory style possible. 'Ho! Lady Clonbrony!—didn't know you were in England!—When did you come?—How long shall you stay in town!—Hope, before you leave England, your Ladyship and Miss Nugent will give us a day?' A DAY!—Lady ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... subject is too lengthy for more than cursory allusion here, but the patient analytic skill and keen venatic instinct with which Yule not only proved the forgery of the alleged Travels of Georg Ludwig von —— (that had been already established by Lord Strangford, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... which he proposed to write were very difficult, and were ready to inform him, that the event of a poem was uncertain, that an author ought to employ much time in the consideration of his plan, and not presume to sit down to write in confidence of a few cursory ideas, and a superficial knowledge; difficulties were started on all sides, and he was no longer qualified for any performance but the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... it was. "Dr. Webster's private lavatory," replied the janitor, who was conducting them. At that moment Webster's voice called them away to examine the store-room in the lower laboratory, and after a cursory examination the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... religious views of most prominent Americans are shamefully meagre, I was inclined to regard Rector Reed's sermon as a historical document of inestimable value. Being prone, however, to act upon the advice of St. Paul and "prove all things," I began a cursory investigation. Rector Reed neglected to give the source of his information, and to save me I could find but seven presidents, including Washington, who were Episcopalians, and now Col. Patrick Ford, of the Irish World calls my attention to Jared Spark's ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... public lands to put them to their most productive use, and it is said with truth that this best use is the tillage of small areas by small owners. Unfortunately, the facts and this theory disagree. Even the most cursory examination of large holdings throughout the West will refute the contention that the intelligent self-interest of large owners results promptly and directly in the making of homes. Few passions of the human mind are stronger than land hunger, and the large holder clings to his land until circumstances ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... United States has the highest form of civilized institutions that any nation has had. Let us take a cursory glance at the institutions in this country. It has common schools by the tens of thousands; colleges and universities of every grade by the hundred; millions of daily newspapers are flying from the press, and weekly papers and monthly magazines on all imaginary subjects; it has a Congress ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... to be a boy at school, if we have only escaped the ferula to come under the fescue of an Imprimatur; if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his pedagogue, must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extemporizing licenser? He who is not trusted with his own actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and standing to the hazard of law and penalty, has no great argument to think himself ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... and latter rain" (v. 7), the effect on vegetation of the burning wind (i. 11), the existence of salt or bitter springs (iii. 11), the cultivation {226} of figs and olives (iii. 12), and the neighbourhood of the sea (i. 6; iii. 4). From such a cursory view of the character of this Epistle, it would seem reasonable to admit that it was written by a Palestinian Jewish Christian for the edification of Christians of the same ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... presentable upon leaving the steerage of the steamer, my trunk on a dray, I proceeded to an unprepossessing hotel kept by a colored man on Kearny street. The cursory view from the outside, and the further inspection on the inside, reminded me of the old lady's description of her watch, for she said, "it might look pretty hard on the outside, but the inside works were all right." And so thought its jolly patrons. ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... subject of contemplation than the decay of a religious belief. Right or wrong, by that faith men have lived and died, perhaps for centuries; and one cannot see it pass out from the consciousness of humanity without something more than a cursory thought as to the reasons of its decadence. Being led by exceptional causes to take a more than common interest in those forms of belief which lie beyond the pale of the Church of England, I was attracted by a notice ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... examination, a vigorous but not exacting course of sprouts designed to find out if the applicant is capable of violent exertion and to discover any minor weaknesses; an examination of eyes, ears, teeth, and nose; and, finally, a cursory scrutiny for ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... After a cursory glance around, they went forth again out upon the landing in order to await the arrival of two other plain-clothes officers who had come round on foot, one of them the sergeant of the Criminal Investigation Department attached to the Kew station. Then, after giving orders ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... with every lover of Shakespeare, that the Question was not fully discussed by Mr. Johnson himself: what he sees intuitively, others must arrive at by a series of proofs; and I have not time to teach with precision: be contented therefore with a few cursory observations, as they may happen to arise from the Chaos of Papers you have so often laughed at, "a stock sufficient to set up an Editor in form." I am convinced of the strength of my cause, and superior to any little advantage from ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... cursory view of the ruins in the mead, we ascended the hill which borders upon it, and surveyed a prospect of the same nature, though in a more lovely and expanded style, than that which I beheld from Mosolente. Padua crowns the landscape, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... holding empty fruit jars and liquor bottles—which contrasted sharply with the neatly ceiled and cement-floored space devoted to furnace, laundry and maid's room. Dundee himself had given those regions only a cursory inspection with his flashlight, for it was highly improbable that Nita Selim would have made use of a secret hiding place for her jewelry and valuable papers, if that hiding place was located ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... our curiosity with this cursory inspection of what we had come so far to see, hunger compelled us to look about with great anxiety for the cook; and you may fancy our delight at seeing that functionary in the very act of dishing up dinner on a neighbouring hillock. ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... had a fund of cheerfulness on hand which must find vent somewhere. When he came opposite Archie, he took a brief survey of him in a careless, good-humored fashion, and then turned on his heel, bestowing a very cursory glance on Miss Masham, who stood shaking her black ringlets after the fashion of shopwomen, and waiting to know ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Revision. The changes in this noble poem are many, and were especially needed, for the rendering of the Book of Job has always been felt to be one of the weakest portions of the great work of the Revisers of 1611. Illustrations I am unable to give, in a cursory notice like the present, but I may again press the Revisers' version of this deeply interesting Book on the serious attention of every earnest ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... kaleidoscopic pattern of uniforms, sky-blue, indigo, and bottle-green, relieved the civilian attire of the groups that clustered in lounge and card rooms and corridors. Yeovil rapidly came to the conclusion that the joys of membership were not for him. He had turned to go, after a very cursory inspection of the premises and their human occupants, when he was hailed by a young man, dressed with strenuous neatness, whom he remembered having met in past days at the houses of one ...
— When William Came • Saki
... transient &c adj.; flit, pass away, fly, gallop, vanish, fade, evaporate; pass away like a cloud, pass away like a summer cloud, pass away like a shadow, pass away like a dream. Adj. transient, transitory, transitive; passing, evanescent, fleeting, cursory, short-lived, ephemeral; flying &c v.; fugacious, fugitive; shifting, slippery; spasmodic; instantaneous, momentaneous^. temporal, temporary; provisional, provisory; deciduous; perishable, mortal, precarious, unstable, insecure; impermanent. brief, quick, brisk, extemporaneous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... presented to those at the north, by the residence of the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company amongst them, renders the condition of our people in that quarter less secure; but I think it will appear at once, upon the most cursory examination, that no such opposition further south could be maintained, so as to weaken the benefits of such an establishment as ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... pages, esquires, guards, and various other retainers of a royal establishment, the constant ingress and egress of richly-attired courtiers, the somewhat bustling, yet deferential aspect of the scene, a very cursory glance would ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... them aloft in the air. This practice is of such venerable antiquity, and so universal, that it would be vain to impugn it. The pleasure, too, which most children evince under it, seems to show that it cannot be so objectionable as a cursory observer would be disposed to consider it. Still there are hazards which ought not to be overlooked. The risk of accident is one of some amount: children have slipped from the hands, and sustained serious injury. Some ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... indulged in a cursory reading both of the introduction and of the drama[30] itself, to my no small edification; and inasmuch as I am now, for the second time, enjoying the details together with the whole, I will no longer withhold my ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... I have given are sufficient to convey to my readers the general idea I have in view, when I speak of studying the Bible, in contradistinction from the mere cursory reading of it, which is so common ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... collection to be similarly copied by others. Several such collections exist formed far back in Old English times, the composite character of which, partly glossary, partly vocabulary, reveals itself upon even a cursory examination. ...
— The evolution of English lexicography • James Augustus Henry Murray
... important addition, however, we conceive that we have made, in publishing the whole of his sermons. It has been hitherto the practice to give one or two, with a cursory notice, that Johnson's theological knowledge was scanty, or unworthy of his general fame. We have acted under a very different impression; for though Johnson was not, nor pretended to be, a polemical or controversial divine, he well knew how to apply to the right ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... The most cursory examination of these analytical numbers is sufficient to show that a very close relation subsists between the different substances just described. Indeed, with the exception of vegetable caseine, they may be said all to present the ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... as the most important that the annals of this people record: we allude to the circumnavigation of Africa. As this voyage has given rise to much discussion, we may be excused for deviating from the cursory and condensed character of this part of our work, in order to investigate its probable authenticity. All that we know regarding it is delivered to us by Herodotus; according to this historian, soon ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... introduced by the author's piety—and so really teaches us nothing, since it is not revelation; or the narrative is, as a whole, divinely dictated, and must be true throughout, if we can only arrive by due study at its true meaning. That part of it is, or may be, true, even on the most cursory study, is not denied; that it is all true will appear, I think, in ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... the road, and took up his course along the more dimly lighted footway on the further side. At this hour the park row in which he found himself was almost deserted; now and again single pedestrians went by, and as he received from none of these more than a cursory and inattentive glance, his sense of incognito increased, and he stepped out more confidently to the task ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... to consider typically American. Eyebrows that curved far down along the temples, and eyelashes of a darkness in contrast to the prevailing note of his complexion combined to lend him a rather brooding, soft, and melancholy air which a very cursory second examination showed to be fictitious. His eyes, like the woodsman's, were steady, but inquiring. His jaw was square and settled, his mouth straight. One would be likely to sum him up as a man whose actions ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... nicely," Miss Merivale said, after giving the typewritten programmes a cursory glance and pushing them from her. Her eyes went back to Rhoda's face. She saw now that the fleeting glimpse she had got of her on the staircase had somewhat deceived her. Rhoda was not as pretty as she had thought. Her mouth was a little too wide, and her nose had too ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... of Watkins, and told him that the package I had given him was of no value to any person but myself; that it was made up of various articles of writing, containing hundreds of names, many of which were familiar to me. He looked them over in a cursory ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... futile, incorrect. To suppose you have learned a word by so cursory a glance at its resources is like supposing you have learned a man through having had him render you some temporary and trivial service, as lending you a match or telling you the time of day. To acquaint yourself thoroughly with ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the title of a poet, Canute has also received the appellation of a bibliomaniac. Dibdin, in his bibliomania, mentions in a cursory manner a few monkish book collectors, and introduces Canute among them.[379] The illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels in the Danish tongue, now in the British Museum, he writes, "and once that monarch's own book leaves not the shadow ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... to add some remarks upon the general character of the tales, which, as may be seen after a very cursory examination, are very different both in tone and merit, as might indeed be expected if we remember that we are probably dealing with the works of men who were separated from each other by a gap of hundreds of years. ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... Alexander Finlay, the resident Chamberlain of his friend Lord Douglas, the state of his health at the time was so feeble, that he found himself incapable of pursuing his researches, as in better days he would have delighted to do, and was obliged to be contented with such a cursory view of scenes, in themselves most interesting, as could be snatched in a single morning, when any bodily exertion was painful. Mr. Haddow was attentive enough to forward subsequently some notes on the points which the Author had seemed desirous of investigating; ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... extensive continent this is peculiarly an era of implacental mammals, and that in another extensive continent it is peculiarly an era of placental mammals; we have good reason to hesitate before accepting these sweeping generalizations which are based on a cursory examination of strata occupying but a tenth ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... most cursory examination to establish the fact that the car whose track he had been following had turned in here. He held up his hand and stopped a luggage trolley which had just turned the bend in the avenue. The man pulled up and ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... engaged his attention are regarded with deep interest by the philanthropist, the philologist, the archaeologist, as well as many other liberal inquirers, both in Europe and America, who, amid the scanty facts, cursory observations, and hurried, random conjectures of those who have been favored with a comparatively near view of them, have lamented the want of such deliberate investigations and comparative examinations, continued with sober judgment ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... attention. The gentleman who was in company with our youth, and from whom we deliver the story, being an Irishman, instantly recognizing in the petitioner, an unhappy countrywoman, stopped, surveyed her with more than cursory regard, and put his hand into his pocket in order to give her money. As there was in her aspect that which bespoke something that had once been better accommodated, and had claims above a common mendicant, he was searching in his pocket ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... come, but won't be called a servant, and can pay her own fare. Very peculiar—but we read, you know, in that New England book, that that was just the independent way they felt about it. They can only induce slaves to be servants there, I believe." She gave this cursory view of the condition of affairs in the neighbouring States in an abstracted voice, and summed up her remarks by speaking out her decision in a more lively tone. "Well, we must have some one to help with ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... die into silence, and the chattering whispers of her women who held her. He reassured himself savagely; he would take care that no one was taken ... she would thank him presently; he would but set guards at all the doors and make a cursory search; he would break a panel or two; no more. And that would save both his face and her own.... Yet he loathed even such ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... they be matrices or feed-baggs of any kind of Fishes, or some kind of watry Insect; or whether they are at any times more soft and tender, or of another nature and texture, which things, if I knew how, I should much desire to be informed of: but from a cursory view that I at first made with my Microscope, and some other trials, I supposed it to be some Animal substance cast out, and fastned upon the Rocks in the form of a froth, or congeries of bubbles, like that which I have often observ'd on Rosemary, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... first cursory glance through the work, we were struck by an apparent disproportion of space allotted to different topics, and have taken some pains to examine to how great an extent this disproportion really exists. We find that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... time. Thirty-two other leaves were separately observed in water, making altogether 173 experiments. Many scores of leaves were also immersed in water at other times, but no exact record of the effects produced was kept; yet these cursory observations support the conclusions arrived at in this chapter. A few of the long-headed tentacles, namely from one to about six, were commonly inflected within half an hour after immersion; as were occasionally ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... oystermen do to discover it—the mouth is exactly what the gullet (oesophagus) would be in a man whose head had been cut off; that is, a truncated tube. Then comes the stomach, situated in the very midst of the liver; which latter may easily be distinguished, even by the most cursory glance at luncheon, from its dark color. The intestine also goes right through the liver, doubling backwards and forwards several times: and thus the digestive tube supplies itself with bile from the cask (to borrow a commercial expression); and this saves the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... measuring the depth of a hidden purse. He recalled the brilliant Casimir Wieniawski of eight years past—the curled darling of the hot-hearted ladies of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Singapore. In a glance of cursory inspection Alan Hawke had noted the doubtful gloss of the dress suit; it was the polish of long wear, not the velvety glow of newness. There was a growing bald spot, scarcely hidden by the Hyperion Polish curls; there were crows'-feet around the bold, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... not take note of all this, or give the poor pawns thus parading for his purpose more than a cursory glance. When he did think, which was when he was halfway up the staircase, it was to look back upon a changed scene. For with his going, interest had flagged and the tableau lost its pointedness. No one had ventured as yet ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... most curious peculiarities connected with the bats is their singular parasite, the Nycteribia.[1] On cursory observation, this creature appears to have neither head, antennae, eyes, nor mouth; and the earlier observers of its structure assured themselves that the place of the latter was supplied by a cylindrical sucker, which, being placed between the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... very likely to lead to an unintentional opening of the letter by the wrong person; for a cursory glance at the cover would seem to show that the letter was intended for the person whose name was most prominent. The letter should have been directed, to the person for whom it was intended ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... general condition of the natives have been incidentally touched upon, it may be well not to leave so important a subject in a state calculated to convey erroneous impressions. Let us bestow upon it, therefore, something more than a mere cursory glance. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... were preparing the greatness of the France of the future. There were minds there whose wealth and liberty and world-wide curiosity would have attracted Christophe if he had been able to discover them! But at most he only caught a cursory glimpse of two or three of them: he only made their acquaintance in the villainous caricatures of their ideas. He saw only their defects copied and exaggerated by the apish mimics of art and the bagmen ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... as she gave me this relation, but could not hold her eyes in mine. She seemed more uneasy than troubled. There was a contused wound just below the right temple, which covered, with its livid stain, a portion of the cheek. A cursory examination satisfied me that, whatever might be the cause of his fall, congestion of the brain had occurred, and that but few chances for life remained. So I informed Mrs. Allen. At the words, I could see a shudder run ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... the detectives tell Norvallis they had found nothing. Anyway, if I don't miss my guess, they were so satisfied with something they're keeping up their sleeve that I don't believe they paid more than cursory attention to other details. Just gave everything a perfunctory once-over and let ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... A cursory reading will suggest to any young person that the paragraph says Ailie is going to die, and that she does not fear death; but how much more it means to him who can understand it all. The end was drawing on—Ailie was going to her death. The golden bowl was breaking; the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... of some two-score structures, and only a cursory glance was needed to ascertain that it was the source of supplies and rendez-vous for entertainment of the several mines and all the miners and prospectors in the neighboring hills. Several fairly good roads and many trails led into it, and from it there was a main road of travel to ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... one to the other of her party with a graceful deprecating movement of her head, a head which people were unanimous in calling more than merely pretty and more than ordinarily refined. That was the cursory verdict, the superficial thing to see and say; it will do to go on with. From the way Lindsay looked at her as she spoke, he might have been suspected of other discoveries, possible only to the somewhat privileged in this blind world, where intimacy must lend a lens to find ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions—its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... domestic bees, therefore, that the idea, of whose movements we have given a cursory and incomplete picture, attains its most perfect form. Are these movements definitely, and for all time, arrested in each one of these species, and does the connecting-line exist in our imagination alone? Let us not be too eager to establish a system in this ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the cursory but illuminating report of Une mission archeologique au Sudan francais, headed by the soldier-ethnologist, Lieutenant Louis Desplaynes. The report, Le Plateau Central Nigirien, Paris, 1907, brought to Europe much valuable information bearing upon the past cultures of the practically ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... had heard a splash, and she was almost impelled to get up and look out of the bull's-eye. She should never forgive herself for resisting that impulse, for she was positive now that she would have seen his ghastly face in the water. Some indignation was felt that the captain, after a cursory survey of his stateroom, had ordered it to be locked until his fate was more positively known, and the usual seals placed on his effects for their delivery to the authorities at San Francisco. It was believed that some clue to his secret would be found among ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... novel which on even a cursory reading will be found to contain the very essence of the Nilus Protocols was published as a separate booklet in a Russian translation in 1872, avowedly as a work of fiction. I have found a copy of this little volume in the Russian Department of the Library ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... the octave, and so on. (It is advantageous and psychologically correct to touch occasionally, in passing, upon points which will be more thoroughly taught later. It excites the interest of the pupil. Thus the customary technical terms are sometimes made use of beforehand, and a needful, cursory explanation given of them.) That is right; you can tell them pretty well already; now we will repeat once more the names of the keys, and then we will stop for to-day. Just see how many things you have ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... of population, but lost to some extent by a portion of the Bear people moving across to Walpi. No important event seems to have occurred among them for a long period after the destruction of Sikytki, in which they bore some part, and only cursory mention is made of the ingress of "enemies from the north;" but their village, apparently, ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... however, stop and pick out from the pile an official looking document, at the sight of which a tremendous sigh of relief seemed to escape him. The document had a decidedly close resemblance to a marriage license as issued in Switzerland. Of course I only got a fleeting, cursory glance at it, but the eagerness of the Grand Duke in pouncing upon that one document and ignoring the letters, and hints previously dropped by her ladyship, embellished by rumors I later heard in Switzerland, all leave very little doubt in my mind that a clandestine marriage did ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... servants there, and soldiers too, who saluted Butzow, according the old shopkeeper and the smooth-faced young stranger only cursory glances. It was evident that without his beard it was not likely that Barney would be again ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the room again, muffled in his fur coat and with his cap on his head. His face looked almost angry and disgusted, as though he were afraid of getting dirty. He cast a cursory glance round the passage, looking sternly at Alyosha and Kolya as he did so. Alyosha waved from the door to the coachman, and the carriage that had brought the doctor drove up. The captain darted out after the doctor, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with no theories of his own to propose in place of those hitherto advanced. In fact, their critical examination may almost be said to have been the result of accident. Having made the birds of the United States his study for several years, the writer glanced over the bird carvings in the most cursory manner, being curious to see what species were represented. The inaccurate identification of some of these by the authors of "The Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley" led to the examination of the series as a whole, and subsequently to the discussion ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... was no doubt that the general was defeated, whether his army was or not. The most cursory study of the map showed that the only practicable road by which the army could be supplied was along the river from Bridgeport. Lookout Mountain commanded this; and not to hold Lookout was practically to announce a purpose to retreat into middle Tennessee. Dana informed the Secretary ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... currency, secured by a pledge of United States stocks, and for the circulation and redemption thereof." This bill took the usual course, was referred to the committee on finance, was reported favorably with a number of amendments, and was fully debated in the Senate. On the 9th of February, 1863, a cursory debate occurred between Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, and myself, which indicated a very strong opposition to the passage of the banking bill. Various amendments were proposed and some adopted. I became satisfied that if a strong effort was not made the bill would ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... detail is the plan of merely three movements. Nor is there a return to the original form, without the Scherzo. To judge from the headings, the "slow" movement is absent. In truth, by way of cursory preamble, the chronic vein of Cesar Franck is so ingrainedly reflective that there never can be with him an absence of the meditative phrase. Rather must there be a vehement rousing of his muse from a state of mystic adoration to rhythmic ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... part. It was characteristic of her exact attitude towards her accepted lover that it was the immediate future in which he figured most clearly. Her thoughts hovered round the pleasant summer to come with the distant excitement of a wedding to crown it. She never considered, or only in the most cursory way, the long years ahead, the daily companionship with the man she had chosen. She was honestly attached to Geoffry. She believed she was in love with him, whereas, as is far more often the case than the young suppose, she was in love with the love that had ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... the steel deck of a peculiarly long and narrow vessel. Guns were mounted forward and aft. Only a cursory examination was necessary to determine that they ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... them, wondering what weighty discussion was keeping them there in the cold. Vaughan he passed by with the cursory glance of a disinterested stranger, and went on to where Miss Conroy waited stubbornly ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... of whom there are large numbers to be found at Duluth, as indeed at all of the northern border towns, are a class of men too interesting and peculiar to be passed over without more than a cursory notice. These men are mostly French-Canadians and Indians, with now and then a native, and for hardihood, skill, and reliability, cannot be surpassed by any other similar class of men the world over. They are usually men of many ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the originator of the trip, the master spirit of the remarkable enterprise, and the leader of the band of base ball missionaries to the antipodes. Of course, in recording the Australian trip in the GUIDE for 1889, only a cursory glance can be taken of the trip, as it would require a volume of itself to do the tour justice. Suffice it to say that the pluck, energy and business enterprise which characterized the unequaled event reflected the highest credit not only on Mr. Albert G. ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... man looses the rope, and, having done so, casts a cursory glance at the boat to which it is attached. As he does so, ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... scholar answered a series of questions. This laborious but effective mode of ascertaining and accelerating progress in knowledge was left irksome by both parties, and "ordinary" lectures—or, as we should term them, lessons—were threatened with supersession by a seductive invention known as "cursory" lectures. These appear to have been neither more nor less than lectures in the modern sense. The master delivered his discourse, and the scholar was left to gather from it what degree of enlightenment he could or would. The statute referring to the subject taxes teachers with favouring ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... proved and your rights respected. I intend to throw myself into this case, heart and soul. Money, Justice, Law, Morality, are all concerned—One moment, my dear sir! If you must really go back to London, oblige me at any rate, with your address, and just state in a cursory way, whether you were christened or not at Dibbledean church. I want nothing more to begin with—absolutely nothing more, on my word of honor ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... county, he ordered his housekeeper to furnish every thing needful for them as often as they wanted it, and to take care they were well used by the women with whom he had placed them; and delivered these commands not in a cursory or negligent manner, but in such terms as terrified any failure of obedience in this point would ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... I exhibited my Pandora in the salon of 1837, I one day saw the whole Lanty family approach it. The mother was on the arm of Comte Maxime de Trailles, a well-known lion. Nil admirari is the natural instinct of all men of the world; so, after a very cursory glance at my work, Monsieur de Trailles began to find shocking faults in it, and in so high and clear a voice that not a word was lost within a certain range. Marianina shrugged her shoulders as she listened to this profound discourse, and when it ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... fact of variety, and to lead curious physiologists to a scientific classification of this prominent and well-deserving feature of the human face. I would recommend a proper distinction being observed between functional varieties, and those which arise from size, shape, or colour, of which, in a cursory way, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... the Church History. This was a most complete, interesting and instructive work. Even today one profits by its perusal and an immense fund of worthwhile information and knowledge may be derived from even a cursory study of his Notes on ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... and what was their function? To give any adequate answer to this inquiry would require a treatise; it is only in the most cursory manner that we can deal with ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden |
