"Brevity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... find in Professor Whitney's Second Lecture? He objects, like myself, to comparing the growth of language and the growth of a tree, and like myself, he admits of an excuse, viz., when the metaphor is employed for the sake of brevity or liveliness ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... consideration.* It is best, at all events for beginners, not to aim so much at being brief, or forcible, as at being perfectly clear. Horace says, "While I take pains to be brief, I fall into obscurity," and it may easily be seen that several of the rules for brevity interfere ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... the card-table bent their heads over the crumpled piece of note-paper spread out before them. Ross smoothed out its edges with his big hand, and the words became distinct enough; the very brevity of the message was touched with sensationalism. It ran: 'I am your brother. Save me!' and there was not another vestige of writing on ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... as good as dead," he observed, with cold brevity. "Better call at the house of the Miserecordia; the brethren will ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... assembly, where I see very distinguished people, like the senor, the present gobernadorcillo; his predecessor, my distinguished friend, Don Valentine; his other predecessor, Don Julio; our renowned captain of the cuadrilleros, Don Melchior, and so many others, whom, for brevity, I will not mention, and whom you see here present. I entreat your honors to give me the floor before any one else speaks. Am I happy enough to have the assembly accede to my humble request?" And the speaker ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... plant of great beauty that may be grown as a table vegetable, a forage plant, or a corn crop; but in the last-named capacity it is rarely profitable in this country, owing to the brevity of our summers. As an ornamental plant it is entitled to consideration, and the more so because, while adorning the garden with its noble outlines and splendid silken tufts, it will at the same time supply to the table the ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... But pilled, in other cases as might be shown by quotations, which for the sake of brevity I omit, means pillaged, robbed, and also peeled, of which last sense the quotations above given seem only to be a figurative application. The difficulties which arise from these explanations ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... invention. The subject, like "The Ring of Polycrates," does not admit of that rich poetry of description with which our author usually adorns some single passage in his narratives. The poetic spirit is rather shown in the terse brevity with which picture after picture is not only sketched but finished—and in the great thought at the close. Still it is not one of Schiller's best ballads. His additions to the original story are not happy. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... came, including one from Helen. It was not long. Mrs. Snow was a little inclined to feel hurt at its brevity. Her husband, however, did not share ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the fact, certainly," 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
... for this libellus is its brevity—no small recommendation in this age of "exhaustive treatment" when, in bibliography especially, it is difficult to see the wood for the trees. It is an inadequate expression of the writer's affection for the College in which he has spent more than forty ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... The telegraphic brevity caused by omitting pronouns and all words not necessary to the sense makes for discourtesy ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... Saddharma-Pundarika, chap. III. For brevity, I usually cite this work by the title ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... measures," said the reigning wit anent the administration which Amber's Salon held together, and in which her husband occupied a position quite disproportionate to his nominal office, and still more so to the almost unparalleled brevity of his ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... should expect the old form of fable to fall gradually into desuetude, and be gradually succeeded by another, which is a fable in all points except that it is not altogether fabulous. And this new form, such as we should expect, and such as we do indeed find, still presents the essential character of brevity; as in any other fable also, there is, underlying and animating the brief action, a moral idea; and as in any other fable, the object is to bring this home to the reader through the intellect rather than through the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nature and the oracular cynicism of the great false Prophet. The writer of the Koran does, indeed, if any discerner of hearts ever did, take the measure of mankind; and his measure is the same that Satire has taken, only expressed with the majestic brevity of one who had once lived in the realm of Silence. "Man is weak," says Mahomet. And upon that maxim he legislates.... The keenness of Mahomet's insight into human nature, a wide knowledge of its temptations, persuasives, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... and, accustomed to the brevity of the earl's speech, proceeded to the task enjoined him. Warwick next summoned his ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in speaking, in orations, in debates. In Journeys (Volume IX, page 321) is printed the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. It is the one great, masterly American address, noted not only for its perfect construction, but for its sentiment, its power and its brevity. In no other great address are all these elements combined. Tested by any standard it rings true in thought and is perfect in form. It is worth while to commit it to memory, and father and son should be equally ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... he expressed with singular brevity, energy, dignity, and pathos, a mournful consciousness that his actions had not been such as to entitle him to the esteem of those under whose observation his life had been passed, and, at the same time, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... perfect lyric, both in its grave language and its beautiful balance; and it is too, so far as such a composition can be, or ought to be, intensely dramatic. The thought is just touched, and stated with exquisite brevity and restraint; there is not a word too much or too little; the image is swiftly presented, the inner meaning flashed upon the mind. It seemed to me, too, a beautiful and desirable thing to begin the day thus, with a delicate hallowing of the hours; to put one gentle ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this, as well as the bee-hunter, and he had no intention of trusting his new friends in a flight down the river. Pigeonswing, with the sententious brevity of an Indian, had made an important communication to him, while they were moving, for the last time, toward the canoes, and he now determined to profit by it. Taking the lead, therefore, with his own canoe, Peter paddled UP, instead of DOWN the stream, going in ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... sense of duty, probably, listened to their rehearsal with a great deal of attention—I, in turn, questioned him of the events of his life. He ran them hastily over, and seemed inclined to treat them with so much brevity that I had frequently to call him back upon his narrative by a question on some point where I required more detailed information. But our dinner was over, and Mrs. Winters had retired, with Master Henry Clay Winters, ere he had half ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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 ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... the turf back of the north goal on the campus at Hillton Academy. The elder and larger of the two was a rather coarse-looking youth of seventeen. His name was Bartlett Cloud, shortened by his acquaintances to "Bart" for the sake of that brevity beloved of the schoolboy. His companion, Wallace Clausen, was a handsome though rather frail-looking boy, a year his junior. The ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... remarked that Mr. Mapleson's conduct of a prayer-meeting is exceedingly simple. He seldom says much. He sets us all an example of brevity. A few words of Scripture, a few earnest words of his own or a simple prayer, usually constitute his sole contribution to the meeting, which is more truly a meeting for prayer than any other ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,—as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment he was as mild, ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of his purpose. To make the issue a personal one he took the stump and traversed the State from one end to the other, always addressing immense crowds. At Utica the contemporary press estimated the throng at twenty-five thousand persons. With directness and business brevity he sought to arouse the people to the importance and gravity of the issues at stake. "To-day about one-half of the tax contributed by the farmer," he said, "goes to the State to carry on public affairs.... It is in ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... euphony will generally enable us to assign, amongst the forms in which we pick up and note any particular proverb, the original and legitimate one; especially when combined with brevity and "pith." As a case in point, our friend Ludlum will serve our purpose for comparison. Who does not see at a glance, taking account of the principles which govern the construction of a proverb, that the Sheffield version, as I gave it, must be more genuine than Southey's version, quoted ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... old gentlemen - 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 ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... 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, where no doubt he had heard ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... beery sadness in their eyes, suddenly reminded that you were here to-day and gone to-morrow, pierced with a sense of the tragic brevity of Life, their hearts oppressed with a pleasant anguish at the pity and ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... and the sagging of one hind-quarter betrayed a bad leg. His head he held in spiritless fashion on a level with his knees. As if to add a note of irony, his tail had been docked to the regulation of absurd brevity and served only to tag him as one fallen from a more ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... into the lapidary style of ancient Rome, I confess it is often hard to improve on the brevity of the vernacular, though the admonition "to keep your end up" can be condensed from four words to two in "sursum cauda." Again the familiar eulogy, "Stout fellow," can be rendered in a single word by the Virgilian epithet "bellipotens." A distinguished Latinist recalls ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... Such abrupt brevity of expression, not uncommon among Norwegian peasants, was no doubt natural to Bjrnson, but was confirmed by the influence of the Old Norse sagas and skaldic poetry. The latter may also have increased his use of alliteration, masterly not only in the direct imitation ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... for the present. My love to Bernard." Everard spoke with his usual brevity, but his handclasp was remembered by Tommy for a very ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... of the envelopes that I directed for her when I went away. Miss Minerva's hair would stand on end if she could see the blots and the spelling. Zo's account of the family circle (turned into intelligible English), will I think personally interest you. Here it is, in its own Roman brevity—with your pretty name shortened to two syllables: 'Except Pa and Car, we are a bad lot at home.' After that, I can add nothing that is ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... have no claim, being of the half-blood," put in Sir Wycherly, with a brevity of manner that denoted feeling. "The half-blood is as bad as a nullius, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of Thinking and the Style must be Laconic: Much must be contained in a little Compass. Brevity of Diction adds new Life to a good Thought: And since every perfect Stroke ought to be a distinct Representation of a particular Feature, Matters shou'd be so order'd, that every perfect Sentence may ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... seems intimately to have known the transience of the gratitude of nations to those who fight their battles for them. At the end of his noble history of the Peninsular War he lets the curtain fall upon the scene with solemn brevity in a single ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... water. These circumstances, therefore, seem to indicate the propriety of making an exception to the nomenclature. The highest degree of oxygenation of this acid has been distinguished by the additional epithet of oxygenated, or, for the sake of brevity, oxy, so that it is called the oxygenated, or oxy-muriatic acid. This likewise exists in a gaseous form, at the temperature of the atmosphere; it is also susceptible of being absorbed by water, and can be congealed, or solidified, by a ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... in book-keeping; thus making the motion of his lips, as well as of his fingers, subservient to his master's interest. Not that be refuseth a brisk saying, or a cheerful sally of wit, when it comes unforced, is free of offence, and hath a convenient brevity. For this reason, he hath commonly some such phrase as this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... toe of the agriculturist was very near upon the heel of the 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 name ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... the palace attended by a couple of equerries. He rode through the palace gate and into the city. Habitans and citizens bowed to him out of habitual respect for their superiors. Bigot returned their salutations with official brevity, but his dark face broke into sunshine as he passed ladies and citizens whom he knew as partners of the Grand Company or ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... supports his view by referring to the latter part of this verse. He says, "The sages of blessed memory, too, have summed up this idea in so few words and so concisely, at the same time elucidating the whole matter with such complete thoroughness, that when one considers the brevity with which they express this great and mighty thought in its entirety, about which others have written whole books and yet without adequately explaining it, one truly recognizes that the Rabbis undoubtedly spoke through divine inspiration. This saying is found among their precepts, and is, ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... Author has been chiefly guided by experience of what children require to be told, in order to come to an intelligent perception of the scope of the Scripture narrative treated historically. Since a general view can hardly be obtained without brevity, many events have been omitted in the earlier part, and those only touched upon which have a peculiar significance in tracing the gradual preparation for the work of Redemption; and though one great object has been the illustration ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the political inefficiency of the great empire of Russia. There is not a single person in any English or American novel who can be said to represent his national type in the manner of Rudin. When we remember the extreme brevity of the book, it was an ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... more. If there were to be one more there must be two. Now Miss Moffat had expressed a direct wish, and Augusta, though she would much rather have done without her, hardly knew how to refuse. Alexandrina—we hope we may be allowed to drop the "lady" for the sake of brevity, for the present scene only—was dead against such an unreasonable request. "We none of us know her, you know; and it would not be comfortable." Beatrice strongly advocated the future sister-in-law's acceptance into the bevy; she had her own reasons; she was pained ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... them. Therefore, having design to employ all my life in the research of a science so necessary, and having discovered a path which appears to me such that one ought infallibly, in following, to find it, if one is not hindered prematurely by the brevity of life or by the defects of experience, I consider that there is no better remedy against those two hindrances than to communicate faithfully to the public the little I have found," etc. ("Discours de ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by the individual States generally before the lapse of many years. A great mass of testimony establishing this position is at hand and might be presented, but narrow space, little time, the patience of readers, and the importance of speedy publication, counsel brevity. Let the following proofs suffice. First, a few ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... brevity that attracts one in Horace is to me one of the recommendations of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I am glad the mystery of them is never likely to be discovered. From frequent perusal of them in the train, I know the majority ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality evermoving wanderers from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of allotted human life formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Instantly he rose, fixed her with a comprehending look, nodded almost imperceptibly toward the chair he was vacating, and returned to his seat inside the car. Her fine brows lifted a trifle; her slight inclination of the head was robbed of the chill of brevity by a fleeting smile of gratitude, not so much for the sacrifice of his seat in her favor as for the fine courtesy which had moved him to proffer it without making of his action an excuse to sit beside ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... regain the Crown at the battle of Worcester and his subsequent escapes from the vigilant pursuits of the Cromwellian soldiers, would, if set down in justice and with detail, present a story more entertaining than any romance ever written. Here they must of necessity be mentioned with brevity. ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... occupations of life, have little leisure to read, none for what is called study. In books they do not search for deep learning, but for amusement accompanied with information on general topics, conveyed with brevity; happy if, in seeking relaxation from the drudgery of business, they can pick up some new particles of knowledge. For this most useful and numerous portion of society, some adequate intellectual provision ought to be made. Nor should it be imagined that, in supplying ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Lyndhurst. I desired her to tell Lyndhurst all the Duke had said to me about him, for in these times it is as well they should draw together. He will be a match for Brougham in the House of Lords, for he can be concise, which the other cannot, and the Lords in the long run will prefer brevity to ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... over attempting to comfort his mother, for he began to fear that his father's ship was destined to be placed on the dark, dreary list of those of which it is sometimes said, with terrible brevity, in the newspapers, "She sailed from port on such and such a day, and has not since been ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... Quinn was not in the least vexed at the brevity of the answers he received, or disturbed because his cross-examination was obviously disagreeable ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... is quite right about obscurity of Phrase: which is inexcusable unless where the Passion of the Speakers makes such utterance natural. This is very often not the case in the Plays, I know: and the Language, as he says, becomes obscure from elaborate Brevity. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... the writer is to show, from the brevity of the interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the floating corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension, becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash pursuit of this object, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in a few words set before you and explain on what account I wished all of you, my most faithful comrades, to assemble here, I entreat you to listen attentively to what I will state with all the brevity possible. For the language of truth is ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... Gift until thou hadst attained to the years and passed through all the desolate bereavements that chilled and scared myself ere my researches had made it mine, thou wouldest have escaped the curse of which thou complainest now. Thou wouldest not have mourned over the brevity of human affection as compared to the duration of thine own existence, for thou wouldest have survived the very desire and dream of the love of woman. Brightest, and but for that error perhaps the loftiest, of the secret and solemn race that fills up the interval in creation between mankind and the ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that didn't further him in Rhoda's regard. She thought him rude, as indeed he was, though he tried to conceal it. He seldom spoke to her, and when he did it was with an unadorned brevity that offended her. Mostly he let her alone, and saw Peter when he could outside his home. Rodney, himself a celibate, thought matrimony a mistake, though certainly a necessary mistake if the human race was to continue to adorn the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... feeling adroitly fostered by Mrs. Draper, who, in her endless talks with Sylvia and Jermain about themselves, had hit upon an expression and a turn of phrase which was to have more influence on Sylvia's development than its brevity seemed to warrant. She had, one day, called Sylvia a little Athenian, growing up, by the oddest of mistakes, in Sparta. Sylvia, who was in the Pater-reading stage of development, caught at her friend's phrase ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the present senor capitan, the former capitan; my distinguished friend, Don Valentin, a former capitan; the friend of my infancy, Don Julio; our celebrated captain of cuadrilleros, Don Melchor; and many other personages, whom, for the sake of brevity, I must omit to enumerate—all of whom you see present here. I beg of you that I may be allowed a few words before any one else speaks. Have I the good fortune to see my humble request granted by ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... or a hundred francs for a visit from a doctor have no idea of the brevity with which the poor people's cases are diagnosed. In less than a minute his ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... the injured part, and held it before him in silence. After looking at it an instant, he said in an inquiring tone, "Scratch?" "Bite," replied the lady. "Cat?" asked the doctor. "Dog," rejoined the patient. So delighted was Mr. A. with the brevity and promptness of her answers, that he exclaimed, "Zounds, madam! you are the most sensible woman I ever ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... the whole of any script character, capital or small. For the sake of brevity in notes and reports capital ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... employment of Daniel Webster, during the first year or two of his practice, was collecting debts due in New Hampshire to merchants in Boston. His first tin sign has been preserved to the present day, to attest by its minuteness and brevity the humble expectations of its proprietor. "D. Webster, Attorney," is the inscription it bears. The old Court-House still stands in which he conducted his first suit, before his own father as presiding judge. Old men in that part of New Hampshire were living until within these ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... observed that they use different kinds of sentences. Some writers use short sentences, others long and complicated sentences. In comparing recent authors with those of two or three centuries ago, it will generally be found that shorter sentences are now more frequent. This brevity and simplicity of predication has resulted in greater clearness. But the constant use of short, simple sentences produces a ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... brevity this may be called the "economic boycott," but it is really very much more than simply economic pressure. It is a common habit in political discussions to confuse very different things, to which the same name is given, and the term "economic boycott" is being ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... composing essays 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... 18. The brevity of such passages is the chief obstacle to their clear comprehension. Fortunately the allusions are very plain. What is meant is that those who die during the lighted fortnights of the summer solstice attain ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... 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 ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... grandeur and magnificence. Never has the saying of Ecclesiastes been more exactly verified: "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" We have before us the task of describing one of the most sumptuous courts that has ever existed, and of reviewing splendors all the more brilliant for their brevity. To this court of Napoleon and Josephine, to this majestic court, resplendent with glory, wealth, and fame, may well be ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... out in a sob, and her eyes closed upon the tears gathered in them. It was the final weakening of her courage. For all its brevity, for all it was told in such desperate haste, the story lost nothing of its appeal, ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... with simple brevity, and Mrs. Brent felt that perhaps Miss Vanderpoel was not really very easy ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... happiness before she thought of her own,' Roger answered, with something of severe brevity. Molly needed the bracing. She began to cry ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... actual relations with Morag were of the Platonic kind, he was persuaded to a retractation, entitled the "Disparagement of Morag," which is sometimes recited as a companion piece to the present. The consideration of brevity must plead our apology with the Celtic readers for omitting many stanzas of the best modern ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... somewhat resembling albs and confined at the waist by a girdle. The service consists of the presentation of offerings and of the recital of various invocations, chiefly laudatory. The devotions of the people are remarkable for their brevity and simplicity. The worshipper, on arriving at the shrine, rings a bell, or sounds a gong, to engage the attention of the deity he desires to invoke; throws a coin of the smallest possible value on to the matting within the sanctuary rails; makes one or two prostrations; ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... as great security as in his own country, to all which the other nobles gave their consent and assurance. There passed many discourses upon other topics at this conference, which I omit troubling the reader with for the sake of brevity; my purpose being to shew the effect of this first settlement of trade in the East Indies, rather than to be tediously particular. After this kind welcome and satisfactory conference, the general took his leave of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... graceful a figure as any in his court, could, after a life spent in the gayest circles, preserve the spirit of a nun. But on this point he was soon undeceived, for when his own language had become warmer than that of friendship, he had been met by an iciness of manner and a brevity of speech which had shown him that there was one woman at least in his dominions who had a higher respect for herself than for him. And perhaps it was better so. The placid pleasures of friendship were very soothing after the storms of passion. To sit in her room every afternoon, to listen to ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with unscientific brevity. "What do you suppose I want of your ridiculous eggs? Haven't I enough eggs of Heliconius salome hatching to give me the Carnegie medal ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... heaven, will not impress any one, however unacquainted with India, and with the vicinity of the English capital and seat of government, as wearing many of the features of probability. The facts are as follows:—A place called Dhappamanpour, and for brevity Dhappa, does exist in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and thereto the town refuse is actually carried by a special line of railway; there is no granite mountain and there are no temples, while so far from it being a charnel into which ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... capitalist, 'Don't you sometimes feel in the rich twilight, when the lights twinkle from the distant hamlet in the hills, that all humanity is a holy family?' But it is equally possible for the capitalist to reply with brevity and decision, 'No, I don't,' and there is no more disputing about it further than about the beauty of a fading cloud. And the modern world of moods is a world of clouds, even if ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... engraving, and the study of it, since the development of the modern finished school, have been ruinous to European knowledge of art. But I am more and more busied in what I believe to be better work, and can only with extreme brevity state here the conclusions of ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... caused the second foreign war began to come into evidence immediately after the close of the first; and for the sake of clearness and brevity they have been left for consideration to the same chapter, although they happened while Taoukwang was emperor. After the departure of Sir Henry Pottinger, who was succeeded by Sir John Davis, and the arrival of the representatives of the other European powers, who hastened ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... poem consists in simplicity, brevity, and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... in half an hour. Reduced to this measure, they are, however, greatly more imposing than a lifeless Colossus, or an exaggerated giant. They are not overlaid by disquisition and description, but the characters naturally unfold themselves. Montaigne, indeed, complained of Plutarch's brevity. "No doubt," he added, "but his reputation is the better for it, though in the meantime we are the worse. Plutarch would rather we should applaud his judgment than commend his knowledge, and had rather leave us with an appetite ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... It was too much to expect that a woman could forget this, and the young secretary had the wish that it should be otherwise. So he sat rather moodily contemplating his plate and when he heard steps on the stairs he was surprised at the brevity of the interval. Hamilton Burton had evidently subdued this insurrection in his household with the same whirlwind swiftness that he employed toward ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... whom he even offers some personal flattery (Act II., Sc. 3). In the following act he suffers a reprimand because, in speaking of the King he talks of him as "Richard," without more ado, but protests that he did it only for brevity's sake. A little later his insidious words induce the King to surrender. In the following act, when the King renounces the crown, Northumberland treats him with such harshness and contempt that the unlucky monarch is quite broken, and ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... fulminates, insinuates, or even affects simplicity. When he is with his generals, ministers, and principal performers, he falls back on the concise, positive, technical business style; any other would be harmful. The keen mind only reveals itself through the brevity and imperious strength and rudeness of the accent. For his armies and the common run of men, he has his proclamations and bulletins, that is to say, sonorous phrases composed for effect, a statement of facts purposely simplified and falsified,[1165] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... T. WYLIE: DEAR SIR: The essays submitted to us by Mr. Bliss, according to your announcement, numbered about twenty. Several could not be called essays from their brevity, and others were exceedingly incomplete. About twelve, however, required and were worthy of careful consideration. That of Mr. D. A. Compton, of Hawley, Wayne County, Pa., was, in the opinion of your committee, decidedly superior to the others as a practical treatise, sure to be of use to ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... great word accompanying the touch is majestic in its brevity and absolute claim to absolute power. Jesus accepts the leper's lofty conception of His omnipotent will, as He always accepted the highest conceptions that any formed of His person or authority. The sovereign utterance, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to the Porretta family; the persecutions Clementina endured from her relations; and a letter Sir Charles Grandison received from Mrs. Beaumont.—Dr. Bartlett concludes with an apostrophe on the brevity of all human affairs. ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... tell 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 nation,—would have saved ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... short story, and Tig wrote one, and rewrote it, making alterations, revisions, annotations, and interlineations which would have reflected credit upon Honore; Balzac himself. Then he wrought all together, with splendid brevity and dramatic force,—Tig's own words,—and mailed the same. He was convinced he would get the prize. He was just as much convinced of it as Nora Finnegan would have been if ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... those matters of which he professes to give thorough information, while he leaves behind the chief part of the things of which the whole is composed? It is true that impatience, the mother of stupidity, praises brevity, as if such persons had not life long enough to serve them to acquire a complete knowledge of one single subject, such as the human body; and then they want to comprehend the mind of God in which the universe is included, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... 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. ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... societies," Johnson threw out in a speculative tone. Mr. Polly, with detached brevity, admitted ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... a poet there is little need to speak. His countrymen read his voluminous works, but they are not of any real value. Campoamor describes his Dorloras as "poetic compositions combining lightness, sentiment, and brevity with philosophic importance." His earlier works were studied from Shakespeare and from Byron, who was the star of the age when Campoamor began to write. His most ambitious work, the Universal Drama, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... Then with a terrible brevity Gaston told them of his uncle, of the letter to Andree: all, except that Andree was his wife. He had no idea of sparing Ian Belward now. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the heroine, Mrs. HUBBARD; and having finished her description, enumerates, as was meet, the peculiarities, and, I might say, dogmatic tendencies, of the hero of the tail, Herr Dog! [He (not H.D., but the Author) says "Old Mother HUBBARD."] Here is simplicity for you! Here is brevity! "Old Mother HUBBARD!" How sweetly it sounds; how nicely the words fit each other! What an immense range of thought he must have who first said "Old Mother HUBBARD." Less gifted authors of the present would rejoice exceedingly, could they ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... to-morrow morning; wind round to get between Daun and him, [Tempelhof, iv. 47-49.]—with fit arrangements; rapid as light! In the King's tent, accordingly, his Generals are assembled to take their Orders; brief, distinct, and to be done with brevity. And all are on the move for Bernsdorf at ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and my lady returned unexpectedly to London. Introduced to the mountains and lakes of the Highlands, her ladyship positively declined to improve her acquaintance with them. When she was asked for her reason, she answered with a Roman brevity, ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... say, in long—for what is true use of this affected brevity? When this tale is done, what have you got? So let us make it last. We quite repent of having intimated so much: in future, it is our intention to develop more, and to describe, and to delineate, and to define, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Staff, Gueldersdorp, and frequently mentioned in Despatches from that bit of debatable soil, while it was in process of debating, was distinctly a person to cultivate. Not that it was in the least easy—the man was almost quite a bear, but his brevity of speech and brusqueness of manner gave him a cachet that Society found distinguished. He was married, too—so romantic! married to a girl who was shut up with him in Gueldersdorp all through the Siege. Quite too astonishingly lovely, don't you know? and with manners that really suggested the Faubourg ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... yesterday of a total victory of the King of Prussia over the Austrians,(787) with their army dispersed and their general wounded and prisoner—I don't know how, but it is not confirmed yet. You must excuse the brevity of my English letter, in consideration of my Chinese one. Adieu! (786) Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese philosopher at London, to his friend Lien Chi ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... there are friends whom this business intimately concerns, and as they have already undertaken it, we will leave the matter with them and proceed to cite one or two instances disclosing the aspiration after sovereignty. Passing by many cases for the sake of brevity, we have that of one Francis Doughty, an English minister, and of Arnoldus van Herdenberch, a free merchant. But as both these cases appear likely to come before Their High Mightinesses at full length, we will merely give a summary of them. This minister, Francis ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... admiring in the broad page of the Morning Chronicle the compendious brevity of this announcement, that the pleasant village referred to was our own dear Aberleigh; and that the first tenant of those apartments should be a lady whose family I had long known, and in whose fortunes and destiny I took ...
— Country Lodgings • Mary Russell Mitford
... certain definite directions, depending on the connection of the nerve-cells, and partly on habit: or the supply of nerve-force may, as it appears, be interrupted. Effects are thus produced which we recognize as expressive. This third principle may, for the sake of brevity, be called that of the direct ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... said with a smile as he put away his pocket-book, "if people would only settle their affairs in that way, a good part of the occupation of lawyers would be gone. Brevity is the soul of wit; and the fear of simplicity is ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... no doubt, on account of its brevity that Boswell in speaking of it writes:—'What ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... our forefathers, with all its force and brevity, we say, "The proof of the pudding is ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... of Aristotle on Poetry, which for generations dictated the principles of dramatic writing, has forty-five short pages; the Republic of Plato, which has influenced thought more than any other philosophic work, has a little over three hundred. Brevity indeed is not always simplicity, and it is possible to be at once simple and lengthy. But any one who examines these Greek writers will find that they are brief, because, avoiding bypaths and by-plots, elaboration or minute detail, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... frivolous affectations, and some of the coxcombries of literary modishness. Everywhere he recommends them to insist on a firm and distinct method in their contributors—etymologies, definitions, examples, reasons, clearness, brevity. "You are badly seconded," he writes; "there are bad soldiers in the army of a great general."[119] "I am sorry to see that the writer of the article Hell declares that hell was a point in the doctrine of Moses; now by all the devils that is not true. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... the shape of a luscious sea-pie for the sailors, and in various inviting shapes during the following week to the inmates of the cabin. This loss of property was recorded by Mr. Thompson in the ship's log-book, with his accustomed accuracy, and with Spartan brevity. The language he invariably used was, "A ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper |
