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Minuteness   Listen
Minuteness

noun
1.
The property of being very small in size.  Synonyms: diminutiveness, petiteness, tininess, weeness.
2.
Great precision; painstaking attention to details.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Minuteness" Quotes from Famous Books



... making for efficiency, or on scientific grounds as favoring analysis, but may be understood from the artistic standpoint. For it was only through a method and medium that renounced the musical manner of poetry, with its vaguely expressive, yet rigid forms, that the fullness and minuteness ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... irregular imperfect guidance ceases. Perhaps, although deficient in minuteness of detail, this pot pourri of gossip, history, description, anecdote, suggestion, and opinion, may not only amuse the traveller by railway, but assist him in choosing routes leading to those scenes or those pursuits in which he ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... A. M. Valsalva, and his illustrious pupils G. D. Santorini and J. B. Morgagni. Valsalva especially distinguished himself by his description of the structure of the ear, which, in possessing still greater precision and minuteness than that of Duverney, is valuable in setting the example of rendering anatomy altogether a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... and no doubt, if she thought it would flatter, would tell, a beautiful young girl that her destiny was to be a queen; but there is in this prediction a minuteness of detail, that cannot be accounted for on the ground of accidental coincidence. It is a brief history of her life. Unless we are prepared to believe that an ignorant old mulatto woman was gifted by divine ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... in shape and proportions, which slowly emerged from the floor. Her dress was also of red samite, fantastically cut and flounced, as if she had been dressed for some exhibition of mimes or jugglers; and with the same minuteness which her predecessor had exhibited, she passed the lamp over her face and person, which seemed to rival the male's in ugliness. But with all this most unfavourable exterior, there was one trait in the features ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... gain a definite notion of the furnishing of colonial houses from a contemporary and reliable source—the inventories of the estates of the colonists. These are, of course, still preserved in court records. As it was customary in early days to enumerate with much minuteness the various articles of furniture contained in each room, instead of classifying or aggregating them, we have the outlines of a clear picture of the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... great public character, whose name he had forgotten, making a particularly happy reply to another eminent and illustrious individual whom he had never been able to identify. He enlarged at some length and with great minuteness upon divers collateral circumstances, distantly connected with the anecdote in hand, but for the life of him he couldn't recollect at that precise moment what the anecdote was, although he had been in the habit ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... sore sense. Even his books were better friends to him than she! And especially had she been dipping into those "Lives of the Saints" that Helbeck read habitually day by day; of which he talked to young Williams with a minuteness of knowledge that he scarcely possessed on any other subject—knowledge that appeared in all the details of the chapel painting. And on one occasion, as she turned over the small, worn volumes of his Alban Butler, she had come upon a certain passage in the ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... limits of their power in matters involving a temporal element. Again Peckham was fain to acquiesce. His policy had not only irritated the king, but alienated his fellow bishops. He visited his province with pertinacity and minuteness, and he was the less able to stand up against the king as he was engaged in violent quarrels with all his own suffragans. The leader of the bishops in resisting his claims was Thomas of Cantilupe. Restored to England by the liberal policy of Edward, Montfort's chancellor after Lewes had ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... (28) The minuteness of this narrative, combined with the simplicity of it, proves that it was written at no great distance of time from the event. It is the first that occurs of any length in the older MSS. ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... amours. He had lately found in Hanover a new object of adoration. This was a Madame Walmoden, a fashionable young married woman, with whom George had fallen headlong into love. He wrote home to his wife, telling her of his admiration for Madame Walmoden, and describing with some minuteness the lady's various charms of person. He induced Madame Walmoden—probably no great persuasion was needed—to leave her husband and become the mistress of a king. George, it is said, paid down the not very extravagant sum of a thousand dollars to make things pleasant ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... no doubt as to their motive; but is it probable, or even possible, that the occurrences which they describe with so much minuteness could ever have taken place? The imaginary Dr. Beaton's story as to the birth is altogether uncorroborated. What became of the attendants on the Princess Louisa, of the lady who was in the bed-chamber, of the nurse who ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... George Smart's servant in his anteroom. Blisters were applied to his chest, and he noted in his diary, 'Thank God, my sleep was sweet!' He fixed his departure for the 6th, arranged all his pecuniary affairs with minuteness, and employed his friends in purchasing presents for his family and friends in Dresden. He was strongly urged by his friends to postpone his journey until he could have recovered some degree of strength. But ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... work in the morning, I took my leave, and retired to my own room, intent upon carrying out with more minuteness the survey I had already commenced: several cupboards in the wall, and one or two doors, apparently of closets, had especially attracted my attention. Strange was its look as I entered—as of a room hollowed out of the past, for a memorial of dead times. The fire had sunk ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... some lurking signs of weakness. It would not have been easy to say whether he most felt respect, or regret, at the faith of the Narragansett. Accompanied by his two grim warriors, the chief examined the position of the shadow with critical minuteness, and when there no longer existed a pretext for affecting to doubt the punctuality of their captive, a deep ejaculation of assent issued from the chest of each. Like some wary judge, whose justice is fettered by legal precedents, as if satisfied ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... whitewasher, mixing his colours as a hodman mixes his mortar, and managing to make the clearest and brightest of them quite muddy. His triumph consisted, however, in combining exactness with awkwardness; he displayed all the naive minuteness of the primitive painters; in fact, his mind, barely raised from the clods, delighted in petty details. The stove, with its perspective all awry, was tame and precise, and in colour as ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... for theoretic images. He had only to change the magnitude of conceptions already in his mind to arrive at the Emission Theory of Light. Newton supposed light to consist of elastic particles of inconceivable minuteness, shot out with inconceivable rapidity by luminous bodies. Optical reflection certainly occurred as if light consisted of such particles, and this was Newton's ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... deeply associated with ecclesiastical symbolism. But I submit that this is only a fancy which can best be left to church embroidery and stained windows; it is unworthy of any serious notice. The beings are described, it will be observed, with great minuteness: all have the same characteristic powers of rapid motion, and all have human hands, a fact that so strikes the prophet that he repeats it three times.[2] These four Cherubim, then, seem to me clearly to indicate the archetypes ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... filled. It comprises the period between the 11th and the 28th December, 1688, both days inclusive, and appears to be a perfect Record of every act of that memorable Assembly. The indorsement on the cover merits notice: it states with singular minuteness the precise hour of James's abdication, namely at one in the morning of ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various

... rose the mediaeval front of the cathedral, where the imagination of a Gothic architect had long ago flowered out indestructibly, in the first place, a grand design, and then covering it with such abundant detail of ornament, that the magnitude of the work seemed less a miracle than its minuteness. You would suppose that he must have softened the stone into wax, until his most delicate fancies were modelled in the pliant material, and then had hardened it into stone again. The whole was a vast, black-letter page of the richest and ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... better one supplies its place, and that I think hardly possible. You have now fairly beaten Spencer on his own ground, for he really offered no solution of the difficulties of the problem. The incomprehensible minuteness and vast numbers of the physiological germs or atoms (Which themselves must be compounded of numbers of Spencer's physiological units) is the only difficulty, but that is only on a par with the difficulties in all conceptions of ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... any rate exhibit a cheerful countenance and agreeable conversation, for friends are multiplied by agreeable words." He had to provide clean cloths and towels, cups without flaws, spoons of silver, mattresses, blankets and untorn sheets, pillows, quilts, etc. His duties are laid down with much minuteness; every morning he was required to go through the inventory, lest anything ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... and rear of the various bodies, and inspected them with a minuteness and attention which showed that his years had not dulled his soldier's faculties, the Mayor faced round with the evident intention of addressing us. His clerk instantly darted in front of him, and waving his ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... various names, and may thus be broken up into separate virtues. These are many or few, according as we distribute in smaller or larger groups the occasions for virtuous conduct, or analyze with greater or less minuteness the sentiments and dispositions ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... Adventurer, without deriving from it some improvement, either moral or intellectual, or both. The structure and cadence of Johnson's sentences is certainly monotonous; but I seldom read half a page without being struck by the depth of his thought, the accuracy and minuteness of his observation, and the astonishing extent of his ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens

... foreseen, have unfolded themselves, in all their grandeur, to the eyes of the present age. It is a common amusement of speculative minds to contrast the magnitude of the most important events with the minuteness of their primeval causes, and the records of mankind are full of examples for such contemplations. It is, however, a more profitable employment to trace the constituent principles of future greatness in their kernel; to detect in the acorn at our feet ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... padi by the Malays (from whose language the word seems to have found its way to the maritime parts of the continent of India), bras when deprived of the husk, and nasi after it has been boiled; besides which it assumes other names in its various states of growth and preparation. This minuteness of distinction applies also to some other articles of common use, and may be accounted for upon this principle: that amongst people whose general objects of attention are limited, those which do of necessity occupy them are liable to be more the subject of thought and conversation than ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... intimacies of domesticity with a frankness and a minuteness which dismayed Carol. Juanita Haydock communicated Harry's method of shaving, and his interest in deer-shooting. Mrs. Gougerling reported fully, and with some irritation, her husband's inappreciation of liver and bacon. Maud Dyer chronicled Dave's digestive disorders; ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... with the sun-dial, the clepsydra, the lever and the pulley, must have had no mean knowledge of mechanics. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, was discovered by Layard at Nimrud along with glass vases bearing the name of Sargon; this will explain the excessive minuteness of some of the writing on the Assyrian tablets, and a lens may also have been used in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... has described with singular minuteness the struggle between the people of these regions and the power of Rome, overwhelming, although tottering to its fall; and has moreover, devoted several chapters of his work upon Germany to a description of the most remarkable Teutonic tribes of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to examine with any minuteness her feelings towards him: but one thing she had known clearly since their first meeting—that he was physically distasteful to her. For all his good looks, and in his rather sinister way he was a handsome man, she had shrunk from him. Now, spirited away ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... suitable and of greatest merit and experience, in order that whatever is done be concurred in by all and the expense be no greater than what is unavoidable. You shall endeavor to make as safe as possible the regions pacified and subdued. You shall advise me, with the minuteness and circumspectness required by the importance of this matter and my desire for its execution, of what you do, of what is pacified, the means that you employ, and the condition in which it shall ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... the strictly useful? I fear they are worst offenders of all. For if the astronomer has set before us the infinite magnitude of space, and the practical eternity of the duration of the universe; if the physical and chemical philosophers have demonstrated the infinite minuteness of its constituent parts, and the practical eternity of matter and of force; and if both have alike proclaimed the universality of a definite and predicable order and succession of events, the workers in biology have not only accepted ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... trade, and been one of the main causes why, in spite of deficient home production of necessaries, we have been able to stand the economic strain of the War. Striking off the fetters that it has been found necessary to impose—sometimes with undue strictness and pedantic minuteness—on British commerce and industry will be one of the first things to be hoped for from peace. It is impossible to give detailed examples here. Ask any merchant, he will give you specific instances of the need for a recovered freedom. Questions are so closely involved with ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... three creeds in homage to their sovereign did not displease the Emperor, strange as it was. Count Beugnot's Memoirs must be consulted for a full account of the activity, the interest in details, the minuteness of the administrative investigations which, at Dsseldorf as everywhere else, characterized Napoleon in these laborious journeys, on which, under pretext of seeking distraction, he kept himself in almost as active movement as if he were at war. The Count who once played whist at Dsseldorf ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... close similarity. Father and mother, the only two words which are not identical, are doubtless different expressions, relationship in this, as in most native tongues, being indicated with excessive minuteness. ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton

... of persons who daily use water kept in leaden cisterns receive no sensible injury, yet the apparent salubrity must be ascribed to the great slowness of its operation, and the minuteness of the dose taken, the effects of which become modified by different causes and different constitutions, and according to the predisposition to diseases inherent in different individuals. The supposed security of the multitude who use the water ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum

... pursuing this part of our plan, we have sometimes descended from that elevation of style, which the reader might expect in a quarto volume; we have frequently been obliged to record facts concerning children which may seem trifling, and to enter into a minuteness of detail which may appear unnecessary. No anecdotes, however, have been admitted without due deliberation; nothing has been introduced to gratify the idle curiosity of others, or to indulge our own feelings of ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... found that she did not see the blemishes—that she appreciated nothing I had said, comprehended nothing. Such unaccountable obtuseness puzzled me. I began again, going over the whole with even greater minuteness and care. I worked hard: the perspiration stood in beads upon my forehead as I struggled with her—what shall I call it—obstinacy? But it was not exactly obstinacy. She simply could not see the faults of her own work, any more than a blind man ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... owing to relations between the sexes.] Nearly the same is the case with all the religions obligations of Islam, prayer, lustration, etc. But although the minuteness of detail with which these are enjoined tends toward that jejune and formal worship which we witness every-where in Moslem lands, still there is nothing in these observances themselves which (religion apart) should lower the social condition of Mohammedan populations and prevent their ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... drawn on Greek vases. A line of absolute correctness, observe. I do not care how slowly you do it, or with how many alterations, junctions, or re-touchings; the one thing I ask of you is, that the line shall be right, and right by measurement, to the same minuteness which you would have to give in a Government chart to the map ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... the front of the head, and the palm and fingers of the right hand were cut. This evidence having been taken, the jury once more repaired to the chamber where the body lay, and proceeded with much minuteness to examine the room, with a view to ascertain, if possible, more particularly the exact ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... 6. This P. M. sought an interview with Dr. Woodward at the White House, to talk of an apparatus for locating the ball by its action in retarding a rapidly revolving el. magnet. I hardly think the plan more than theoretically practical, owing to the minuteness of the action." ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... was told by an old "wise woman" of the neighborhood with a minuteness of detail that rendered the narrative more tedious than graphic. A devout believer in the truth of her own story, she told it with wonderful earnestness, combining fluency of speech with the intonations of oratory in such a way as to render the legend ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... long search, the doll in the bath was discovered to be sitting upon it, and once it actually flew down Regie's back; and amid the wild excitement of the children its cold descent was described by Regie in piercing minuteness until the moment when it rolled out over his ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... is said in defence of the poet's consistency. Several chapters on that point have been excised. The way of living which Homer describes is examined, and an effort is made to prove that he depicts the life of a single brief age of culture. The investigation is compelled to a tedious minuteness, because the points of attack—the alleged discrepancies in descriptions of the various details of existence—are so minute as to ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... Chagre," says the Colombian commissioner, "its channel, and the barks which in the dry season embarrass its navigation, are laid down in my manuscript plan with great care and minuteness. It is subject to one great inconvenience; viz. that vessels drawing more than twelve feet water cannot enter the river, even in perfectly calm weather, on account of a stratum of slaty limestone which runs, at a depth at high water of fifteen feet, from a point on the mainland to some rocks ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... of the repulsive tradition communicated by Lord Webb Seymour to Walter Scott, the murder is described with hideous minuteness. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... etchings, of which he left not fewer than 1600. He was especially fond of grotesque subjects, which he treated with great skill; his free etchings, touched with the graver, being executed with especial delicacy and wonderful minuteness. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... consciousness of his own rectitude. In that lay his only comfort, his only hope, his one, strong-built fabric of defence. If that was undermined, if that was eaten away, what was there left for him? Carefully, painfully, and with such minuteness as he could command, he went over the whole affair from beginning to end, forcing his unwilling mind—so unaccustomed to such work—to weigh each chance, to gauge each opportunity. If this were so, if that had been done, then would such results have followed? Suppose ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... find amid these rugged, savage aspects of Nature creatures so fairy and delicate. But such is the law. Go to the sea or climb the mountain, and with the ruggedest and the savagest you will find likewise the fairest and the most delicate. The greatness and the minuteness of Nature ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... and Galerius, which was aimed at the entire uprooting of the new religion, ended with the edict of toleration of 311 and the tragical ruin of the persecutors. Galerius died soon after of a disgusting and terrible disease (morbus pedicularis), described with great minuteness by Eusebius and Lactantius. 'His body,' says Gibbon, 'swelled by an intemperate course of life to an unwieldy corpulence, was covered with ulcers and devoured by innumerable swarms of those insects which have given their name to a most loathsome disease.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... far different result had been reached than the one foreshadowed in the portentous colloquies between King James and Maximilian de Bethune. Those conferences have been purposely described with some minuteness, in order that the difference often existing between vast projects and diametrically opposed and very insignificant conclusions might once more ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to work were largely restricted. A National Children's Bureau, under the charge of Miss Julia Lathrope, has been created at Washington; and Mrs. J. Borden Harriman was appointed to the Industrial Relations Commission. The minuteness and thoroughness of modern legislation for the protection of women may be realised by noting that in 1913 alone New York passed laws that no girl under sixteen shall in any city of the first, second, or third class sell newspapers or magazines or shine shoes in any street or public ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... a drawer, from, which he brought splints and bandages, trotted back to the settee, and with ghastly minuteness—the result of having been present at an accident, and studious readings of Dr Chartley's books—he proceeded to set a serious compound fracture, assuring himself that he bore it like a man, and that ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... years old. Another and more numerous class, evidently piquing themselves not a little upon avoiding this error, fall into another by fancying it necessary to write down to their young readers. They explain everything with a tiresome minuteness of detail, although any observer of children ought to know that a child's mind does not want everything explained. They think that simplicity demands this lengthy discussion of every trivial matter. There is such a thing as a conceited simplicity, and there is a technical simplicity, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... Perpendicular style presented an effect at once good and bold; the mouldings, though not equal to the best of the Decorated style, were well defined, the enrichments effective, and the details delicate without extravagant minuteness. Subsequently the style underwent a gradual debasement; the arches became depressed; the mouldings impoverished, the details crowded and coarsely executed, and the whole style became wanting in the chaste and elegant effects for ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... sometimes, and again very literally. Style has thus suffered for the sake of clearness and brevity, necessary to secure and retain the attention of readers of this class of books. This same conciseness has also been imposed on our author by the inherent dryness and minuteness of his faithful inquiry into hundreds of figures, tables showing the condition of banks at the time of various panics, etc., etc., essential to his demonstration. As an extreme instance of the latitude I have sometimes allowed myself, I cite my rendering of the title: "Des ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... 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 ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... pleasant window looking out on the garden, and it contained a small cot bedstead, besides a table and chairs. Here Hiram spent most of his time busily occupied. By every mail he received letters from New York, detailing with minuteness just what took place in his affairs from day to day. In short, his private office was moved from New York to Hampton, and the only apparent inconvenience was that he did business at arm's length, as they say. Daily came a letter from Hill, although Hill was not in Hiram's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... moral superiority (especially as based on the assumption that the race had been better in primeval times, when yet fresh from the hands of the gods), there was in them a grain of truth. When Mabuchi and Motowori wrote, the nation had been long subjected to a discipline of almost incredible minuteness in detail, and of extraordinary rigour in application. And this discipline had actually brought into existence a wonderful average of character,—a character of surprising patience, unselfishness, honesty, kindliness, and docility combined with high courage. But only the evolutionist [162] ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... movement beyond this wave, though there will be in the space which it encloses, namely in parts of the particular waves, those parts which do not touch the sphere DCF. And all this ought not to seem fraught with too much minuteness or subtlety, since we shall see in the sequel that all the properties of Light, and everything pertaining to its reflexion and its refraction, can be explained in principle by this means. This is a matter which has been quite unknown to those who hitherto have begun to consider the waves ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens

... the minuteness of investigation employed, that, although the grate had contained a large fire during the night, they proceeded to examine even the very chimney, in order to discover whether escape by it were possible; but ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... commanded, resumed, and then with minuteness, with much learning and eloquence, discoursed successively upon the histories, or emblematic devices, of this the chief work of his hands. All ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... by J. C. Stevens, of New Jersey, in 1804; by Henry James in 1811—but nothing practical was accomplished. Richard Trevethick, the anticipator of many things, also took out a patent in 1815, and in it he describes the screw propeller with considerable minuteness. Millington, Whytock, Perkins, Marestier, and Brown followed, with ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... by side, we held a long converse on erotic matters. He told me all the tale of his affair with his cousin, and, although I was already well acquainted with it, I was glad to draw all the particulars from himself. I had seen the note his mother wrote to the doctor. The minuteness and undisguised description she had therein given struck me as very strange, and I augured that she herself must be a lewd and lecherous person, to have done more than merely hint at the affair, instead of dwelling, doubtless in erotic delight, on such details. So I pumped him as to what ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... treatises in ten other Oriental languages, which only made me deplore my ignorance, since I was unable to read a word of any of them. The illuminations, though, struck me as fully equal to the finest fourteenth-century European work in their extreme minuteness and wonderful delicacy of detail. The young priest, whom I should suspect of being what is termed in ecclesiastical circles "a spike," was evidently very familiar with the Liturgy of the Church of England, but it came with somewhat of a shock to hear him apply to Buddha ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... Don Juan, v. 33-39, with anatomical minuteness of detail. After trying in vain to wrench an answer out of death, the poet ends in his ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... has been removed, or at any rate a notice put up: "Authors are requested not to lie prostrate on the bowsprit." But even without this advantage, three or four generations of writers have chronicled with great minuteness their sensations during the transit. I need only say that my sensations were just as good as theirs. I will content myself with chronicling the fact that during the voyage we passed two dolphins, one whale and one iceberg (none of them moving very fast ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... question, or any new rules of conduct pointed out, our author gives a minute detail of two cases, where any ancient female of ordinary capacity could have decided as well as himself, and relates with laboured minuteness the contrary opinions of some eminent physicians on a late memorable occasion in this country." Pinel an old woman! It will probably be new to most, if not all, of our readers that this illustrious man was regarded in this light by the leading Review of our country, when his writings first ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... sounds, and even publishing several translations in their language, he undertook to give some account of its grammatical forms. A little work printed in 1842, with the modest title of "A Spelling-book of the Seneca Language," comprises the variations of nouns, adjectives and pronouns, given with much minuteness. Those of the verbs are promised, but the book closes abruptly without them, for the reason—as the author afterwards explained to a correspondent—that he had not as yet been able to obtain such a complete knowledge of them as he desired. This difficulty is ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... acquainted with them, that she describes Lartigue; Dufresne; Richard; Phelan; Bonin; Comte; Bourget; McMahon; Kelly; Demers; Roux; Roque; Sauvage; Tabeau; Marcoux; Morin; Durocher; and all the Roman Priests around Montreal, with the utmost minuteness of accuracy; while the Chaplain of the Ursuline Nunnery at Quebec, Father Daule, is as exactly depicted by her, as if her whole life had been passed under his surveillance. Some of the appellatives in the ensuing catalogue may not be correctly spelt. Scarcely any thing is more difficult ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... to carry two hundred passengers, will appear large to those of our readers whose ideas of ballooning have never gone beyond the ordinary ascensions so much in vogue at the present day, they are yet of almost microscopic minuteness when compared with the developments of which M. Petin and his friends conceive his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various

... details of Trajan's expeditions, there is none as to their ultimate result, nor concerning the chief operations of the conqueror and his successors in the newly-acquired territory, which was formally annexed as a province of the Empire. Some historians have attempted to define with great minuteness the boundaries of the new province, but more cautious writers content themselves with naming approximate limits; and these have done wisely, as there is no doubt that the movements of the neighbouring tribes and even of the conquered ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... flesh, the blood is returned from the arteries to the veins, not without some other admirable artifice" (non sine artificio quodam admirabili). It was this artificium admirabile of which Harvey was unable to give a description. On account of the minuteness of their structure, the capillaries were beyond his sight, aided as it was by a magnifying glass merely. He indeed demonstrated physiologically the existence of some such passages; but it remained for a later observer, with improved appliances, to verify the fact. This was done ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... hardly dare insist upon the virtue of completion, lest I should be supposed a defender of Wouvermans or Gerard Dow; neither can I adequately praise the power of Tintoret, without fearing to be thought adverse to Holbein or Perugino. The fact is, that both finish and impetuosity, specific minuteness, or large abstraction, may be the signs of passion, or of its reverse; may result from affection or indifference, intellect or dulness. Some men finish from intense love of the beautiful in the smallest parts of what they do; others in pure incapability ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... minuteness one of the most extensive silver mines in the world, where an average of 5000 men and unnumbered animals are employed, it will not be necessary to go into details as we notice the many other celebrated mines ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... of some of the elementary knots have been gone into with what a practical seaman of even short experience may consider almost unnecessary minuteness, but the aim throughout has been to render the work of value to those who approach the ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum

... satisfying minuteness; and all this was for "a wave-offering" to be waved before the Lord—which was ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... household," that is to say, provided with its dependencies and services. Everything is within reach; it is a complete world in itself and self-sufficient. One exalted being attaches to and gathers around it, with universal foresight and minuteness of detail, every appurtenance it employs or can possibly employ.—Thus, each prince, each princess has a professional surgery and a chapel;[2118] it would not answer for the almoner who says mass or the doctor who looks after their health to be obtained outside. So much ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Sacred Scriptures for nearly eighteen centuries. There are few predecessors in the field of Chinese literature into whose labours translators of the present century can enter. This will be received, I hope, as a sufficient apology for the minuteness and length of some of the notes. A second object in them was to teach myself first, and then others, something of the history and doctrines of Buddhism. I have thought that they might be learned better in connexion ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... forgotten if any member of the home-circle was "sick." And the concerns of the patient, whether suffering from a cold, sore eyes, a sprained ankle, or "had her tonsils out," were discussed with minuteness of detail worthy an International Conference. How the patient slept, what the doctor said, the effect of the new medicine, how the heart was standing the strain, what the visiting neighbors thought of the case, in fact the whole subject of sickness held a morbid ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth magnitudes, nearly three hundred nebulae, and globular and other clusters, of all degrees of resolvability, and smaller scattered stars innumerable of every inferior magnitude, from the tenth to such as by their multitude and minuteness constitute irresolvable nebulosity, extending over tracts of many square degrees. Were there but one such object, it might be maintained without utter improbability that its apparent sphericity is only an effect of foreshortening, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... regretted that William Still, the author of the U. G. R. R., failed to give any account of its origin, organization, workings, or the number of persons helped to freedom. It is an interesting narrative of many cases, but is shorn of that minuteness of detail so indispensable to authentic ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... the exactness and minuteness of such descriptive character sketches, but even the shortest and most general is necessary to the proper appreciation of every play, even if it is being merely read. When a student is assimilating a role for rehearsing or acting, these additions of the author ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... of all these branches the most important are the inlaying and mosaic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, represented in a central manner by these mosaics of St. Mark's. Missal-painting could not, from its minuteness, produce the same sublime impressions, and frequently merged itself in mere ornamentation of the page. Modern book-illustration has been so little skillful as hardly to be worth naming. Sculpture, though in some positions it becomes of great importance, has always a tendency to lose itself in architectural ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... number of species of fungi, probably scarcely less numerous than all the flowering plants, and the immense number of spores which some of the individuals produce, they must be exceedingly plentiful and widely diffused, though from their minuteness not easy to be discerned. It has been attempted to estimate the number of spores which might be produced by one single plant of Lycoperdon, but the number so far exceeds that which the mind is accustomed to ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... 1843, was awarded to Mr. T. Young, architect to the university of king's college, Toronto. The style of the intended obelisk is the simplest and purest Egyptian, the artist having strictly avoided all minuteness of detail in order that the massive proportions of the design might harmonize with the bold and beautiful scenery by which it will be surrounded. The total height of the base, pedestal, and obelisk, will be 120 feet. The ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... if she were listening to him, all the facts without forgetting a single detail, mentioning the most trivial matters with the minuteness of a countryman. And the child still kept assailing him, making kicks at ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... best of these books.... The events are described with minuteness and care. The result is ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... heart in the perfume it sheds so freely upon the air? The odor of the musk of certain animals lingers under certain conditions for years. The imagination is baffled in trying to conceive of the number and minuteness of the particles which the fox leaves of itself in the snow where its foot was imprinted—so palpable that the scent of a hound can seize upon them hours after the fox has passed! The all but infinite divisibility of matter is proved by every odor that ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... commercial boon that ever was devised; but as the committee of the House of Lords, in the report already quoted, has borne ample testimony in their favour, it is unnecessary for us to dwell with further minuteness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... depends largely upon its being near enough to our own conceptions, and yet a little greater, just as the vault of a great church gives one a larger sense of immensity than the sky with its sailing clouds. Indeed it is often the very minuteness of a conception rather than its vastness that makes it great. It must not be outside our range. As to the form, it depends upon some curious felicity of hand, and touch, and thought. Suppose that a great painter gave a rough pencil-sketch of a picture to a hundred students, and ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... 1091. Ingulphus relates with painful minuteness the progress of the work of destruction, and enumerates all the rich treasures which those angry flames consumed. I should have given a longer account of this event had not the Rev. Mr. Maitland already done so in his interesting work ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... and I do not think I have actually, committed. I cannot but suspect, that, if I had employed the language of exclusive eulogy,—such language as is employed at and concerning the Commencement dinners and the Alumni dinners, I might have described the celebration of Class-Day with much more minuteness than I have attempted to do, and should have heard no complaints of violated hospitality. This I would gladly have done, had it been possible. As it was not, I have pointed out those features which seemed to me objectionable,—certainly ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... requires greater minuteness of regulation; and the steps of all advancing States are more and more to be picked among the old rubbish and the new materials. The difficulty lies in discovering the right path through the chaos of confusion. The adjustment of mutual rights and wrongs is also ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... walls is notable as being that in which King Rene was born. It is recorded that Wellington received a part of his military education in Angers. If so, it is probable that he studied this military defence with some care and minuteness. To us, at least, who have not been educated with respect to military fortification, it seems to fill all demands that are likely to be made upon a building of its class. Doubtless it could have been besieged successfully, and even battered through to the extent of allowing ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... Instead of any attempt to interpret his state of mind and inner life, she gave the simple facts—that is, his own words, an exact account of his health, what he asked for at their interviews, what commission he gave her and so on. All these facts she gave with extraordinary minuteness. The picture of their unhappy brother stood out at last with great clearness and precision. There could be no mistake, because nothing ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... sixty-fours, frigates, transports, fire-ships, &c. In its diversified pages, persons of every rank, denomination, and pursuit, may be informed—the Philosopher, the Politician, the Citizen, the Handicraftsman, and the Gossip, are regaled by the novelty of its contents, the minuteness of its details, and the refreshing arrivals of transactions which occupy the attention of human beings at the greatest ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... event which Father Medina mentions with as much minuteness as candor, two important points must not be overlooked by the judicious reader, which were the cause of this unfortunate deed. One was the extreme harshness of the provincial in his government, which must have been very excessive.... The imposition of new commands must have been very heavy for the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... with the other three. Not only was each man well armed, but each man kept his trusty rifle hugged to his person, in a sort of jealous watchfulness; while the other white man, from time to time, secretly, but with great minuteness, examined the flint and priming ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... been described as made up of rows of minute elements. It is immaterial for our purpose, however, whether the fibres are to be regarded as made up of microsomes or not. This much is sure, that these microsomes —granules of excessive minuteness—occur in protoplasm and are closely connected with the ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... Iceland, and not far from a century younger, the Iceland Gray-goose. The Norway one is perhaps of date about 1037, the other of about 1118; peace be with them both! Or, if anybody is inclined to such matters let him go to Dahlmann, for the amplest information and such minuteness of detail as might almost enable him to be an Advocate, with Silk Gown, in any Court ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... burial,' &c, it is important to have every particular bearing on this branch of the subject, and much minuteness ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... amply verified by experience; the extraordinary minuteness and accuracy of Mr. Darwin's observations, combined with the charm and simplicity of his descriptions, have ensured the popularity of this book with all classes of readers—and that popularity has ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... Ursula and her Virgins. Although of less solid merit than the preceding, it is infinitely more striking; being most singularly conceived and executed. The gold ornaments, and gold grounds, are throughout managed with a freedom and minuteness of touch which distinguish many of the most beautiful early missals. In the first compartment, or division, are a group of women round "Sibila Ancyra Phrygiae." The dresses of these women, especially ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... convent! You would have thought you heard some gormandizer dilating upon the roasting a savory goose at Michaelmas as he described the roasting of some Spanish Don to make him discover his treasure—a detail given with a minuteness that made every rich old burgher present turn uncomfortably in his chair. All this would be told with infinite glee, as if he considered it an excellent joke; and then he would give such a tyrannical leer ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... and lost, consisting of travellers and traders, from all parts of the world, and who were also on their way to Palmyra, as a point whence to separate to various parts of the vast East. It would delight me to lay before you with the distinctness and minuteness of a picture, the whole of this novel, and to me most interesting route; but I must content myself with a slight sketch, and reserve fuller communications to the time when, once more seated with you upon the Coelian, we enjoy ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... that? there is half an hour that we have lost." This storm[36] disconcerted me. He perceived my confusion, and resumed his discourse with mildness.—"Come, make yourself easy, and repeat to me, with the greatest minuteness, all that has passed between you and X****." I then related the circumstances which had induced me to have an interview with Monsieur X****. I repeated our conversation word for word. I gave him a complete account of all the faults and excesses of the royal government; and I was going ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... that class of women who allow their feelings to show themselves, and afterwards feel bound by the memory of what they have shown. She, too, smiled most sweetly as she surveyed the beautiful fair queen from beneath her long drooping lids, and examined her appearance with all possible minuteness. She remembered her well enough, but so warm was the welcome she received, that she almost thought she had misjudged Atossa in calling her hard and cold. She drew her guest to the cushions upon the carpets, and they ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... not like the corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not to be comprehended nor understood, but a confusion of yellow and black spots and strokes, carried far too fine for the eye to follow; microscopic in its minuteness, and filling every atom and space with mystery, out of which would have arranged itself the general impression of truth and life.' Once more, Mr Ruskin freely admits that 'all the landscape ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... conducted it with the utmost minuteness, was quite unproductive of results. If the woman possessed a typewriter, she had apparently made away with it. The scrap basket contained nothing but a few torn bits of paper of no value. There was no stationery on the small desk in the living room, no black sealing wax, such as had been used ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... Bible, the supreme Lover, Student, Expositor, and Employer of the Bible. With the letter of the Bible He sustained Himself and quelled the Enemy in the Temptation, and the quotations He then selected suggest the minuteness of His study. Upon the written Word He spent the whole Easter afternoon. Accepted Sacrifice for Sin, Conqueror of Death, Lord and Head of Life, He had come that morning from the grave; and He came as it were holding the ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... exclusively concerned with them. Having fully stated in his opening chapters the distinctive doctrines upon which alone he thinks sound morality can be based, Venn in the rest of his treatise enters with the utmost minuteness into the practical duties of the Christian to God and man. Truthfulness, honesty, meekness, courtesy, candour, the relative duties in various capacities—of masters towards their servants and servants towards ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... description. The altitudes marked at the different spots where they were observed, were obtained by the temperature of boiling water, as observed by two thermometers; but as they were not graduated with sufficient minuteness for such purposes, the results can only be ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... intimacy with them cooled; and by dint of turning around Saint Sulpice, he succeeded in forming another connection there, upon which he built greater expectations. This society of priests was beginning to distinguish itself, and from a seminary of a Paris parish to extend abroad. Ignorance, the minuteness of their practices, the absence of all patrons and of members at all distinguished in any way, inspired them with a blind obedience to Rome and to all its maxims; with a great aversion for everything that passed for Jansenism, and made them so dependent upon the bishops ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... faults—it contains many coincidences and improbabilities—are far more than atoned for by the masterly portrait of the simple, manly, generous, and wholly lovable vicar who is the central figure of the story. "It has," says Mitford, "the truth of Richardson, without his minuteness, and the humour of Fielding, without his grossness; if it yields to LeSage in the diversified variety of his views of life, it far excels him in the description of domestic virtues and the pleasing moral of the tale." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... related, with some minuteness, the substance of Mike's report, and his own plan, of the last of which we have already given an outline. Everything had been well matured in his mind, and all promised success. The men were apprised of the service on which they were ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... it, the complete history of itself. What an invaluable pair of eyes were that! In vain, arraigned before them, would the criminal deny his guilt, the lover the soft impeachment. The whole scene would stand forth, photographed in fatal minuteness and indelibility upon face, hands, coat-sleeve, shirt-bosom. Mankind would be its own book of life, written in the primal hieroglyphic character,—the language understood by all. Vocal conversation would become obsolete, unless among a few superior ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... the Transcontinental telegraph line a feasible undertaking. But his discursive mind ricochetted off to the laying of the Transatlantic cable, in '65; and he dwelt on that epoch-marking work with such minuteness of detail, and such confident mastery of names, dates, and so forth, that I half-resented—not his disconcerting fund of information, but his modest reticence on other subjects of interest. It is a morally upsetting thing, for instance, to ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... travellers gathered in Sudbury Inn, and each suited, either by its scene or its sentiment, to the speaker who recites it. In this also there is a natural reminiscence of Chaucer; and if we miss the rich minuteness of his Van Eyck painting, or the depth of his thoughtful humor, we find the same airy grace, tenderness, simple strength, and exquisite felicities of description. Nor are twinkles of sly humor wanting. The Interludes, and above all the Prelude, are masterly examples of that perfect ease ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... came to London, was perverted by Rawdon at the Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly tipsy by this abominable seducer and perverter of youth, and fleeced of four thousand pounds. She described with the most vivid minuteness the agonies of the country families whom he had ruined—the sons whom he had plunged into dishonour and poverty—the daughters whom he had inveigled into perdition. She knew the poor tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extravagance—the mean shifts ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... making those inclosures for their cabbages, which the islanders call crubs. They have been pulling down the Pictish castle, on the little island in the fresh-water loch called Cleikimin, near Lerwick, described with such minuteness by Scott in his journal, till very few traces of its original construction are left. If the inclosing of lands for pasturage and cultivation proceeds as it has begun, these curious monuments of a race which has long ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... this state of feeble indecision as regarded the great questions, and with this minuteness of detail in secondary matters, that M. Necker presented himself on the 5th of May before the three orders at the opening of the session in the palace of Versailles by King Louis XVI. The royal procession had been saluted by the crowd with repeated ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... in his Memoirs, entitled "Literary Industries" (New York, 1891, 16mo), analyses with sufficient minuteness some practical consequences of the imperfection of the methods of research. He considers the case of an industrious writer proposing to write the history of California. He easily procures a few books, reads them, takes notes; these books refer him to others, which he consults in the public ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... that different tribes tried to steal each other's idols and even fought for the possession of valuable objects of "medicine."[562] Columbus observed and reported the customs of these people with some minuteness. There was nothing that agreed with Marco Polo's descriptions of Cipango, but so far as concerned the discovery of gold mines, the indications were such as to leave little doubt of the success of this reconnaissance. The Admiral now arranged his forces ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... Old Testament. These writers, claiming to be the revealers of the will of God, almost always commenced their messages with the words, "Thus saith the Lord." That they were not deceived in their claims is evident from the minuteness and detail as to names, times and places which characterized their messages, and from the literal fulfillment ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... art—and especially literary creation—becomes, as we have already said, a decadent and rationalized mythology. This form of invention consists neither of idealizing the external world, nor reproducing it with the minuteness of realism, but remaking the universe to suit oneself, without taking into account natural laws, and despising the impossible: it is a liberated realism. Often, in an environment of pure fancy, where only caprice reigns, the characters appear ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... immemorial past tells us at every turn that all agencies have conspired for loveliness and ruin itself has been benign. A passage of Wordsworth's describing the character of the lake-shores illustrates this fact with loving minuteness. ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... curious example of Ibsen's minute care is found in the copiousness of his stage directions. Later playwrights have imitated him in this, and we have grown used to it; but thirty years ago such minuteness seemed extravagant and needless. As a fact, it was essential to the absolutely complete image which Ibsen desired to produce. The stage directions in his plays cannot be "skipped" by any reader ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... at length into his scheme; explaining to his friend all his wishes and hopes, and letting him know, with official minuteness, what was expected at his hands. The rear-admiral listened with his accustomed respect, whenever any thing grave was in discussion between them; and, had any one entered while they were thus engaged, he would have seen in the manner of one, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... were accessible, better than the grapes that were beyond her reach. The price too was just right, so she gladly took possession of the cage, and hid it under her cloak, preparatory to carrying it home. Emanuel meanwhile was giving her directions as to its food, with all the minuteness of one loving ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... fortune-favored lady—and finally, that upon the evening of the murder he had decoyed the unhappy young lady to the fatal spot, and then and there effected his purpose. The prosecuting attorney made this statement, not with the brevity with which it is here reported, but with a minuteness of detail and warmth of coloring that harrowed up the hearts of all who heard it. He finished by saying that he should call the witnesses in the order of time corresponding with the facts ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... when the life-boat with its small load of castaways, shrieking, praying, or unconscious, was dancing on the great broad swells of the heavy, mineral ocean, Frederick had had no such feeling of the microscopic minuteness of ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... The maddening thought that will not be downed, the haunting, ever-present idea that is not or cannot be banished by a supreme effort of the will, is the theoretical hammer which diminishes the vitality of the sensitive nerve organisms, the minuteness of which makes them visible to the eye only under a powerful microscope. The 'worry,' the thought, the single idea grows upon one as time goes on, until the worry victim cannot throw it off. Through this, one set or area of cells is affected. The cells are intimately connected, joined together ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden

... though elementary, were of a higher cast than Lenny could have found within his reach at Hazeldean. Riccabocca knew the English language well, better in grammar, construction, and genius than many a not ill-educated Englishman; for he had studied it with the minuteness with which a scholar studies a dead language, and amidst his collection he had many of the books which had formerly served him for that purpose. These were the first works he had lent to Lenny. Meanwhile Jackeymo imparted to the boy many secrets in practical ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... characteristic. Their artists, especially of the later school, sometimes toil to depict such subjects, but are apt to stiffen the lithe tendrils in the process. The poets succeed better, with Tennyson at their head, and often produce ravishing effects by dint of a tender minuteness of touch, to which the genius of the soil and climate artfully impels them: for, as regards grandeur, there are loftier scenes in many countries than the best that England can show; but, for the picturesqueness of the smallest object ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Frankenstein. Can it be true to nature to make one character give a description, over a hundred pages long, repeating at length, word for word, long conversations which he has never heard, marking the changes of colour which he has not seen—and all this with a minuteness which even the firmest memory and the most loquacious tongue could not recall? Does not this give an unreality to the style incompatible with art, which ought to be the mainspring of all imaginative work? This, however, is not Mrs. Shelley's ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... sometimes of their refusing supply when disgusted with any circumstance of public conduct. It is, however, certain, that this power, though essential to parliaments, may easily be abused, as well by the frequency and minuteness of their remonstrances, as by their intrusion into every part of the king's counsels and determinations. Under color of advice, they may give disguised orders; and in complaining of grievances, they may draw to themselves every power of government. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... the marquis has led me to recount this curious story with greater minuteness than is necessary to the understanding of Dorothy's part in what follows, but the worthy doctor's account is so graphic that even for its own sake, had it been fitting, I would gladly have copied it word for word ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... even from his adversary's point of view; but of the further power of appreciating his adversary's character he shows not the slightest trace. He looks at his actors from the outside, and gives us with wonderful minuteness all the details of their lives; but he never seems to remember that within the mechanism whose working he describes there is a soul very different from that of Daniel De Foe. Rather, he seems to see in mankind nothing but so many million ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... into universal ornament, incrusted with tracery and scooped into niches, crowded with statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... guidebooks, took a horseback journey through the South. Following closely Olmsted's trail, and speaking therefore with knowledge, he has paid him one of the highest compliments one traveler ever paid another. "Olmsted's work," he wrote, "in vividness of description and in photographic minuteness far surpasses Arthur Young's."[184] During this journey he wrote letters to the London Daily News, and these were continued after his return to New York City. For the last three years of our Civil War, he was its regular correspondent, and, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... mother to seize! No such booty as these. Were it simply a friend to pursue 'Mid my million or two, Who could pay me in person or pelf What he owes me himself! 30 No: I could not but smile through my chafe: For the fellow lay safe As his mates do, the midge and the nit, —Through minuteness, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... trace the history of this regiment. I have done this with some degree of minuteness, owing to the fact that, as we were considered a United States organization less can be learned concerning us from the reports of the adjutant-general of the State than concerning any other Connecticut organization. And as the employment of colored troops was at first ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson



Words linked to "Minuteness" :   exactness, exactitude, minute, smallness, diminutiveness, littleness



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