"Perspicacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Don Hermoso; "you credit me with a much larger measure of perspicacity than I can lay claim to. To be perfectly frank with you, I cannot conceive why you should desire a private interview with me, unless—how shall I put it?—unless—you find yourself in a position of temporary pecuniary embarrassment; and ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... rose from the table might have been taken for assent. It was in reality satisfaction at her own perspicacity. She had not supposed for one moment that he had been ill but in no other way could she express what she wanted to know. It was in itself an innocuous and natural remark, but the sudden gloom that fell on him warned her that her ingenuity was, perhaps, not so ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Rnine's expression, had succeeded. On seeing all his plans baffled and the enemy master of his secrets, the wretched man had neither the strength nor the perspicacity necessary to defend himself. He threw up ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... were fated not to be as sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor lover forgot to reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, and Thaddeus, instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend. His devotion was unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employing her perspicacity might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishment imposed by a noble soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; but women see all, or see nothing, according to the condition of their souls—love ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... distant travel, and the old island chieftain would end in becoming the Demiurgus. Ganymede (who possibly gave rise to the old Lat. "Catamitus") was probably some fair Phrygian boy ("son of Tros") who in process of time became a symbol of the wise man seized by the eagle (perspicacity) to be raised amongst the Immortals; and the chaste myth simply signified that only the prudent are loved by the gods. But it rotted with age as do all things human. For the Pederastia of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... conscious being. Of course, the method thereof depends on character; a cheerful heart In one, a buoyant imagination in another, and the sweet self-oblivion which Faith imparts in a third, sentiment here and will there, work the same miracle. Foresti belonged to that class of Italians who combine perspicacity and force of reasoning with a frank, affectionate, and trustful disposition,—types of the manly intellect, the childlike heart; incarceration, while it failed to enfeeble the former, by seclusion from life's game and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Austrian-Succession War than readers are again like to be, can imagine to himself the difficulties of Friedrich at this time, as they already lay disclosed, and kept gradually disclosing themselves, for months coming; nor will ever know what perspicacity, patience of scanning, sharpness of discernment, dexterity of management, were required at Friedrich's hands;—and under what imminency of peril, too; victorious deliverance, or ruin and annihilation, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... companionship through life would become a curse. Be it so; Piers knew it, dwelt upon it as a perilous fact; it had no application to his love for Irene Derwent. Indeed, Piers was rich in that least common form of intelligence—the intelligence of the heart. Emotional perspicacity, the power of recognising through all forms of desire one's true affinity in the other sex, is bestowed upon one mortal in a vast multitude. Not lack of opportunity alone accounts for the failure of men and women to mate becomingly; only the elect have eyes to see, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... stopped and had a talk with a farmer whom I had asked for work. Although he had none to give me he was very civil, and we talked of tramps and tramping. He looked at me keenly. "I can see you are not of the regular professionals," said he. "Thank you for your perspicacity," I answered, and though perspicacity fairly floored him, he saw it was not an insult, and went on talking. "Now look here, my boy, they say we're hard on tramps, and perhaps some of us are, but I reckon we sometimes get ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... the curtain stopped short these discussions, which displayed so much good-nature and perspicacity. But some laid the blame on the influence of that little bigot of a Talbrun, who had secretly blown up the fire of religious enthusiasm in Jacqueline, when Madame d'Avrigny's energetic "Hush!" put an end to the discussion. It was time to come back to more immediate interests, to the play ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... sigh again, and Lady Alicia, with a boldness that surprised herself, and a perspicacity that would have surprised her friends, asked, "How could they—I ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... the Frankfurt Oberpostamts Zeitung. The work has just been completed by the publication of the fourth volume, which only confirms the reputation which the earlier portions gained for the author among the jurists of all Europe. Dr. Schaeffner, with equal learning and perspicacity, sets forth the relation of French law, and the changes it has undergone, to the history of the political institutions of the country. In this respect the work interests a much wider public than is ordinarily addressed by a juridical ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... one. But you are a goose, you know, in certain relations. Smartest man on the Stock Exchange, I readily admit; easiest fool to bamboozle in the open country that ever I met with. You fail in one thing—the perspicacity of simplicity. For that reason, among others, I have chosen to fasten upon you. Regard me, my dear sir, as a microbe of millionaires, a parasite upon capitalists. You ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... constructed by a process of inference and synthesis. Much of it, to be sure, can be divined from the acts and conversations, from the dress and manners of the characters, but there is always more that has to be directly expounded. The writer cannot rely upon the reader's perspicacity to make the right inferences, or upon his knowledge to supply sufficient data; nor can he make his characters tell all that he may want told about their past and the life of the world in which they live, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... roof whose outlines are merged in the gray dusk of dreams. There is cruelty, horror, and a sense of the wickedly magnificent in the ensemble. What crimes were committed to merit such atrocious punishment? The boldness and clearness of it all! With perspicacity George Saintsbury wrote of Flaubert's Temptation of Saint Anthony: "It is the best example of dream literature that I know—most writers who have tried this style have erred, inasmuch as they have endeavoured to throw a portion of the mystery with which the waking mind invests ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... pleasures, which a poor man for a good stipend would scarce be hired to undergo. Plutarch, in his book de soler. animal. speaks against all fishing, [3241]"as a filthy, base, illiberal employment, having neither wit nor perspicacity in it, nor worth the labour." But he that shall consider the variety of baits for all seasons, and pretty devices which our anglers have invented, peculiar lines, false flies, several sleights, &c. will say, that it deserves ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... ethnographical publications, stating briefly some discovery he had made, or some observation which he thought necessary to record. He had been asked now and again to make reports to the Foreign Office upon matters pertaining to the countries he knew; and Lucy had heard his perspicacity praised in no measured terms by those ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... must be blind, surrender one's self absolutely, see nothing, question nothing, understand nothing. One must adore the weakness as well as the beauty of the beloved object, renounce all judgment, all reflection, all perspicacity. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... confused, and so did Aniela, and the truth began to dawn upon me why it was the ladies were not staying with my aunt. This had been Pani P.'s idea; she and my aunt had been plotting together. I suppose Aniela had not been taken into confidence, but thanks to female perspicacity could not help ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... another; to work out what it is in them to work. The thing they will do is known to no man; least of all to themselves. It is the inflammablest immeasurable Fire-work, generating, consuming itself. With what phases, to what extent, with what results it will burn off, Philosophy and Perspicacity ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... task that required strength, he would in his turn, on occasion, ask the boy's opinion and consult him regarding sentimental complications and punctilios, which fascinated the German and which Manuel settled with his natural perspicacity and the instincts of a wandering child who has been convinced that all life's motives are egotistical and base. This equality between master and apprentice disappeared the moment Karl took up his position at the mouth of the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... don't perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... fonder and fonder of politics and business, and is so wonderfully fit for both—such perspicacity and such courage—and I grow daily to dislike them both more and more. We women are not made for governing—and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations; but there are times which force one ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... the same time, she took up the pencil and made a note of the names of the persons in charge of the various departments, and of the articles taken over by the respective servants, in entries remarkable for the utmost perspicacity. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... friend," I retorted, still smarting a little, "I shall not presume to match my stupidity against your perspicacity. I haven't cat's eyes in ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... Uncle Sim's perspicacity this might be a leading question, but he made the answer he considered the most diplomatic in the circumstances. "She is if—if Claude is in love with her. But—but why do you call ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... did Kathlyn, but she did so because occultly she felt that her father expected her to laugh. She was positively uncanny sometimes in her perspicacity. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... the perspicacity of his views, I turned homeward. Temple had been previously warned by me to avoid speaking of my father at Riversley; but I was now in such a boiling state of happiness, believing that my father would certainly appear as he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her too. Gerald Scales, bronzed, plump, and very full in the eye, having looked the newcomer over, decided against him, and gave him a shoulder. "Foreign beggar," was the conclusion he came to, which does credit to his perspicacity, because the Pole had a very English appearance, and Scales himself the look of ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... note you write?" asked Thuillier, believing that by thus examining every detail he was giving proofs of amazing perspicacity. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... her by Aldo, he lauds, among her other good qualities, not only her fear of God, her benevolence to the poor, and her kindness toward her relatives, but also her ability as a ruler, saying that she made an excellent regent, whose sound opinions and perspicacity were greatly admired by the burghers. Even if we make allowances for the flattery, there is still much ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... perspicacity was short-lived; he walked up and down the room in his perplexity. "I can't get over it," he murmured. "I thought it a mad love-match, all done in a few weeks; and to have it turn ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... religion, of right, of wealth, a man must be a historian beforehand, a jurisconsult and economist, and have gathered up myriad of facts; and, besides all this, he must possess a vast erudition, an experienced and professional perspicacity. If these conditions are only partially complied with, the result will only be a half finished product or a doubtful alloy, a few rough drafts of the sciences, the rudiments of pedagogy as with Rousseau, of political economy with Quesnay, Smith, and Turgot, of linguistics with Des Brosses, and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... ago to be matter of controversy; but the dust of prejudice and passion, which so distempers the intellectual vision of theologians and politicians, is seen to make, with ruthless impartiality, no exception of the perspicacity of philologists. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... admits, she did go through it. The far too prevalent idea of those days was that every offence must be followed by an arrest. This gave a very high idea of the extraordinary sagacity of justice, of its prompt perspicacity, and of the rapidity with which it tracked out crime. The unfortunate woman was walked off between two gendarmes. The effect produced by the gendarmes, with their burnished arms and imposing cross-belts, when they made their appearance in a village, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Mme. de Bargeton made no interruption. She was struck with his perspicacity. The queen of Angouleme had, in fact, counted upon ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... acknowledged the principle of religious toleration, only with the design of embracing the first favorable opportunity for crushing the Huguenots, when scattered and disarmed. Their desires, at least, deceived no one of ordinary perspicacity. Indeed, the peace came near failing to go into effect at all, in consequence of the discovery of the fact that a "privy council" had been held in the Louvre, to which none but sworn enemies of the Huguenots were admitted, "wherein was conspired a surprise ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... anything in my pockets except a plug of chewing—they wasn't after my life—and that saved it. I bit off a chunk and sits down on a pile of ties by the track to recogitate my sensations of thought and perspicacity. ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... more than average ability. Some of them doubtless believed that the course pursued by their organization was for the advantage of the colony, though, reasoning by the light of present knowledge, it is difficult to comprehend how men of even moderate perspicacity and judgment could have brought themselves to such a conclusion. It was, however, inevitable that persons of such narrow and contracted views—persons to whom self and pelf were the mainsprings of life—should degenerate, mentally as well as morally. The persons composing the second generation ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the King. "I have never seen a more despicable creature than you. The admirable perspicacity inherent in your tribe seems to have deteriorated in you to a hyperbolated insousancy." Then he reached out his arms and slapped the king four times, twice on one side of his face and twice ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... Smith "that I am trying to lead you blindfolded in order later to dazzle you with my perspicacity. I am simply afraid that this may be a wild-goose chase. The idea upon which I am acting does not seem to have struck you. I wish it had. The fact would argue in ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... one instant; the next he knew his ground, and pronounced all well. With the true perspicacity des ames elites, he at once saw how this at first sight untoward event might be turned to excellent account. He saw how it might be so handled as to secure the accomplishment of his second task—namely, the disposal of his mother. He knew that a collision between him and Matthew always ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... "perhaps you have found a prince of the church, pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together the indicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncanny acumen that you stood aghast at his perspicacity?" ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... inheritance of good done, and mischief destroyed, of truth in theory and in practice established, and of error in the same exposed and ended, such as no one since John Hunter has been gifted to bequeath to his fellow-men. As an instrument for discovering truth, I have never seen his perspicacity equalled; his mental eye is achromatic, and admits into the judging mind a pure white light, and records an undisturbed, uncolored image, undiminished and unenlarged in its passage; and he has the moral power, courage, and conscience, to ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... now receiving from my friends (more especially from my Liberal friends) congratulations upon my perspicacity, and, although I am no Schnadhorst, I must now regard myself in the light of a Parliamentary prophet. Having in that capacity chanted my incantations and calculated the number of square feet of Irish linen in one of Mr. Gladstone's collars to be in inverse ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... could possibly be. Gwendolen wished to mount the chariot and drive the plunging horses herself, with a spouse by her side who would fold his arms and give her his countenance without looking ridiculous. Certainly, with all her perspicacity, and all the reading which seemed to her mamma dangerously instructive, her judgment was consciously a little at fault before Grandcourt. He was adorably quiet and free from absurdities—he would be a husband to suit with the best appearance a woman could make. But ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Duke, who was then a violent tempered youth, had several unfriendly encounters about the boundary line of this same property. All this had seemed very trivial to Alessandro, the present Prince, who looked upon the Duke as one of his best friends—but Alessandro had no perspicacity. He believed others to be as free from guile ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... chosen, as you see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtu. They are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here, too, are some chefs d'oeuvre of the unknown great; and here, unfinished designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence and to me. What think you," said he, turning abruptly as he spoke—"what think you ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Puritan is a Heretical Hypocrite, in whom the conceit of his own perspicacity, by which he seems to himself to have observed certain errors in a few Church dogmas, has disturbed the balance of his mind, so that, excited vehemently by a sacred fury, he fights frenzied against ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... had read Bailly's work pen in hand, and he proposed to the illustrious astronomer some queries, which proved both his infinite perspicacity, and wonderful variety of knowledge. Bailly then felt the necessity of developing some ideas which in his History of Ancient Astronomy were only accessories to his principal subject. This was the object of the volume that he published in 1776, under the title of Letters on the Origin ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... about him the exquisite aroma of a subtle charm which he may almost persuade himself that he alone perceives, since this softly gracious creature seems so little to insist upon it—seems, indeed, to be herself unaware of its presence. Whereupon the man conceives a new idea of his own perspicacity in detecting a thing at once so agreeable and so little advertised. He may, with a woman of this kind, go long upon the third 'tack'—may, indeed, never know it was she who gently 'shunted' him, still unenlightened, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... happiness comes and the longer it remains. Happiness does not come from conditions or surroundings, nor are these conditions or surroundings always understood. Actual conditions do not reveal themselves to perspicacity much less to casual observation. The multi-millionaire in his mansion or the king on his throne, surrounded by all the comforts and conveniences, all the marvelous treasures, all that is pleasing to the eye and to the senses, may not be happy—may ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... countries, were defining themselves out of a misty jumble of meaningless names. Light was breaking all around me. Life was becoming clearer. I was broadening out. I was overborne by a sense of my growing perspicacity ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... the formidable perspicacity of the Parisian half-breed, who spends her days stretched on a sofa, turning the lantern of her detective spirit on the obscurest depths of souls, sentiments, and intrigues, she had decided on making an ally of the spy. This supremely rash step was, perhaps ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... anything from the perspicacity of the astute Annas? You have pierced to the very heart of Judas. Yes, they insulted poor Judas. They said he had stolen from them three denarii—as though Judas were not the most ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... a pleasant young man. Perceiving that I was a stranger, he volunteered the additional information that the masculine roles, as well as the feminine ones, were being played by girls; and I trust that I will not seem to be boasting of perspicacity when I declare that there had already entered my mind a suspicion that ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... inconveniences and incongruities which the poet might have avoided, had he been more studious of design and uniformity. It is true that his romantic materials claim great liberties; but no materials exclude order and perspicacity." Warton assures the reader that Spenser's language is not "so difficult and obsolete as it is generally supposed to be;" and defends him against Hume's censure,[38] that "Homer copied true natural manners . . . but the pencil of the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... he said to Medcroft in the hallway. All of the plans had been made and all of them had been approved by the young wife. She had shown wonderful perspicacity and foresight in the matter of details; her capacity for selection and disposal was even more comprehensive than that of the two men, both of whom were somewhat staggered by the boldness of more than ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... with your—insincerities that you were all false. I should have been wise enough to know differently. But what will you?—to assume evil is easy, and always gives one a proud sense of superior perspicacity. I condemned you, Miriam, without a hearing, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... besides being wealthy, was a man of business. His daughter should marry a man who had money sufficient to insure his worth. With perspicacity rare in a man, he had observed that the two singular men of this narrative admired his daughter. Now, Bat, being a freak, was making money rapidly, while Sampey was only a poor literary bureau! Castellani ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... indeed in their sort, but far too sophisticated to entertain aught but the most contemptuous disbelief in her pretensions of special foresight and mysterious endowment. They did not fear her discrimination, and told their story, through an interpreter, with a glib disregard of any uncanny perspicacity on her part. She was one of the many Indians of the reservation who speak no English. Her cabin was far from Quallatown, and indeed at a considerable distance from any other dwelling. With her and her few associates, the moonshiners ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Rodaines? And had she not herself done something which had caused a fear of discovery should the pursuing sheriff overtake her? Bewildered, Robert Fairchild turned back to the more apparent thing which faced him: the probable death of Harry—the man upon whom he had counted for the knowledge and the perspicacity to aid him in the struggle against Nature and against mystery—who now, according to the story of Squint Rodaine, lay dead in the black waters of the Blue ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... approve of my discretion," began the Spaniard, without making answer. "I have allowed you time enough to sound this young fellow—you know whom I mean. Well! no doubt you have penetrated to the bottom and know all—you, whose perspicacity is only equalled by the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... for great perspicacity in pairing these two off together. "Poor fellow," he said to himself; "to preserve him from the temptations of the world and the flesh, she's considerately sent him in with the devil." For his own part, he devoted himself to Audrey and his dinner. From time ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... they had been put in with a smutty finger, as the saying goes. He revolved the problem in his mind, and a moment later came upon the solution, so he told himself. An Irish mother, and an Italian father, so he decreed, metaphorically patting himself on the back the while for his perspicacity. ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... when he says that our fathers and our grandfathers have poured forth and accumulated so vast a quantity of information concerning it "that the industry of a Ranke would be submerged by it and the perspicacity of a Gibbon would quail before it." This is manifestly true, and it is evident that an encyclopaedia would be required to discuss all the divisions of so tremendous a subject. If we look over too wide a horizon we lose our bearings altogether. We get a hopelessly confused ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... lived in constant fear, not for himself, but for the treasures that he had accumulated with such an earnest devotion and with so much perspicacity that the shrewdest merchant could not say that the Baron had ever erred in his taste or judgment. He loved them—his bibelots. He loved them intensely, like a miser; jealously, like a lover. Every day, at sunset, the iron gates at either end of the bridge and at ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and rosy tint, rounded its contours and brightened its hues. I had been accustomed to nurse a flattering idea that my strong attachment to her proved some particular perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life's treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that it was only my tastes which were unique, not my ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... humiliation, with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him, when he became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be remembered, for his honour, that to have been once a schoolmaster is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... difficult to interpret the sudden look he gave her, but her perspicacity warned her that she was on the wrong tack with this ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... leaving us that false trail to Munich. It took me in to the extent that I dispatched an emissary to hunt you down in that delightful capital, but, for myself, I have a certain flair in these matters, and I thought you would sooner or later come to Bellevue. You will admit that I showed some perspicacity?" ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... wood-work, looking behind the pictures for the hiding place of the famous diamond. In his time he had seen so many secret drawers, double-seated chairs, and numerous contrivances of a similar sort, that it would be a cunning hand that could baffle his perspicacity and experience. ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakespeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakespeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart, and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... royal highness has studied my notes to great advantage; your amazing perspicacity overpowers me ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Booth to say that he is not the peer of Francis of Assisi. But if Francis's judgment of men was so imperfect as to permit him to appoint an ambitious intriguer of the stamp of Brother Elias his deputy, we have no right to be sanguine about the perspicacity of Mr. Booth ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... their young friend had put her hand into her pocket half a dozen times she would be reconciled to the idea that it had been filled by a munificent uncle; and the event justified, as it had so often justified before, that lady's perspicacity. Ralph Touchett had praised his cousin for being morally inflammable, that is for being quick to take a hint that was meant as good advice. His advice had perhaps helped the matter; she had at any rate before leaving San Remo grown used to feeling ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... one is quite as extreme as the other," again declared the discoverer of this fact, feeling that his perspicacity had not ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... favorably disposed to Bonaparte. Any tale of distress from the Revolution was among this class always ended with this, 'but now, we are quiet, thanks to God and to Bonaparte.'"—Mallet-Dupan, with his accustomed perspicacity, ("Mercure Britainnique," Nos. for November 25 and December 10, 1799), at once comprehended the character and harmony of this last revolution. "The possible domination of the Jacobins chilled all ages ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... what they said to themselves as one adventure followed another now in the career of Billy Breckenbridge you who read these words can judge, if you be blessed with ordinary perspicacity. For many things took place and many months went by before he reached down along his lean right thigh toward the butt ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... society as it did of society two hundred years ago. It is one of the most unpleasant and yet interesting books ever published—unpleasant because of the malicious cunning which it often displays—interesting because of the frightful perspicacity of the author. The man who wrote that book understood the hearts of men, especially the bad side. He was a gentleman of high rank before he became a priest, and his instinctive shrewdness must have been hereditary. Religion, this man would have said, ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... Julien. He felt humiliated at Claudet's perspicacity; but he had too much pride and selfrespect to let his preferred rival know of his unfortunate passion. He waited a moment to swallow something in his throat that seemed to be choking him, and then, trying in vain to steady ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... understood now that Mrs. Toomey had accepted the loan hoping to carry water on both shoulders, and finding herself unable to do so, had eased herself of the burden which required the least courage. The perspicacity of years of experience seemed to come to Kate in a few minutes, so surely did she follow Mrs. Toomey's ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... a little at her terrifying perspicacity, and longed to ask: "And May—do they quote her?" But he judged it safer to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... "Your perspicacity is marvelous, Mr. Holmes," replied Harrigan. "My reputation having crossed the ocean, through the men who knew me on Broadway coming over to visit friends in London, the Earl heard of me, and cabled ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... count for more than patriotic or insular sentiment. And these were precisely the qualities in which the queen herself excelled, and which marked also the man whom from the first she distinguished with her father's perspicacity as her chief counsellor. ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... first interview the magistrate saw to the depths of Dinah's soul. This perspicacity in a man so much in love was a superhuman effort. He saw that Didine meant to be the journalist's guardian spirit and lead him into a nobler road; she had seen that the difficulties of his practical life were due to some moral defects. ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... one moment doubt their constancy. Alas! it required but little perspicacity on her part to perceive that the letters on either side must have been intercepted by the Le Noirs—father ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... events, and form at last the constants of human understanding. A character of the first order of greatness, such as seems to pass out of the limits and courses of ordinary life, often lies above the ken of intellectual judgment; but its merits and its infirmities never escape the sleepless perspicacity of the common sentiment, which no novelty of form can surprise, and no mixture of qualities can perplex. The mind—the logical faculty—comprehends a subject, when it can trace in it the same elements, or relations, which it is familiar with elsewhere; if it finds but ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... could stand, Warrigal stepped forward mincingly and fell to licking Finn's wounds, with strongly approving tenderness and assiduity. Her mate had fought valiantly and doughtily for Warrigal, and she was proud of him; proud, too, of her own perspicacity and allurements in having drawn him to herself. A savage creature was Warrigal and a brave and quite relentless enemy, the marks of whose fangs more than one fighting member of her race and more than one powerful kangaroo would carry always. But she was very feminine ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... comprehensive, penetrating thought. His descriptions are vivid; his characters are studied with a keen sagacity, and set before us in their most striking points of view; those of Egmont and Orange occur to every reader as a rare union of perspicacity and eloquence. The work has a look of order; of beauty joined to calm reposing force. Had it been completed, it might have ranked as the very best of Schiller's prose compositions. But no second volume ever came to light; and the ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... with his habitual perspicacity: "It is the widespread belief in the Great Spirit, whatever his precise nature and origin, that has long and deservedly drawn the attention of European thinkers to the native religions of the North American tribes". ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... a personage fully as important, a giant in power, whose words resound from one extremity of Europe to another, and whom the Choiseuls believe their own entirely." "It is M. de Voltaire," I said. "Exactly so: your perspicacity has made you guess it." "But what does he want with me?" "To be at peace with you; to range himself under your banner, secretly at first, but afterwards openly." "Is he then afraid openly to evince himself my friend?" I replied, in a tone of ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... published my diaries. I have written the first volume of my autobiography, encouraged by some of my friends—but no one has criticised my literary efforts with more perspicacity and insight than ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... her. Nor, on pursuing the subject, could I learn the Imperial reason. The artist Lo Cheng follows in his Master's footsteps, he also never having seen the favored lady, and he and she reply to me that this is an Imperial secret. Declare to me therefore if your perspicacity and the feminine interest which every lady property takes in the other can unravel this mystery, for my liver is tormented with anxiety ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... King was so pleased with my perspicacity that he offered to sell me a village for twenty pounds sterling. But I buy no villages in the Himalayas so long as one red head flares between the tail of the heaven-climbing glacier ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... and Comte for a time was inconsolable. Then his sorrow found surcease in an attempt to do for her in prose what Dante had done for Beatrice in poetry. But the vehicle of Comte's thoughts creaked. The exact language of science when applied to a woman becomes peculiarly non-piquant and lacking in perspicacity and perspicuity. No woman can be summed up in an algebraic formula, and when a mathematician does a problem to his lady's eyebrow, he forgets entirely that femininity forever equals x. Those who can write Sonnets from the Portuguese may place their loves on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... the awkwardness of his structure, he dissected with a singular perspicacity, the Avare, "the ordinary man," and "the passion of unhappiness," revealing meanwhile interesting comparisons which could be constructed between the operations ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... main merit of "The Shipwreck." It has in most of its descriptive passages a certain rugged strength and truth, which prove at once the perspicacity and the poetic vision of the author, who, while he sees all the minute details of his subject, sees also the glory of imagination shining around them. A ship appears before his view, with its every spar and yard, clear and distinct as if seen in meridian sunshine, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... from the Cafe de l'Echiquier, after treating the valet, he saw in the gate-way of the Lion d'Argent the lady and the young man in whom his perspicacity at once detected customers, for the lady with outstretched neck and anxious face was evidently looking for him. She was dressed in a black-silk gown that was dyed, a brown bonnet, an old French cashmere shawl, raw-silk stockings, and low shoes; and in her hand she carried a ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... democracy the general equality of pretensions, combined with the inequality of merits, creates considerable practical difficulty; some get out of it by making their prudence a muzzle on their frankness; others, by using kindness as a corrective of perspicacity. On the whole, kindness is safer than reserve; it inflicts no wound, and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to all appearances, a light performance, but it revealed a sense of style which made it, nevertheless, notable. No man had ever written the Norwegian language as this man wrote it. There was a lightness of touch, a perspicacity, an epigrammatic sparkle and occasional flashes of wit, which seemed altogether un-Norwegian. It was obvious that this author was familiar with the best French writers, and had acquired through them that clear and crisp incisiveness of utterance which was ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... Bubo for Lord Bacon; the half-witted underling Peter Flash for Sir Walter Raleigh; and the immaculate Celestina, who escapes by stratagem and force of virtue from the villanous designs of Shakespeare, for the lady long since indicated by the perspicacity of a Chalmers as the object of that lawless and desperate passion which found utterance in the sonnets of her unprincipled admirer—Queen Elizabeth. As a previous suggestion of my own, to the effect that George Peele was probably the real author of "Romeo and Juliet," has had the singular ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... two men. Wading and splashing, they soon reached it, and a gully where the surplus water was pouring into the valley below. "Fower feet o' water round her, but can't get any higher. So ye see she's all right for a month o' sich weather." Inwardly admiring the perspicacity of his companion, Jeff was about to open the coach door ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... for your hat," said the Greek scholar, "and another for your perspicacity. I suppose I shall find my hat on the road, but I cannot wait for that. The sun is ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... absolutely and ultimately the divinely aimed-at and established thing, is one which we find only in very early religions, such as that of the most primitive Jews. It is this natural religion (primitive still, in spite of the fact that poets and men of science whose good-will exceeds their perspicacity keep publishing it in new editions tuned to our contemporary ears) that, as I said a while ago, has suffered definitive bankruptcy in the opinion of a circle of persons, among whom I must count myself, and who are growing more numerous every day. For such persons the physical ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... and Latinity, Like honorificabilitudinity, Where is the maid could resist your vicinity, Wiled by the impudent grace of your plea? Then your vivacity and pertinacity Carry the day with the divil's audacity; No mere veracity robs your sagacity Of perspicacity, Barney McGee. When all is new to them, What will you do to them? Will you be true to them? Who shall decree? Here's a fair strife to you! Health and long life to you! And a great wife to you, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... from itself, and requires less repose. A knowl- 128:15 edge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher 128:18 realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... the governor's questions quite natural, and was waiting in much curiosity for the answer of Montignac, of whose perspicacity I was now beginning to lose my high opinion, when the inn-maid entered the kitchen, and the secretary repressed the reply already on his lips. She took from the spit a fowl that had been roasting, and brought it to our chamber. ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... he manifested, no doubt, something of the same defiance of authority, and the same self-willed preference for his own not too well-educated opinion, which brought him to grief in his encounter with Wallis. But when he had once left his starting points, his sureness of reasoning, his extreme perspicacity, and the unerring clearness and certainty with which he kept before him, and expressed exactly what he meant, made him at once one of the greatest thinkers and one of the greatest writers of England. Hobbes never "pays himself with words," never evades a difficulty by becoming obscure, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury |
