"Perspicuity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very important that the statute laws should be made as plain and intelligible as possible, and be reduced to as small a compass as may consist with the fullness and precision of the will of the Legislature and the perspicuity of its language. This well done would, I think, greatly facilitate the labors of those whose duty it is to assist in the administration of the laws, and would be a lasting benefit to the people, by placing before them in a more accessible and intelligible ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... the former idiom of language is best adapted to convey meaning to the interpreters of the chiefs of Africa, in whatever tongue it may be spoken; being that which they use in translation; and when they are addressed in this phraseology, they convey their ideas with more perspicuity and literal interpretation. But to return ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... synonymous, yet of slightly different signification, might be distinctly and easily referred. It is in regard to the finer shades of meaning, the subtler touches of expression, the application of words and phrases where the strictest exactness and perspicuity are required, that an ordinary English style is apt to become loose and shadowy; and it is precisely here that we are entitled to expect the severest, chastest form of utterance. Coleridge used to complain of a general confounding ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... attention of the section to a proposition of great magnitude and interest, illustrated by a vast number of models, and stated with much clearness and perspicuity in a treatise entitled "Practical Suggestions on the necessity of providing some harmless and wholesome relaxation for the young noblemen of England." His proposition was, that a space of ground of not less than ten miles in length and four in breadth should be ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... ones with artistic worth are vanishing from the open market into knowing dealers' or collectors' hands, or the museums have them, but with true Latin perspicuity, when the supply ceased to meet the demand, the great modern Italian potters turned out lovely reproductions, so lovely that they bring high prices in Italy as well as abroad, and are frequently offered to collectors when in Italy ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... necessary to be a good man in order to divine what in certain circumstances a good and pure spirit will do. The Bishop of Beauvais had entertained no doubt as to what would happen. He knew exactly, with a perspicuity creditable to his perceptions at least, that, notwithstanding the effect which his theatrical mise en scene had produced upon the imagination of Jeanne, no power in heaven or earth would induce that young soul to ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... garorum, &c., Vindobonae, 1775, in folio) and Stephen Katona, (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariae Stirpis Arpadianae, Paestini, 1778-1781, 5 vols. in octavo.) The first embraces a large and often conjectural space; the latter, by his learning, judgment, and perspicuity, deserves the name of a critical historian. * Note: Compare Engel Geschichte des Ungrischen Reichs und seiner Neben lander, Halle, 1797, and Mailath, Geschichte der Magyaren, Wien, 1828. In an appendix to the latter work ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... confusion increased, as regards scientific subjects, by the mass of memoirs written by parties, who, however acute their mental perceptions may be, yet, from want of early education, do not assign to words that accuracy of signification, and do not possess that perspicuity of style, which is absolutely necessary for the communication of ideas! Those, therefore, who, with different notions of language, read the writings of such as we are alluding to, either fail to attach to them ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... what drew everybody there. He saw this foreign merchant, whom a happy and engaging physiognomy, with a gracious address, announced in a very favourable manner. He heard him answer, with good breeding and perspicuity, the questions that were put to him, and saw him conduct his affairs with an openness which gained the confidence of all. He was desirous of having some conversation with him; but the fear of being discovered made him ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... been a little more elegantly expressed, but Waldo, as a rule, cared more for substance than form, and his speech possessed one merit, that of perspicuity. ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... the manuscript copy of an address pronounced lately before your society, by Dr. McAllister. The research on which it is founded, and its perspicuity and arrangement, entitle it to a form more permanent than manuscript. But if the results are true, which it attempts to substantiate, they present imperious considerations for ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... remedy the evil. "Every writer," he maintained, "should guard himself against the fastidiousness or stiffness which results from pedantry, and take great pains not only with the content of his thoughts, but with the language in which these thoughts are couched." Simplicity, perspicuity, and conciseness, these he taught by precept and example, and though he was accused of "Germanizing" the Hebrew language, he persisted in his labor until he attained the foremost rank among the ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... very young, I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing that venerable old man in his 90th year, and even then, the calmness, the force, the perspicuity of his sermon, sanctified and adorned by the wisdom of grey hairs, and the authority of virtue, had such an effect upon my mind, that I never see a hoary-headed clergyman, without thinking of Mr. Walker.... He allowed no dissenter or methodist to interfere in the instruction ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... case with very much warmth, and represented it in so lively a manner, that I see both his torment and tormentor with great perspicuity. This order of Platonic ladies are to be dealt with in a peculiar manner from all the rest of the sex. Flattery is the general way, and the way in this case; but it is not to be done grossly. Every ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... in the middle of May, in two volumes of five hundred pages each. It was brought out without parade or pretension, and was announced as for the use of schools and colleges; but, though a work written for bread, not fame, such is its ease, perspicuity, good sense, and the delightful simplicity of its style, that it was well received by the critics, commanded a prompt and extensive sale, and has ever since remained in the hands ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... subscribing to buy a flag, the United States having none before in Rome, and the ladies meeting to make it. The same distinguished individual, indeed, who at Florence made a speech to prevent "the American eagle being taken out on so trifling an occasion," with similar perspicuity and superiority of view, on the present occasion, was anxious to prevent "rash demonstrations, which might embroil the United States with Austria"; but the rash youth here present rushed on, ignorant how to value his Nestorian prudence,—fancying, hot-headed simpletons, that the cause of Freedom ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... indefensible notion he found himself more at a loss than he expected. Edward Burrough said not much to him upon it, though what he said was close and cogent; but James Naylor interposing, handled the subject with so much perspicuity and clear demonstration, that his reasoning seemed to be irresistible; and so I suppose my father found it, which made him willing to drop ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... copy Nature. But your Lordship will observe, that the transitions of the Poet who breaks from his subject to exhibit an historical detail whose connection with it is remote, or who is solicitous to display the fertility of a rich imagination at the expence of perspicuity, when it is not supposed that his passions are inflamed: you will observe, my Lord, that his digressions are by no means so excusable as those of the other, because obscurity in the latter may be an excellence, whereas in the former it is ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... no difficulty in conceiving how the planets might revolve round the sun by an analogous movement. The mind instantly grasped at an explanation of so palpable a character and which required for its development neither the exercise of patient thought nor the aid of mathematical skill. The talent and perspicuity with which the Cartesian system was expounded, and the show by which it was sustained, contributed powerfully to its adoption, while it derived a still higher sanction from the excellent character and the unaffected piety of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... of Demosthenes was fashioned by the reading of Thucydides, reproducing the daring, majestic, and impressive phraseology, yet without the overstrained brevity and involutions of that great historian,—and contriving to blend with it a perspicuity and grace not inferior to Lysias,—may be seen illustrated in the elaborate criticism of ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... edition of this work, and have availed myself of much information which has been communicated to me by my friends, for the improvement of the present volume. If I have succeeded in expressing that I had to explain with perspicuity, I am aware that much of this clearness is due to my friend, Dr Fitton, to whom both the present and the former edition are indebted for such an examination and correction, as an author himself has very rarely ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... friend, Major Beaufort distinguished himself by an harangue overflowing with gallantry and adorned throughout with amiable allusions to the greatest power of all, the power of Youth, Beauty, and Womanhood. The political perspicuity of the address was perhaps somewhat obscured by its being chivalrously pointed towards those fair beings who brighten our existence and lengthen our griefs. Without the Ladies, the speaker found, we ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... He merely stated the nature of the accusation against Lady Mason, and the issue which the jury were called upon to try. Then got up Sir Richard Leatherham, the solicitor-general, and at great length and with wonderful perspicuity explained all the circumstances of the case, beginning with the undoubted will left by Sir Joseph Mason, the will independently of the codicil, and coming down gradually to the discovery of that document in Mr. Dockwrath's ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... effort to be clear are often wordy, and those who aim at brevity often lack perspicuity. The latter applies to Abraham Ibn Ezra, who might have said with the poet, "I avoid long-windedness, and I become obscure." Samuel ben Meir, on the other hand, grandson and pupil of Rashi, is, at least in his Talmudic commentaries, so long-winded and ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... lack this perspicuity. It was visible in his big face to any student of physiognomy. He smiled with his mouth, but his eyes were grave—never ironical, never satirical, but always set in a stern, not unkindly expression. They were watchful yet tolerant—the ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... the previous conversation were recapitulated by Mr. Micklewham, with as much brevity as was consistent with perspicuity; and the matter being duly digested by Mr. Snodgrass, that orthodox young man—as Mrs. Glibbans denominated him, on hearing him for the first time—declared that the notion of a pay-christening was a benevolent and kind thought: "For, is not the order to increase and multiply ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... proposition his modesty at first induced him to reject; but, afterwards, his liberality, to comply with. He then observes that, "in the compilation of the catalogue, he has studied brevity as much as it was consistent with perspicuity; and that he was once desirous of stating the value and price of the books, but was dissuaded from it by the advice of the more experienced, and by the singular modesty of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Raymond felt uneasy at the relations he had established with the workers, and Mr. Best did not hesitate to warn him again and again that discipline was ill served by such easy terms between employer and employed; but his moments of perspicuity were rare, for now his mind and soul were poured into one thought and one only. He was riotously happy in his love affair and could not pretend to his fellow creatures anything he did not feel. Always amiable and ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of the latitude afforded by the terms of the resolution under which he acted, the secretary had introduced into his report an able and comprehensive argument elucidating and supporting the principles it contained. After displaying, with strength and perspicuity, the justice and the policy of an adequate provision for the public debt, he proceeded to discuss the principles on ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... so far as a cursory glance enables us to judge, are edited with great care. Their uniformity of plan is very superior to hastily compiled biographies. Each memoir contains the life and labours of its subject, in the smallest space consistent with perspicuity; the dryness of names, dates, and plain facts being admirably relieved by characteristic anecdotes of the party, and a brief but judicious summary of character by the editor. In the latter consists the original value of the work. The reader need not, however, take this summary ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... native of Wuertemberg and had served in the army of his own country and in that of France in most of the campaigns under Napoleon. He was a fine old veteran, and very intelligent, for he explained to us the nature of the works with great perspicuity. With true Suabian dignity he refused a five franc piece which I offered him as a slight remuneration for the trouble he had taken, and as he seemed, I thought, rather offended at the offer, I felt myself bound to apologize. From the number of workmen employed in ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... to another suitor. The father, though much under the sway of his spouse, is in his heart desirous to keep his engagement, and has called in the notary to draw the contract. At this moment the scene begins, the actors of which, for greater perspicuity and brevity, may be provided ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... only man on earth fit to cope with me. But the grating question, 'Was I fit to cope with him?' would now and then recur. I could not but feel that I had, in a certain manner, been subdued and cowed by his greater extent of knowledge, perspicuity, and masculine genius. By thoughts like these my anxiety, if not my ardour, was increased, and I began ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... errors in the diction and perspicuity, I will readily confess—but that it is in substance true, and contains much useful information, I must declare as an indisputable fact. And though the road I travelled was a new one, without compass, chart, or even star to ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... philosophy doubted whether the mind can ascertain absolute truth. While Zeno was indulging in such doubts, Euclid was preparing his great work, destined to challenge contradiction from the whole human race. After more than twenty-two centuries it still survives, a model of accuracy, perspicuity, and a standard of exact demonstration. This great geometer not only wrote on other mathematical topics, such as Conic Sections and Porisms, but there are imputed to him treatises on Harmonics and Optics, the latter subject being discussed ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my settled principle, that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not to be disturbed for the sake of elegance, perspicuity, or mere improvement of the sense. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgment of the first publishers, yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we who read it only by imagination. But it is evident ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... to exhibit to his readers, with the utmost impartiality and perspicuity, and as briefly as their nature will permit, the views, creeds, sentiments, or opinions, of all the religious sects or denominations in the world, so far as utility seemed to require such an exhibition; but more especially to give ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... belonged to Sherlock at the time of the Revolution. He was not of the first rank among his contemporaries as a scholar, as a preacher, as a writer on theology, or as a writer on politics: but in all the four characters he had distinguished himself. The perspicuity and liveliness of his style have been praised by Prior and Addison. The facility and assiduity with which he wrote are sufficiently proved by the bulk and the dates of his works. There were indeed among the clergy men of brighter genius and men of wider attainments: but during a long period ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... them. Without entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... who hoped to inherit what has fallen to her niece. Let your valorous magnificence be assured that there is no truth in it. Can you imagine that I, whose mission is known to you, should have looked on at such an audacity? I think your perspicuity will not require better proof of the powers with which I am intrusted than that ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... entitled. And now the prisoner having pleaded, the indictments read, and the jury armed with pen, ink, and paper, Mr. Allewinde, full of legal dignity and intellectual warmth, rises to his subject. We will not follow him through the whole of the long narrative which he, with great practised perspicuity, and in the clearest language, laid before the jury, for we already know the facts which he had to detail. He first of all described the death of Ussher; then stated that he could prove that the prisoner ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... the matter must have come from the imagination of Mr. Webster. Everything is so skillfully and vividly put that the story, touched with description, has all the effect of an argument. One quality of it is its clearness, its perspicuity. It is noticeable also that very little imagery is used, that the language is plain language. But it is impossible to read these paragraphs without being most profoundly impressed with their ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... the first prose work of Johnson, it is a curious object of inquiry how much may be traced in it of that style which marks his subsequent writings with such peculiar excellence; with so happy an union of force, vivacity, and perspicuity. I have perused the book with this view, and have found that here, as I believe in every other translation, there is in the work itself no vestige of the translator's own style; for the language of translation ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... perspicuity, Madeline thought, to see that Stillwell loved to talk, and the way he squared himself and spread his huge hands over his knees suggested that he meant to ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... right hand he held forth the ominous dispatches, and with his left he grasped firmly the waistband of his galligaskins, which had unfortunately given way in the exertion of descending from his horse. He stumped resolutely up to the governor, and, with more hurry than perspicuity, delivered his message. But, fortunately, his ill tidings came too late to ruffle the tranquillity of this most tranquil of rulers. His venerable Excellency had just breathed and smoked his last; his lungs and his ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... proceed to ascertain the Scripture doctrine in regard to the influence of the sacraments in general. For the sake of brevity and perspicuity, we shall present it in a concatenation of propositions, that in the end will cover the whole ground, and conduct us safely to ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... excellence. The rank and file of boys would not be aroused by it to overcome the difficulty and go up higher. But Benjamin was aroused, and he resolved that his composition should yet be characterized by elegance and perspicuity. He set about that improvement at once. We shall see, in another chapter, how he purchased an old copy of the Spectator for a model, and set about improving ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... devotions which only women's hearts know. It was William Dobbin's task to muse upon these movements of Amelia's, and to watch her heart; and if his love made him divine almost all the feelings which agitated it, alas! he could see with a fatal perspicuity that there was no place there for him. And so, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and content to ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... has split Titbull's into almost as many parties as there are dwellings in that precinct. The extremely complicated nature of the conflicting articles of belief on the subject prevents my stating them here with my usual perspicuity, but I think they have all branched off from the root-and-trunk question, Has Mrs. Saggers any right to stand her pail outside her dwelling? The question has been much refined upon, but roughly stated may be stated ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... vogue widely in France during the 12th and 13th centuries; many of the stories were of Oriental origin, but were infused with the French spirit of the times; La Fontaine, Boccaccio, and Chaucer drew freely on them; they are marked by all the vivacity and perspicuity, if also lubricity, of their modern successors in the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... for the wants of motorists, as did his predecessors for the traveller by posting-carriage or stage-coach. This particular landlord, though he looks like one of the old school, should be congratulated on a perspicuity which few of his confreres ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... Punch accepted as a latch-key, "to come and go as he liked"), disposed the paper a little more kindly towards the Emperor; but it was for the Franco-Prussian War to bring out the full strength and the true perspicuity of Punch's judgment. There was little fooling here. His warning was serious and solemn; he followed every act of the great drama with breathless interest and with unsurpassed power of apprehension and pictorial demonstration; and his sympathy for the misfortunes ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Harvard College manuscripts, as well as those in the manuscripts belonging to Mr. Frederickson of Brooklyn, are fully recorded. Professor Woodberry's text is conservative on the whole, but his revision of the punctuation is drastic, and occasionally sacrifices melody to perspicuity. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... term the dramatic proprieties that give to many of the Psalms, in the language of a recent commentator, "a greater degree of fitness, spirit, and grandeur"; and they impart to the history of David a certain decorousness of illustration and perspicuity of feature which it would not otherwise possess. They would produce upon it the same result as is achieved by the sister arts on this and other portions of the sacred volume, without marring the text or doing violence to truth. Not, let us repeat, that the Bible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... unlikely to be selected by Roman Catholics. This was none other than the famous Francois de la Noue, a Protestant leader not less remarkable for generalship than for literary ability, of whose "Political and Military Discourses," written during a later captivity, it has been said with justice that, in perspicuity, force, and good judgment, they are not inferior to the most celebrated commentaries of antiquity.[1267] La Noue was with Louis of Nassau in the city of Mons when the news of Admiral Coligny's murder, and of the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... condition. Yet this is not in itself sufficient to account for many positive misstatements. Either the editors used a very free hand in altering the rough manuscript, or—which is not in itself unlikely, and is borne out by other facts—Caesar's own prodigious memory and incomparable perspicuity became impaired in those five years of all but superhuman achievement, when, with the whole weight of the civilised world on his shoulders, feebly served by second-rate lieutenants and hampered at every turn by the open or passive opposition ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... century. John Bellini, Leonardo, Angelico, Durer, Perugino, Raphael,—all of them hated fog, and repudiated indignantly all manner of concealment. Clear, calm, placid, perpetual vision, far and near; endless perspicuity of space; unfatigued veracity of eternal light; perfectly accurate delineation of every leaf on the trees, every flower in the fields, every golden thread in the dresses of the figures, up to the highest point of calm brilliancy which was penetrable to the eye, or possible to the pencil,—these ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... me great facility in collating, digesting, and extracting complex documents, but I am not hasty in drawing inferences; the arrangement of the facts and arguments is always to me a considerable labor, and though aiming at nothing more than perspicuity and brevity, I am a ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... of acting where each should represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason that talk depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of man, can talk to some degree ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with a dissertation on luxury, in which the subject is treated with the depth and perspicuity that the extracts we have already made will have prepared our readers to anticipate. Luxury is a word of relative, and therefore of ambiguous signification; it may be the test of prosperity—it may be the harbinger of decay: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... certainly was; that taurus with head lowered, tail lashing the air, one hoof pawing savagely, worthy representative of all the horrors it typified, and which she explained with maddening perspicuity. That night, when papa tore himself away from the club room at one o'clock, and met mamma on the doorstep—just coming home from a supper at Delmonico's after an opera party—they were ascending the stairs, when frantic cries drove from her ears the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... me, and others more than he, with "not spoiling him;" but I often gave him praise merited by few, and which belonged to nobody so justly as to him; it was, that besides having infinite ability and of various kinds, the singular perspicuity of his mind was joined to so much exactness, that he would never have made a mistake in anything if he had allowed the first suggestions of his judgment. He oftentimes took this my eulogy as a reproach, and he was not always ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... did not seek to disturb her. In the first place, Mdlle. de Cardoville did not perceive the direction the coach was taking; secondly, the doctor was not sorry to ponder over what he had just heard. With his usual perspicuity, he saw that the Abbe d'Aigrigny was concerned in this inheritance, and he resolved instantly to make a secret report on the subject; either M. d'Aigrigny was acting under the instructions of the Order, or by his own impulse; in the one event, the report of the doctor would confirm ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... you give our poor little books is worth to them the sale of a hundred copies. I take the liberty to send you herewith a humble volume. You may, perhaps, find in it some over-crude tones, some raw shades; but do not forbear to exercise your critical perspicuity. I submit myself in advance to your reproaches and to your reservations; to be censured by you is even a piece of good fortune, as your reprimands themselves are adorned ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the King of England's eyes!" Upon Tyndale's version of the Bible the King James translation is solidly based. "It is astonishing," says Dr. Geddes, a profound scholar, "how little obsolete the language of it is, even at this day; and, in point of perspicuity and noble simplicity, propriety of idiom, and purity of style, no English version has yet surpassed it." Of course our language has changed ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... in Bunce's room. These two discussed religion and politics together, and their remarks on these subjects lacked neither vigour nor perspicuity. Ye gods! how they went to the root of things! Ackroyd had persevered in his pronounced Antinomianism; he did not take life as 'hard' as his companion, and consequently was not as sincere in his revolt, but he represented ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... himself in his cell to make sure of his ground and to elaborate what he would say. With eminent modesty and moderation his sentences were wrought, but with a perspicuity and clearness which no one could mistake. A crowded church awaited their delivery. He entered with his brother-monks, and joined in all the service with his usual voice and gravity. Nothing in his countenance or manner betrayed the slightest agitation of his soul. It was a solemn and ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... English force. There was nothing affected or modish in his manner. He gave his readers an impression that he was clear in the conception of his own meaning, and he made it equally so to them. He aimed at no ornament: the beauty of his writings consisted in their perspicuity and strength. A verbal critic might discover inaccuracies in his compositions, but the man of sense would find in them nothing unmeaning—- nothing useless—nothing vapid. He was not a turner of fine periods—he was not a fine writer—but he wrote with strength, precision, and lucidity; and his ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... put into the water sinks to the bottom, and that the other stays to swim on the top; and the matter being the same, and the two bodies differing in nothing but in figure, they affirm that with all perspicuity they have demonstrated and sensibly manifested what they undertook. Nevertheless, I believe, and think I can prove, that this very experiment proves nothing against my theory. And first, it is false that the ball sinks and the board ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... August 25, 1914, clearly indicated; it looked not to a defensive, but to an offensive movement, which was to be resumed as soon as circumstances appeared favorable. Much is made clear in these orders of General Joffre, which are characterized by perspicuity, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... return of post; and on the afternoon of the sixth of January, Frank Garrow drove over to the station at Penrith to meet him. On their way back to Thwaite Hall there grew up a very close confidence between the two future brothers-in-law, and Frank explained with great perspicuity a little plan which he had arranged himself. "As soon as it is dark, so that she won't see it, Harry will hang it up in the dining-room," he said, "and mind you go in there before you ...
— The Mistletoe Bough • Anthony Trollope
... Boniface Oinophilus de Monte Fiascone, A. B. C. author of the most inimitable (and non-pareil) treatise, Ebrietatis Encomium, to be left with that mirror of privative perspicuity, Signor Edemondo Curluccio, at the Bible and Dial, over against ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... first, we see there is left unto us that excellent history of his own wars, which he entitled only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding times have admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages and lively images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest propriety of words and perspicuity of narration that ever was; which that it was not the effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept, is well witnessed by that work of his entitled De Analogia, being a grammatical philosophy, wherein he did labour to make this same Vox ad placitum to become Vox ad licitum, and to ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... fortitude first of the cardinal virtues, as that without which no other virtue can steadily be practised; but he might, with equal propriety, have placed prudence and justice before it; since without prudence fortitude is mad; without justice, it is mischievous. As the end of method is perspicuity, that series is sufficiently regular that avoids obscurity; and where there is no obscurity, it will not ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... was by no means a proof of any remarkable perspicuity on M. Wilkie's part. As M. de Coralth never went to bed until two or three o'clock in the morning, he was by no means an early riser, and only some very powerful reason could explain the presence of his blue-lined brougham in the ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... thoughtful melancholy, the singular mixture of skepticism and credulity, and the brilliancy of imaginative illustration, give his essays a peculiarity of character that renders them exceedingly fascinating. The poet Cowley, in his prose writings, is distinguished for his undeviating simplicity and perspicuity, and for smoothness and ease, of which hardly another instance could be produced from any other book written before ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... hardly any European language into which they have not been translated; and, as if this were not sufficient to make them properly known, a translation of them has lately been made into Latin. It is not easy to say whether we are most pleased with the simplicity and perspicuity with which these letters are written, the modesty with which the author proposes every hypothesis of his own, or the noble frankness with which he relates his mistakes, when they were corrected by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... which is preparatory to induction (including names for the classes which we artificially construct in virtue of those properties). For, although a definition would often convey the meaning, both time and space are saved, perspicuity promoted, and the attention excited and concentrated, by giving a brief and compact name to each of the new general conceptions, as Dr. Whewell calls them, that is, the new results of abstraction. Thenceforward the name ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... your question to my mother more at large, and likewise more at small—with equal perspicuity and minuteness; for the very day of our leaving Southampton is fixed; and if the knowledge is of no use to Edward, I am sure it will give him pleasure. Easter Monday, April 3, is the day; we are to sleep that night at ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... a drowsy fit that seems to be stealing upon me. If I have not written with the perspicuity I always aim at, allow, Lucy, for the time of night; for spirits not high; and for the subject, that having its delicacies, as well as uncertainties, I am not able ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... father; but no endowment of wisdom in the reader will harmonize the genealogy of this romance. A birth-mark of a Stettin apple, which is visible only in autumn when that fruit is ripening, plays the part of Box's strawberry in the farce, and with as much perspicuity. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... said, a small bull-dog was as good as a large one. JOHNSON, 'No, Sir; for, in proportion to his size, he has strength: and your argument would prove, that a good bull-dog may be as small as a mouse.' It was amazing how he entered with perspicuity and keenness upon every thing that occurred in conversation. Most men, whom I know, would no more think of discussing a question about a bull-dog, than ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... always take a comprehensive view of his subject, but he seldom fails to take a clear view of it. The same turn of mind may be observed in the conversation of Frenchmen; even when their information is defective, they will very generally arrest attention by the apparent order and perspicuity of their thoughts; and they never seem to know what it is to be at ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... did to skill in writing, he would have been as successful in the one art as in the other. From early life it was his great ambition to be not merely a fine but a forcible writer. He did not seek splendor of diction, but that perspicuity, that transparency of expression which would convey the thought most ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... dis am not de way," said the negro in a very positive tone, "an' any one what has any perspicuity in his haid will tell ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... laws. The statutes should therefore, as far as practicable, not only be made accessible to all, but be expressed in language so plain and simple as to be understood by all and arranged in such method as to give perspicuity to every subject. Many of the States have revised their public acts with great and manifest benefit, and I recommend that provision be made by law for the appointment of a commission to revise the public statutes of the United States, arranging them in order, supplying deficiencies, correcting ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... is universally read, from the cabinet-council to the nursery. The politicians to a man agree, that it is free from particular reflections, but that the satire on general societies of men is too severe. Not but we now and then meet with people of greater perspicuity, who are in search for particular applications in every leaf; and it is highly probable we shall have keys published to give light into Gulliver's design. Lord —— is the person who least approves it, blaming it as a design of evil consequence to depreciate human nature, at ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... book on payment of two hundred pounds. The transaction turned out so well that Thomas Stevenson said, "I told you so," and Robert Louis saw the patent fact that hindsight, accident and fear sometimes serve us quite as well as insight and perspicacity, not to mention perspicuity. We aim for one target and hit the bull's-eye on another. We sail for a certain port, where, unknown to us, pirates lie in wait, and God sends His storms and drives us upon Treasure Island. There we load up with ingots; the high tide floats us, and we sail away for home with our unearned increment ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... suspension of the regular powers of Government rested solely with the people, "from whom," he added, "all the powers of Government originate." The language he held upon this occasion is remarkable not only from its constitutional soundness, but for the perspicuity with which it states the actual question in contest, stripped of all disguises and evasions. "To assert an inherent right in the Prince of Wales to assume the Government, is virtually to revive those exploded ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... the first George, he governed the kingdom by means of bad Latin: it is a matter of wonder that, under such disadvantages. the King should take pleasure in transacting business with him: a circumstance which was principally owing to the method and perspicuity of his calculations, and to the extreme facility with which he arranged and explained the most abstruse and difficult combinations ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... choirs of blessed Cherubim and Seraphim," he exclaimed. "I call upon them to suspend their singing for an instant, and to witness this. He sees that I patter of Miss Sandus. What perspicuity. And he just a mortal man, like anybody—nay, by all accounts, just a bluff country squire. Ah, what a noble understanding. Well, then, my dear Hawkshaw, since there's no concealing anything from you,—fine mouche, allez!—I own up. I patter ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... to attend a mass-meeting at Springfield, "of unconditional Union men." The letter answered many objections urged against the President on account of the conduct of the war, his Emancipation Proclamation, and his purpose to enlist colored men as soldiers. For perspicuity, terseness, plainness, and conclusiveness of argument this letter stands among the best of all President Lincoln's writings. It came at an opportune time, and it did much to silence the caviler, to satisfy ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... can the same Virtues be deduced into art, according to the end for which they were created? A thousand other like things might be instanced. Although you know not the Splendour in Angels, the Candour in the Heavens, the Perspicuity in the Air, Limpitude in Waters, the variety of Colours in Flowers, hardness of Metals and Stones, Proportion in Animals, the Image of GOD in regenerate Men, Faith in Believers, and Reason in the Soul; yet in them there is such a beauty, as hath been throughly beheld, and fully known ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... acquire strength, and inspire us with a suitable respect for our own national character. We have, therefore, the fairest opportunity of establishing a national language, and of giving it uniformity and perspicuity in North America, that ever presented ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... accommodation may have thrown around them, must require both parts and diligence; but it will bring with it no ordinary gratification. A book professedly on the 'History and Progress of Imitation in Poetry,' written by a man of perspicuity, an adept in the art of discerning likenesses, even when minute, with examples properly selected, and gradations duly marked, would make an impartial accession to the store of human literature, and furnish rational curiosity with a high regale." Let me premise that these ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... is somewhat pleonastic for the sake of perspicuity; the original is clear in itself, but not to us who have no such practice. Twelve stakes were fixt in the earth, each having a ring at the top; the order in which they stood was so exact, that an arrow sent with an even hand through the first ring, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... ruin'd more Nations than the Sword. He abounds in several frugal Maxims, amongst which the greatest Favourite is, 'A Penny saved is a Penny got.' A General Trader of good Sense is pleasanter Company than a general Scholar; and Sir ANDREW having a natural unaffected Eloquence, the Perspicuity of his Discourse gives the same Pleasure that Wit would in another Man. He has made his Fortunes himself; and says that England may be richer than other Kingdoms, by as plain Methods as he himself is richer than other Men; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... think, under the rather elaborate phraseology, both the perspicuity with which the father had estimated his son's talents and the strong sympathy which bound them together. The reference to Fitzjames's 'want of faith in himself' is significant. If want of faith is to be measured by want of courage in tackling the difficulties ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Goose had a more fluent use of his vernacular. He was not polished as Robinson, nor had he ever possessed the exquisite keenness of Crowdy. But in speaking he always hit the nail on the head, and carried his hearers with him by the energy and perspicuity of his argument. But by degrees the world of the Goose and Gridiron had learned that Buggins talked of things which he did not understand, and which he had not studied. His facts would not bear the light. Words fell from his mouth sweeter than honey; but sweet as they were they were ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... had issued the sixth of his twenty-seven decrees that this young Chinese statesman made this observation. If his most intimate advisers had had the perspicuity to have foreseen the final outcome of such precipitance might they not have advised the Emperor to have proceeded more deliberately? When one remembers how China had been worsted by Japan, how all her prestige was swept away, how, ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... closer touch with the springs of national life, national policy, and national action; as representative in Congress, and as intimate adviser of two consecutive Presidents, in his position as Secretary of the Treasury. His experience, the perspicuity of his intellect, and his lucidity of thought and expression, give particular value to his conclusions; the more so that to some extent they are the condemnation, regretfully uttered, of a scheme of political conduct ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... imagination and the reasoning powers, in which the perfection of the human intellect is regarded as consisting, the exact correspondence between the thought and the expression, "the free music of prosaic numbers in the most diversified forms of style," the calmness, and perspicuity, and order, even in the stormiest moments of inspiration, revealed in every department of Greek literature, were not a mere happy stroke of chance, but a product of unwearied effort—and effort too which ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... himself with Titanic intellectualities, but who is a readable dramatic critic.... Mr. Hale is a modest and sensible, as well as an acute and sound critic.... Most people will be surprised and delighted with Mr. Hale's simplicity, perspicuity ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the cleverest book on our list is "Twice Lost".... This is bold and skilful drawing, and it is a fair sample of the earlier half of the volume. The combined vigor, ease, and perspicuity of ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... is yet to come, the labour of interpreting these words and phrases with brevity, fulness, and perspicuity; a task of which the extent and intricacy is sufficiently shown by the miscarriage of those who have generally attempted it. This difficulty is increased by the necessity of explaining the words in the same ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... tournament, or the keenness with which they divine the merits of their respective knights. And if argument is the only remaining form in which that clash of arms of olden times is witnessed by them to-day, it is with no diminished interest or perspicuity that they register its results. Ordinary games hardly meet all the demands of the true joust; for, in the first place, they do not include to the same extent as argument, that formidable element in modern ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... not confront the world on a fresh issue with so light a heart, so careless a defiance, as I might have done twenty years ago. Allow me, then, through you, to say what I think of the woman's rights movement, its objects, incitements, and limitations. If I may thus attain perspicuity, I can bear ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... in a given figure. The special canon of the first figure—will of course be practically equivalent to the Dictum de Omni et Nullo. All of them will be expressed in terms of extension, for the sake of perspicuity. ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... that those grandees were not expected quite immediately. "I might go back to Greshamsbury for three or four days as she is not to be here," he said naively to his aunt, expressing, with tolerable perspicuity, his feeling, that he regarded his visit to Courcy Castle quite as a matter of business. But the countess would hear of no such arrangement. Now that she had got him, she was not going to let him fall back into the perils ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... repulsive, or else vague and incorrect;—frequently have both faults. But the child is here told "how plants grow" in a very pleasant manner, with neat and pretty pictures to illustrate the words, by one whose thorough knowledge and perspicuity of style prevent him from ever giving a wrong impression. The "Popular Flora" which is appended, contains a description of about one hundred families of the most common cultivated and wild plants, and of the most familiar genera and species ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... upon for a speech, and responded in his usually felicitous style. He is certainly an orator as well as a warrior. He speaks, too, as he fights, with dash and daring. What he has to say he says with such perspicuity that no one doubts his meaning. Frequently there are flashes of eloquence worthy of a Demosthenes. His voice and diction seem to be well-nigh faultless. His speech to-day elicited frequent outbursts of applause, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... which he at first presents as seemingly insurmountable, but which I cannot help thinking to be mainly of his own creation, and which he himself, almost immediately afterwards, suggests a mode, though a very inadequate mode, of overcoming. His language here is not marked by his usual perspicuity, or rather—to speak without respect of persons—it contradicts itself in most astounding fashion; but his meaning is not the less certainly the following, for there is no other construction which his ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... his genius leads him into the error of crowding together metaphors to the detriment of perspicuity. ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... many Athenian orators the most distinguished were Lys'ias, Isoc'rates, AEschines, and Demosthenes. The first was born about 435 B.C., and was admired for the perspicuity, purity, sweetness, and delicacy of his style. Having become a resident of Thurii in early life, on his return to Athens he was not allowed to speak in the assemblies, or courts of justice, and therefore wrote orations for others ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... now come to consider the different relations of action in reference to manner and time. We shall endeavor to be as brief as possible upon this subject, keeping in view meanwhile that candor and perspicuity which are indispensable in all our attempts to explain ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... advantageously and at the same time very justly of this work. "That great man (says he, speaking of Grotius[487]) has discovered in this work all the capacity, accuracy, judgment, solidity, industry, perspicuity, honesty, and integrity, of a true historian. His impartiality would almost make him pass for a foreigner, who had no interest in what he relates: he appears a Dutchman, only by his thorough knowledge of the causes, motives, ends, and other ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... they are so dependent upon each other, that it is almost impossible to have a complete idea of the one, without being acquainted with the others; or of treating of the one, without mentioning the others at the same time.—This, therefore, must be my excuse, if I am taxed with want of method, or of perspicuity in the descriptions; and this being premised, I shall proceed to give an account of the various objects and operations which yet ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... common-school books of the syllogistic logic, or to be capable of discovering for himself. The reader may, however, be referred, for every needful explanation, to Archbishop Whately's Elements of Logic, where he will find stated with philosophical precision, and explained with remarkable perspicuity, the whole of the common doctrine ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... several times over, it usually happened that one of the songsters who claimed to be gifted with more perspicuity than his comrades would remind them that he had seen the old squirrel wriggle under the lash of the song. And so their wretched days of starvation were often made shorter by a more or less harmless ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... now presents itself. A considerable part of the foregoing chapters had been related before, either by others or myself. I was however, unavoidably compelled to insert it, in order to preserve unbroken that chain of detail, and perspicuity of arrangement, at which books professing to convey ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... other hand, the great majority of mankind would be left without inducement to read, if they were not supplied, by publications of the kind proposed, with matter adapted to their circumstances, to their capacities, and their various turns of fancy; matter accessible to them by its conciseness and perspicuity, attractive by its variety and lightness, and useful by its easy adaptation to the familiar intercourse of life, and its fitness to enter into the conversation of rational society. Men whose time and labour are ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... To preserve Connection and perspicuity, the Reader will find some Facts and Remarks more than once mentioned. I hope that it will be excused, as it appeared to ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... the disturbance and inflammation of his mind, would be disposed to a similar communication. I shall interweave with Mr. Collins's story various information which I afterwards received from other quarters, that I may give all possible perspicuity to the series of events. To avoid confusion in my narrative, I shall drop the person of Collins, and assume to be myself the historian of our patron. To the reader it may appear at first sight as if this detail of the preceding life of Mr. Falkland were ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... Sallianna has declared that I am possessed of intrinsic perspicuity! I need nothing more. ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... be necessary for the sake of perspicuity to suppose the country divided into districts, agreeing as nearly as could be ascertained with the boundaries of the respectives tribes. In these districts a section or two of land, well supplied ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... examination proceeded without a hitch. For a minute or two, it is true, I fancied that Sebastian betrayed a certain suppressed agitation—a trifling lack of his accustomed perspicuity and his luminous exposition. But, after meandering for a while through a few vague sentences, he soon recovered his wonted calm; and as he went on with his demonstration, throwing himself eagerly into the case, his usual scientific enthusiasm came back to him undiminished. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... fairly be said that no one now living could have expounded Hume with more sympathy or with equal perspicuity."—Athenaeum. ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... him before the theft, he might be suspected of theft himself, and in this case a double conviction of the parties would ensue; that is, of him who did not take what he ought, and of him who had more than he was entitled to. This opinion, which is remarkable for its perspicuity and soundness, is to be found in the one hundred and second folio of Logerhedius, tome six ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice expression. He united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the greatest ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley watched her attentively—almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the tips of his fingers together, looked at her over this pointed rampart of polished nails as though she were ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... In that work he very roundly asserts, That he is not only now alive, but was likewise alive upon that very 29th of March, when I had foretold he should die. This is the subject of the present controversy between us; which I design to handle with all brevity, perspicuity, and calmness: In this dispute, I am sensible the eyes not only of England, but of all Europe, will be upon us; and the learned in every country will, I doubt not, take part on that side, where they find most ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... not often draw such long quotations as this, which I could not forbear to offer as a specimen of the propriety and perspicuity of this author's style. And, indeed, what a light breaketh out upon us all, as soon as we have read these words! How thoroughly are we instructed in the whole nature of government? What mighty truths are here discovered; and how clearly conveyed ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift |
