"Perspicuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much regrafted pain. These things are in my presage, and myself Am part of them and know not; but in dreams The gods are heavy on me, and all the fates Shed fire across my eyelids mixed with night, And burn me blind, and disilluminate My sense of seeing, and my perspicuous soul Darken with vision; seeing I see not, hear And hearing am not holpen, but mine eyes Stain many tender broideries in the bed Drawn up about my face that I may weep And the king wake not; and my brows and lips Tremble and sob in sleeping, like swift flames That tremble, ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... clock-case, covered with lead, which is a special ornament to this building." The prince's lodgings are described as a "freestone building, three stories high, with fourteen turrets covered with lead," being "a very graceful ornament to the whole house, and perspicuous to the county round about." A round tower is mentioned, called the "Canted Tower," with a staircase of one hundred and twenty-four steps. The chapel was ninety-six feet long and forty broad, with cathedral-seats and pews. Adjoining the prince's garden was an open gallery, two hundred feet ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... was a considerable collection by now and one in which he took great joy in lonely hours in his dingy little lodging room, or in odd moments as he went his way at his task as a reporter for a great New York daily. The perspicuous reader will not need to be told that the young man was in love ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... was what he shared most in common with the courtiers of the laity, there lurked a true ecclesiastic's mind. He would have made in later times an admirable Jesuit, and no doubt in his own time a very brilliant Pope. His objects in his present mission were clear and perspicuous; any breach between Warwick and the king must necessarily weaken his own position, and the power of his House was essential to all his views. The object of Gloucester in his intercession was less defined, but not less personal: in smoothing the way to his brother's marriage with Isabel, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... paying my tribute of respect to Mr. George Bentham, the most industrious, perspicuous, and philosophical Botanist who has systematically contributed to lessen the difficulties under which Indian Botanists ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... without being superfluous; dignified, yet not pompous or inflated. He appears intent only on conveying to others the result of his own inquiries and reflections on the most important topics, in as perspicuous a manner as possible; and the embellishments of diction come to him unbidden and unsought. His prolixity does not weary, nor his learning embarrass, the reader. If he had been more elaborate, he might have induced a suspicion of artifice; if he had been less so, ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... no book which furnishes such information and such illustrations in so compact and attractive a form. For greater excellence with the object in hand there is not one more perspicuous."—The Building News. ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... point, in order to let the prosecution assemble its powers at the wrong place. With a military eye he saw the strong and weak positions, and, like Rembrandt painting, he threw all his light on the right spot. The character of his argument was a perspicuous, easy, onward, accumulative, reasoning statement. He had but one gesture—to lift up his hand and bring it down on the place before him constantly. He discarded fancy or poetry in his arguments. William Wirt said of him, in a sentence ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... is intended to unfold the natural objects of female education. This is accomplished in a series of lectures written in a perspicuous, pleasing style, and treating of the various studies pursued in a well regulated school for young ladies. It is really and truly what it proposes to be, a guide in the intellectual education of woman, and will, we have no doubt, become a standard work in our ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... al-Mahfz," the Preserved Tablet, upon which are written all Allah's decrees and the actions of mankind good (white) and evil (black). This is the "perspicuous Book" of the Koran, chaps. vi. 59. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... opportunities for observation than Mr. Cheever. His abilities as a writer were illustrated by "The Whale and his Captors," published two or three years ago. The style of the present performance is not at all inferior, and it is especially commendable for a perspicuous compactness. So much misrepresentation of the Sandwich and other Islands has appeared lately, that we are glad of an opportunity to commend a book so authoritative and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... lies at its foundation, is, when rightly understood, perfectly consistent with the impartiality and glory of the goodness of God. On this subject we shall now proceed to unfold our views in as orderly and perspicuous a ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... told his story, sullenly, doggedly, but still in a perspicuous manner, and with words which admitted of no doubt. But before he told the story he had excluded all but himself and the groom. He and the groom had taken the horse out of the stable, it being the animal's nature to eat his corn better after slight exercise, and while doing so a nail had ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... judgment have not enriched our language, but incumbered it. I have also every where used an unabbreviated fullness of phrase as most suited to the nature of the work, and, above all, have studied perspicuity, not only because verse is good for little that wants it, but because HOMER is the most perspicuous of ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... spoke with his accustomed ability and dignity, and made a powerful appeal in behalf of the crown. Then Mr. Justice Fitzgerald proceeded to charge the jury, which he did in his own peculiarly calm, precise, and perspicuous style. At the outset, referring to the protest of the accused against the conduct of the crown in the jury challenges, he administered a keen rebuke to the government officials. It was, he said, no doubt the strict legal right of the ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... perfectly satisfactory. The author tells us in the preface that they comprise the results of all the study and research of modern European scholars, and embrace every thing which has been brought to light up to the present time. They are very copiously and clearly illustrated by neat and perspicuous engravings, which frequently do more than pages of description to give a distinct impression to the scholar's mind. The construction of Roman ships, the mode of a naval battle, the style of conducting a siege, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... that nothing beauteous could casually or fortuitously be formed, but that it was framed from the art of a great understanding that produced the world. That the world is very resplendent is made perspicuous from the figure, the color, the magnitude of it, and likewise from the wonderful variety of those stars which adorn this world. The world is spherical; the orbicular hath the pre-eminence above all other figures, for being round itself it hath ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... forks, and explained the problem in seamanship, which is not an easy one, in so short, scientific, and practical a way, that Captain Usher assured me he knew none but professional men, and very few of them, who could off-hand have given so perspicuous, seamanlike, and satisfactory solution of the question. Any board of officers would have inferred, from such an exposition, that the person making it had received a naval education, and was a practical seaman. Yet how different were the objects on which the mind of Napoleon must ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... hearers, besides a seemliness of speech and countenance[732]." Dr. Johnson's method of conversation was certainly calculated to excite attention, and to amuse and instruct, (as it happened,) without wearying or confusing his company. He was always most perfectly clear and perspicuous; and his language was so accurate, and his sentences so neatly constructed, that his conversation might have been all printed without any correction. At the same time, it was easy and natural; the accuracy of it had ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... know what can be said in support of this view of Ancient America must read the later volumes of Brasseur de Bourbourg, especially his "Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique," and his "Sources de l'Histoire Primitive du Mexique," etc. He is not a perspicuous writer; he uses but little system in treating the subject, and he introduces many fanciful speculations which do more to embarrass than to help the discussion; but those who read the books patiently can find and bring together all that relates to the point in question, ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... observance of which will aid in preventing the ill consequences resulting from the accidental loss of self-possession. The rule is, utter yourself very slowly and deliberately, with careful pauses. This is at all times a great aid to a clear and perspicuous statement. It is essential to the speaker, who would keep the command of himself and consequently of ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... I have a perspicuous mind wonder how I came during my boyhood and youth to put faith in creeds, the impossibility of which has since been so clearly revealed to me. Nothing, however, can be more simple, and it is very probable that if an extraneous incident ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... expression. He was a weazened, blank, pale-eyed little man, with a thin, white mist of neck whisker; his coat was so large for him that the sleeves were rolled up from his wrists with several turns, and, as he climbed painfully to the ground to open the gate of the lane, it needed no perspicuous eye to perceive that his trousers had been made for a much larger man, for, as his uncertain foot left the step of his vehicle, one baggy leg of the garment fell down over his foot, completely concealing his boot and hanging some ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... all your calumnies, and have but a word to add, that I may yet incline you to accept of your best interest, and prevent that dreadfull ruine which your obstinacy does threaten. Is it not as perspicuous as the Sun, that it lies in your power to reform his Counsell, introduce your selves, make what composition you can desire, have all the security that mortall men can imagine, and the greatest Princes of Europe to engage in the performance? This were ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... of nature in all compositions." This is among the first notices of that artificial style which has vitiated our native idiom, substituting for its purity an affected delicacy, and for its vigour profuse ornament. Henley observes that, "to be perspicuous, pure, elegant, copious, and harmonious, are the chief good qualities of writing the English tongue; they are attained by study and practice, and lost by the contrary: but imitation is to be avoided; they cannot be made our own ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the arguments which could convince a Nonconformist that it was his duty and his interest to prefer an alliance with the Church to an alliance with the Court were condensed into the smallest compass, arranged in the most perspicuous order, illustrated with lively wit, and enforced by an eloquence earnest indeed, yet never in its utmost vehemence transgressing the limits of exact good sense and good breeding. The effect of this paper was immense; for, as it was only a single sheet, more than twenty thousand ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the purpose of screening the newly made noble delinquent. Mr. Cobbett took up the discussion of these proceedings, with his accustomed zeal and ability; and his Weekly Political Register was universally read, not only in the metropolis, but all over the kingdom. His clear, perspicuous, and forcible reasoning upon this transaction, convinced every one who read the Register; he proved to demonstration that Mr. Pitt had been privy to and connived at his friend Lord Melville's delinquency, and it was ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... have only to observe, that though I have not, to my knowledge, omitted a single sentence of the original, I was obliged, in some places, to paraphrase my author, to render his meaning intelligible to a modern reader. My chief aim was to be clear and perspicuous: if I have succeeded in that, it is all I pretend to. I must leave it to abler pens to copy the Eloquence of Cicero. Mine is ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... familiar with all that had been written on the subjects under discussion; his originally acute and powerful intellect had been thoroughly trained and exercised to its highest degree of clearness and vigour; and to a natural, perspicuous, and flowing readiness of language, the warmth and earnestness of his heart added the energy and elevation which form the very essence of true eloquence. We have already referred to the high expectations which Baillie entertained of his future career. But high as these had been, they were far surpassed ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... 1776 Superintendent-General in Weimar) the philosophy of feeling gained a finer, more perspicuous and harmonious nature, who shared Lessing's interest in history and his tendency to hold fast equally to pantheism and to individualism. God is the all-one, infinite, spiritual (non-personal) primal ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... inculcated by other of the New Testament writers; and, finally, because Peter himself, in another part of this epistle, declares, in unequivocal terms, that the soul of Christ went and preached to the souls confined in the under world, for such is the perspicuous meaning of the famous text, "being put to death in the body, but kept alive in the soul, in which also he went and preached [went as a herald] to the spirits in prison." The meaning we have attributed to this celebrated ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... these intricacies of human nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few. But an epitaph is not a proud writing shut up for the studious: it is exposed to all—to the wise and the most ignorant; it is condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its story and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy, and indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired: the stooping old man cons the engraven record like a second horn-book;—the child is proud that he can read it;—and the stranger ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... inference, and, consequently, that the endeavour to investigate its truth has been the sole object of my research; under the persuasion that, if ideas were inadequate, words only remained to afford the solution of this important process. The necessary connexion of thought with the construction of a perspicuous sentence, has not, to my knowledge, been ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... Rome, and are thought, with much probability, to have belonged to the Aesculapian temple in the Insula Tiberina. The present translation, in which some errors either of the artist or copyist are rectified, is extracted from the first volume of Gruter's Corp. Inscriptionum. The narrations are perspicuous and laconic. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... varieties of this disease; it will be more perspicuous, however, for our purpose to speak of it under ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell; Besides, what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play, Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, Where he mistook a player for a king, For when he would have said, that Richard died, And call'd, a horse! a horse! he ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... fashion. The performance is not naturally calculated for general acceptance. It is, by the very tenor of the subject, interspersed with a thousand minute and elaborate investigations, which, in spite of perspicuous method, and classical allusion, will deter the idle, and ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... Superb, haughty Plenty Copious Pitch Bituminous Priest Sacerdotal Rival Emulous Root Radical Ring Annular Reason Rational Revenge Vindictive Rule Regular Speech Loquacious, garrulous, eloquent Smell Olfactory Sight Visual, optic, perspicuous, conspicuous Side Lateral, collateral Skin Cutaneous Spittle Salivial Shoulder Humeral Shepherd Pastoral Sea Marine, maritime Share Literal Sun Solar Star Astral, sideral, stellar Sunday Dominical Spring Vernal Summer Estival Seed Seminal Ship Naval, nautical Shell Testaceous Sleep ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... us, should never be taken where the beauties of nature are concerned, unless they can be cooked. There is another grave objection to the article; which consists in the undue frequency of Italian and French words and phrases, foisted into the narrative. We have a strong attachment to plain, perspicuous English. Ours is a noble language, a beautiful language; and we hold fully with SOUTHEY, who somewhere remarks that he can tolerate a Germanism, for family sake; but he adds: 'He who uses a Latin or a French phrase where a pure old English word does as well, ought to be hung, drawn and quartered, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... the language of an heroic poem should be both perspicuous and sublime. In proportion as either of these two qualities is wanting, the language is imperfect. Perspicuity is the first and most necessary qualification; insomuch that a good-natured reader sometimes overlooks a little slip even in the grammar ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... followed, any more than that round the shores of the Gulph of Carpentaria; nor does much remain to be said upon them, beyond what will be found in this Book II, and in the charts; and in speaking of the outer navigation, my remarks will be more perspicuous and useful if I accompany a ship from Port Jackson, through Torres' Strait; pointing out the courses to be steered, and the precautions to be taken for avoiding the dangers. It is supposed that the ship has a time keeper, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... vehicle, a part—and no small part—of our business is to practise it. Yes, I seriously propose to you that here in Cambridge we practise writing: that we practise it not only for our own improvement, but to make, or at least try to make, appropriate, perspicuous, accurate, persuasive writing a recognisable hall-mark of anything turned out by our English School. By all means let us study the great writers of the past for their own sakes; but let us study them for our guidance; that we, in our turn, having (it ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of a peculiar talent arise, one after another, according to the circumstances of the times, and accomplish it. One gives it flexibility, that is, shows how it can be used without difficulty to express adequately a variety of thoughts and feelings in their nicety or intricacy; another makes it perspicuous or forcible; a third adds to its vocabulary; and a fourth gives it grace and harmony. The style of each of such eminent masters becomes henceforth in some sort a property of the language itself; words, phrases, collocations, and ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... century afterwards, to put together, among several other books he wrote, a kind of Prose Synopsis of the whole Mythology; elucidated by new fragments of traditionary verse. A work constructed really with great ingenuity, native talent, what one might call unconscious art; altogether a perspicuous clear work, pleasant reading still: this is the Younger or Prose Edda. By these and the numerous other Sagas, mostly Icelandic, with the commentaries, Icelandic or not, which go on zealously in the North to this day, it is possible to gain some direct insight even yet; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... had capacity for teaching; with his education, had he been without resources, he would probably have chosen an academic career, and have done service in it. There was nothing deep in his style of narrative and criticism, and here depth was not wanted; sufficient that he was perspicuous and energetic. He loved the things of which he spoke, and he had the power of presenting to others his reason for loving them. Not one in five hundred men inexperienced in such work could have held the ears of the class as he did for the first ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... Parliamentary report ought to be—calm, perspicuous, and decided. There is no circumlocution nor ambiguity of expression here. After a patient investigation into the whole question, and a minute examination of enemies as well as friends, the Lords arrived at the opinion, that the existing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... speaker and orator Cicero succeeded in gaining a place beside Demosthenes. His strongest point is his style; there he is clear, concise and apt, perspicuous, elegant and brilliant. He commands all moods, from playful jest to tragic pathos, but is most successful in the imitation of conviction and feeling, to which he gave increased impression by his fiery delivery.' —Teuffel. Quintilian says of him that his eloquence combined the power ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... has suggested that at one time there existed two schools, one in sympathy With the Greeks, the other with the Hindus; and that, although the writings of the latter were first studied, they were rapidly discarded for the more perspicuous Grecian methods, so that, among the later Arabian writers, the Indian methods were practically forgotten and their mathematics became essentially Greek ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... voyage of adventure with a fleet of three ships, and after three years and nine months returned to England, his fleet reduced to one vessel, but with L500,000 of Spanish treasure on board. Anson's "Voyage Round the World" contains a highly interesting account of this, "written in brief, perspicuous terms," witnesses Carlyle, "a real poem in its kind, or romance all fact; one of the pleasantest little books in the world's library ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... composed in a simple, perspicuous style, without that ambition of rhetorical display too common with his countrymen. He writes with honest candor, and while he does ample justice to the merits and capacity of the conquered races, he notices with indignation the atrocities of the Spaniards and the demoralizing tendency of the Conquest. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... much higher order than general compilations. The introductions and inferences are pointed and judicious, and the facts themselves of the most interesting character, are narrated in a condensed but perspicuous style; while the slightest reference will prove that the best and latest authorities have been appreciated. Thus, in the History and Description of Fruits, the Transactions of the Horticultural Society are ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... systems, and of the relative importance and size of the heavenly bodies. By it we are afforded an opportunity of learning how accurate and precise a knowledge Milton possessed of both theories, and in what clear and perspicuous language he expresses his arguments in favour of or against the doctrines associated ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... doubt not but it will easily appear to men of judgment, that in this and other particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms. For hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking, by the order and perspicuous expressing of that I do propound, I am otherwise zealous and affectionate to recede as little from antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as may stand with truth and the proficience of knowledge. And herein I cannot a little marvel at the philosopher Aristotle, that did proceed in such ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... Sometimes when I found a new paper, I took a particular pleasure in reading a single number of the current novel; but I never could bear more than three instalments; and even the second was a disappointment. As soon as the tale became in any way perspicuous, it lost all merit in my eyes; only a single scene, or, as is the way with these feuilletons, half a scene, without antecedent or consequence, like a piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. The less I saw of the novel, ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... While in some cases the application of the parable which the Lord himself makes at the moment is full and perspicuous, it is in other cases like the parables themselves, and doubtless for good reasons, short, sententious, and partially veiled. In some cases the subjoined doctrine must be read in the light of the parable itself ere it can be understood. "Majus vero et certius ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... the Analytic and Synthetic Methods, in which the Principles of Arithmetic are explained in a perspicuous and familiar manner; containing also, practical systems of Mensuration, Gauging, Geometry, and Book-Keeping, forming a complete Mercantile Arithmetic, designed for Schools and Academies in the United States. By BENJAMIN GREENLEAF, A. M., Preceptor ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... secretarial and typographical arts, we suspend judgment on the author. "A Song of Cheer", by Alfred H. Pearce, is an optimistic ode of real merit. The last line furnishes a particularly pleasing example of sprightly wit. Mr. Gavin T. McColl is sensible and perspicuous in all his editorial utterances. His work in issuing one of the only two regular monthly magazines in amateurdom has already brought him to prominence, though his connexion with the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... themselves vaguely. They talk from the headquarters of one mind directly to the headquarters of another, instead of through a medium of cumbersome words which in our life are so often misunderstood. Thus we must admit that we have a ten-fold greater struggle than they to be perspicuous in language. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... a sentimental jury is commissioned to inform an awful Bench exact in perspicuous English, of a verdict that must of necessity be pronounced in favour of the hanging of the culprit, yet would fain attenuate the crime of a palpable villain by a recommendation to mercy, such foreman, standing in the attentive eye of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to have recommended to you the ancient and modern history of Millot. Natalie has some of the volumes—some are in the library at Mrs. D.'s, of which I hope you keep the key. Millot is concise, perspicuous, and well selected. Rollin is full of tedious details and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... general, that the people became suddenly inspired with this political sagacity, which made them in one day the judges and converts of a system they could scarcely have known before, even by name?—At the deposition of the King, the French, (speaking at large,) had as perspicuous a notion of republics, as they may be supposed to have of mathematics, and would have understood Euclid's Elements as well as the Social Contract. Yet an assemblage of the worst and most daring men from every ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... the compass, and that I could make him understand but little of. But, as it happened, there was seldom occasion for it, there being but little cloudy weather, and scarce any fog in those parts; the stars were always visible in the night, and the shore perspicuous by day, except in the rainy season, which confined every one to his habitation. Thus entered in the seven and twentieth year of my reign, or captivity, which you please, (the last three of which blessed with the company of my man Friday, ought not to be reckoned) I kept the anniversary of ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... to attempt any condensed, and at the same time perspicuous, sketch of the national religion of Ceylon—a difficulty which arises not merely from the voluminous obscurity of its sacred history and records; but still more from confusion in the variety of forms under which ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... fine style, but simple, perspicuous, and agreeable. We now come to "Cecilia," written during Miss Burney's intimacy with Johnson - and we leave it to our readers to judge whether the following passage was not at least corrected by ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... particularly fashionable in the nineteenth century. In order to render our details perspicuous and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the moderate price of fifteen sous, is sold a catalogue, which is not merely a barren index, but a perspicuous and satisfactory explanation of the different objects that strike the eye of the admiring spectator as he traverses the GALLERY OF ANTIQUES. It is by no means my intention to transcribe this catalogue, or to mention every statue; but, assisted by the valuable observations with which ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... whose mind was quite as firmly toned at eighty as at forty. But that Schomberg's intellectual powers had been little impaired by years is sufficiently proved by his despatches, which are still extant, and which are models of official writing, terse, perspicuous, full of important facts and weighty reasons, compressed into the smallest possible number of words. In those despatches he sometimes alluded, not angrily, but with calm disdain, to the censures thrown upon his conduct by shallow babblers, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... most philosophical precision, logical sequence, and language the most perspicuous ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... of the world. Giving proof that real Captains, taciturn Sons of Anak, are still born in England; and Sea-kings, equal to any that were. Luckily, too, he had some chaplain or ship's-surgeon on board, who saw good to write account of that memorable VOYAGE of his; and did it, in brief, perspicuous terms, wise and credible: a real Poem in its kind, or Romance all Fact; one of the pleasantest little Books in the World's Library at this date. Anson sheds some tincture of heroic beauty over that otherwise ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... "Newly budded" is off the venue; and haven't you gone ahead to make a poetry daybreak instead of sticking to your muttons, and comparing with the mysterious light of stars the plain, friendly, perspicuous, human day? But this is to be a beast. The little poem is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... none; whereas the Epicureans, who denied it, lived as if there were.... The next sect to the Epicureans, in point of incredulity, concerning the soul, 1 conceive to be the Sceptics, who were by some esteemed, not only the modestest, but the most perspicuous of all sects. They neither affirmed nor denied anything, but doubted of all things. They thought all our knowledge seemed rather like truth, than to be really true, and that for such ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... well adapted to the taste and capacity of children. The Latinity of Phaedrus is not exempt from an alloy of the silver age; but his manner is concise, terse, and sententious; the Thracian slave discreetly breathes the spirit of a freeman; and when the text is found, the style is perspicuous. But his fables, after a long oblivion, were first published by Peter Pithou, from a corrupt manuscript. The labours of fifty editors confess the defects of the copy, as well as the value of the original; and ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... is disliked; the cry is all against it; some of the lines are pretty, but it is not perspicuous enough, and is deficient in ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... left, not decreed, to perdition. The hypothesis of Dr. Williams is already exploded. It was examined and refuted by the Rev. William Parry, of Wymondly, in a piece entitled "Strictures on the Origin of Moral Evil." For reasoning, acute, profound, and perspicuous, both metaphysical and moral, this work has seldom been surpassed. And the devout and courteous spirit in which it is written, presents an example, beautiful ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... from the Baptist Register of 1842, exhibits the statistics of the Regular or Associated Baptists in a perspicuous light:— ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... this article, it will be necessary to state the different descriptions that compose the inhabitants; to do which in a perspicuous form the following ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... immorality of certain passages in the works of Tatius, and would scarcely have omitted to inveigh against the further scandal of their having proceeded from the pen of an ecclesiastic. "In style and composition this work is of high excellence; the periods are generally well rounded and perspicuous, and gratify the ear by their harmony ... but, except in the names of the personages, and the unpardonable breaches of decorum of which he is guilty, the author appears to have closely copied Heliodorus both in the plan and execution of his narrative." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... matter I can easily furnish, and fear not to prevent anything unseamanlike from entering into the composition; but to round a period well and arrange sentences so as to place what is meant in the most perspicuous point of view is too much for me. Seamanship and authorship make too great an angle with each other; the further a man advances upon one line the further distant he becomes from ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... himself a pretty good orator, eloquence depending upon observation and care. Every man, if he pleases, may choose good words instead of bad ones, may speak properly instead of improperly, may be clear and perspicuous in his recitals instead of dark and muddy, may have grace instead of awkwardness in his motions and gestures, and, in short, may be a very agreeable instead of a very disagreeable speaker if he will take care and pains. And surely it is very well worth while to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... 13 chapters are not only the staple and base of all military men's training, but also compel the most careful attention of scholars and men of letters. His sayings are terse yet elegant, simple yet profound, perspicuous and eminently practical. Such works as the LUN YU, the I CHING and the great Commentary, [57] as well as the writings of Mencius, Hsun K'uang and Yang Chu, all fall below ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... strict guard over them, and punishing them severely who shall be detected in attempting to join our opposers, this will only be making bad worse, and serve to render our inconsistence, oppression and cruelty more criminal, perspicuous and shocking, and bring down the righteous vengeance of heaven on our heads. The only way pointed out to prevent this threatening evil, is to set the blacks at liberty ourselves by some public acts and laws, and then give them proper encouragement to labor, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Edinburgh, Gibbon wrote from London to Adam Ferguson and said among other things, "What an excellent work is that with which our common friend Mr. Adam Smith has enriched the public! An extensive science in a single book, and the most profound ideas expressed in the most perspicuous language. He proposes visiting you very soon, and I find he means to exert his most strenuous endeavours to persuade Mr. Hume to return with him to town. I am sorry to hear that the health and spirits of that truly great man are in a ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... and internally fiery King of Philosophers, coming forth from his Glassy Sepulchre, in an external fiery Body glorified, more then perfect with all the Colours in the world, as a shining Carbuncle, or perspicuous, compact and ponderous Crystal, a Salamander Spewing out Waters, and by the benefit thereof in the Fire washing Leprous Metals, as I my self have seen. What? How shall they see the Abyss of the Spagyrick Art? when as this Royal Art hath ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... possible. Call upon any man, who has read and reflected, for a definition of virtue, the whole "theory of moral sentiments" rises, perhaps, to his view at once, in all its elegance; the paradoxical acumen of Mandeville, the perspicuous reasoning of Hume, the accurate metaphysics of Condillac, the persuasive eloquence of Stewart; all the various doctrines that have been supported concerning the foundation of morals, such as the fitness of things, the moral sense, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... is that of Joh. Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2 vols. in fol.;) but they deserved and required such an editor as the Marquis Scipio Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona. The Barbara Eleganza (as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi) is never simple, and seldom perspicuous] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... replied the archer, displeased at Bertram's interference, "believe me, that armies have ere now depended on my report to the general, which has always been perspicuous and clear, according to the duties of war. Your walk, my worthy friend, has been in a separate department, such as affairs of peace, old songs, prophecies, and the like, in which it is far from my thoughts to contend ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Hull was venerable and prepossessing. Beneath snowy locks, of nearly sixty winters' bleaching, he exhibited a countenance as fresh and blooming as a youth of eighteen. His eloquence was perspicuous and graceful."—American History. ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Xenophon, the simplest and most perspicuous of Historians, has borrowed many noble images from Homer; and Plato is often indebted to this Poet, whom yet he banished from his Commonwealth. Cicero in his most serious pieces studies the diction, and copies the manner ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... repeated and verified his experiments again and again, probably anticipating the opposition he would have to encounter from the profession on making known his discovery. The tract in which he at length announced his views, was a most modest one,—but simple, perspicuous, and conclusive. It was nevertheless received with ridicule, as the utterance of a crack-brained impostor. For some time, he did not make a single convert, and gained nothing but contumely and abuse. He ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... themselves on a level with the capacity of every man of good sense, and which only appeared to be abstruse from the unprofitable subtleties with which they were loaded, and the barbarous jargon in which they were expressed. The deepest doctrines of morality have since that time been treated in the perspicuous and popular style, and with some degree of the beauty and eloquence of the ancient moralists. That philosophy on which are founded the principles of our duty, if it has not become more certain (for morality admits no discoveries), is at least less "harsh and crabbed," less ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... said, not probabilities. Yet even the faint glimmer of so alluring a possibility brings home to one with vividness the truth of Humboldt's perspicuous observation that meteorology can be properly comprehended only when studied in connection with the companion sciences. There are no isolated ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... brought out his Preceptor, one of the most valuable books for the improvement of young minds that has appeared in any language; and to this meritorious work Johnson furnished 'The Preface,'[*] containing a general sketch of the book, with a short and perspicuous recommendation of each article; as also, 'The Vision of Theodore the Hermit, found in his Cell,'[*] a most beautiful allegory of human life, under the figure of ascending the mountain of Existence. The Bishop of Dromore heard Dr. Johnson say, that he thought ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... keenly, and above all so boldly stated, and backed by such shrewd arguments and such apposite illustrations, that it is difficult not to yield to his common-sense view of the question he is discussing. His plain and perspicuous style is often elegant. He may sometimes be coarse and rude, but it is in the thought rather than in the expression. It is true, that, in the heat of conflict, he is apt to lose his temper and break out into the bitter violence of his French associates; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... When delivered into my hands, I transmitted him a decypher, and a translation immediately. The following is my translation, which, in that gentleman's account of Ashantee, is coupled with another translation, not perspicuous, but unintelligible; for which see Bowdich's "Account of a Mission ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... a brilliant review of Mr. Leslie Stephen's work in Macmillan's Magazine, February 1877, Mr. James Cotter Morison remarks on the Deists' view that natural religion must be always alike plain and perspicuous, 'against this convenient opinion the only objection was that it contradicted the total experience ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... persisto—ado. Persistent persista. Persistency persisteco. Person persono. Personage persono. Personal persona. Personality personeco. Personate reprezenti. Personate personigxi, imiti. Personification personigxo. Perspective perspektivo. Perspicuous sagaca. Perspicacity sagaceco. Perspiration sxvito. Perspire sxviti. Persuade konvinki. Persuasive konvinka. Pert malrespekta. Pertinacious trudpeta. Pertinacity obstineco, persisteco. Perturb konfuzi, turmenteti. Perturbation ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... and perspicuous style in which Mr. Hitchcock tells these stories of unhappy loves is not less admirable than the learning and the extensive reading and investigation which have enabled him to gather the facts presented in a manner so engaging. ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... ideas in this country as to the true origin of the odor now under discussion. Cassie, casse, cassia, it will be understood now, are three distinct substances; and in order to render the matter more perspicuous in future, the materials will always be denominated ACACIA, if prepared from the Acacia Farnesiana; CASSE, when from black currant; and CASSIA, if derived from the bark of the ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... first part, consisting most in general characters and narration, I have endeavoured to raise, and give it the majestic turn of heroic poesy. The second being matter of dispute, and chiefly concerning Church authority, I was obliged to make as plain and perspicuous as possibly I could; yet not wholly neglecting the numbers, though I had not frequent occasions for the magnificence of verse. The third, which has more of the nature of domestic conversation, is, or ought to be, more free and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... native manufacture of stiff and laborious verbosity, these foreigners have contented themselves with the plainest and most colloquial language that was consistent with a clear exposition of their meaning;—a practice to which Swift was indebted for the lucid and perspicuous character of his writings, and which alone has enabled a great living purveyor of "twopenny trash" to retain a certain portion of popularity, in spite of his utter abandonment of all consistency and public principle. If the writers to whom we are alluding will not condescend ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... islands, contended recently at cricket. Since then they are at war. Sounds of battle are heard to roll along the coast. A woman saw a man swim from the high seas and plunge direct into the bush; he was no man of that neighbourhood; and it was known he was one of the gods, speeding to a council. Most perspicuous of all, a missionary on Savaii, who is also a medical man, was disturbed late in the night by knocking; it was no hour for the dispensary, but at length he woke his servant and sent him to inquire; the servant, looking from a window, beheld ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the living body, to those who are supposed to be unacquainted with the usual preliminary and collateral branches of knowledge. It must be obvious to every one, that it can be by no means an easy task to give in a few lectures, a perspicuous view of so extensive a subject; but I trust that the consideration of this difficulty will readily extend to me ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... rendering attractive the various branches of Agricultural science. Indeed we know no author who has so successfully blended the romantic, the rural and beautiful with the poetical, the useful, and true, as has Dr. Blake. This is a peculiar feature of all his works. His style is plain, simple, and perspicuous; and, with unusual tact and judgment, he so manages to insinuate himself upon you, that you are at once amused, delighted, and instructed with the subject he is discussing. In this respect he relieves the study of agricultural ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... wishes to form to himself clear, perspicuous ideas of his soul, let him throw himself back on his experience—let him renounce his prejudices—let him avoid theological conjecture—let him tear the bandages which he has been taught to think necessary, but with which he has been blind-folded, only to confound his reason. If it be ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... enigmatical and notorious, a somewhat scandalous heroine! And Cristich had known her; he had, as he declared, and his accent was not that of bragadoccio, invented her. The conjuncture puzzled and fascinated me. It did not make Cristich less interesting, nor the prima-donna more perspicuous. ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... style as peculiarly suited to the Latin language, which, being scanty and unmusical, requires more redundancy than the Greek. The simplicity of the Attic writers would make Latin composition bold and tame. To be perspicuous, the Latin must be full. Thus Arnold thinks that what Tacitus gained in energy he lost in elegance and perspicuity. But Cicero, dealing with a barren and unphilosophical language, enriched it with circumlocutions and metaphors, while he formed ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... subject is a very deep one, his style is so very unaffected and perspicuous that even the unscientific reader can peruse it with intelligence and profit. In reading such a book we are led almost to wonder that so much that is scientific can be put in language so comparatively simple."—New ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... the case of the positive seer, but are actual visions of facts just as they have happened, or will transpire in the future. Of the two orders, the passive is the more serviceable because the more perspicuous, but it has the disadvantage of being largely under the control of external influences, and hence is frequently ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... years, transported behind the house—then was the broken wheelbarrow, or unserviceable cart, removed out of the footpath—the old hat, or blue petticoat, taken from the window into which it had been stuffed, to "expel the winter's flaw," was consigned to the gutter, and its place supplied by good perspicuous glass. The means by which such reformation was effected, were the same as resorted to in the Manse—money and admonition. The latter given alone would have met little attention—perhaps would have provoked opposition—but, softened and sweetened by a little present to assist the reform recommended, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... degree skilled in the subject of which it treats. Some parts of the original of the following treatise, it must be acknowledged, are so confused, and some so minute, that it is extremely difficult to give an exact interpretation. But the general tenor, though not elegant, is plain and perspicuous; and such ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... forgot it. This was Langer, afterwards librarian at Wolfenbuettel. Eminently learned and instructed, he was delighted at my voracious hunger after knowledge, which, with the irritability of sickness, now broke out into a perfect fever. He tried to calm me by perspicuous summaries; and I have been very much indebted to his acquaintance, short as it was, since he understood how to guide me in various ways, and made me attentive whither I had to direct myself at the present moment. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... brochure exhibits, without pedantry, perspicuous arrangement and the "geometrical" precision on which Fontenelle remarked as one of the notes of the new epoch introduced by Descartes. It displays too the author's open-mindedness, and his readiness to follow where the argument ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... blankets, petticoats, or whatever else might come in use for a shelter, on these occasions. Of course, as everybody knows, when the bodily eyes are thus out of the lists, the spiritual eyes are uncommonly vivacious and perspicuous; and, therefore, there were abundance of full-length portraits of the ghost, abundantly sworn and testified to, which, as if often the case with portraits, agreed with each other in no particular, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... be perspicuous—and the black, I say, unlocking the recess, pulled forth A quantity of clothes fit for the back Of any Mussulman, whate'er his worth: And of variety there was no lack— And yet, though I have said there was no dearth,— He chose himself ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... was scarcely a virtue; so great was the indifference with which be submitted to every kind of self-denial. The qualities of his mind were of the same hardy, vigorous kind with those of his body. His understanding was strong and perspicuous. His judgment, in whatever related to the services he was engaged in, quick and sure. His designs were bold and manly; and both in the conception, and in the mode of execution, bore evident marks of a great original genius. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... was remarkable for its straightforward and perspicuous simplicity, and, especially after the time of Alfred, it had a marked preference over the Latin. Translations were early made from the Latin, particularly versions of parts of the Scriptures, which come next, in point of date, to the Moeso-Gothic translation of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... of his chains unregarded, Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded. Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story, And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory Embroidered with names of the Djinns—a miraculous weaving— But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving. So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture— Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture— Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed. But on him be the Peace and the Blessing; ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... Review, p. 141. "Mr. Thomson's place of secretary of the briefs fell under the cognizance of this commission; and he was summoned to attend it, which he accordingly did, and made a speech, explaining the nature, duty, and income of his place, in terms that, though very concise, were so perspicuous and elegant, that lord chancellor Talbot, who was present, publicly said he preferred that single speech to the best of his poetical compositions." The above praise is precisely such as we might anticipate that an old lawyer would give, but it, at all events, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... proceeded to read from the letters of each, with the design of showing that John's writing was more perspicuous, and that there was more method in his argument. Nor was it a very ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... of expression. His brain had become a teeming cornucopia, whence flowed in exhaustless profusion the most beautiful flowers and the most substantial fruits; and yet he never indulged in excessive ornamentation. His taste was almost austerely chaste. His style was perspicuous, energetic, concise, and withal highly elegant. He never loaded his sentences with meretricious finery, or high-sounding, supernumerary words. When he did use the jewelry of rhetoric, he would quietly set a metaphor in his page ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... bones. Then there's another thing. Scott never knew the Highlands; he was always a Borderer. He has missed that whole, long, strange, pathetic story of our savages, and, besides, his style is not very perspicuous to childhood. Gad, I think I'll have a flutter. Buridan's Ass! Whether to go, what to attack. Must go to other letters; shall add to this, if I ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Nepos is pure, his style perspicuous, and he holds a middle and agreeable course between diffuseness and brevity. He has not observed the same rule with respect to the treatment of every subject; for the account of some of the lives is so short, that we might suspect them to be ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... been called the Saxon of the goodly company of the Apostles. It is in many ways a happy description. We associate the term with thought, rugged, perspicuous, easily grasped, and expressed in the shortest and most readily understood words. St. Peter, in a reference to the letters of his "beloved brother Paul," warns the reader of these letters that there are things in them hard to be understood, which the ignorant ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... left 6. Like the little girl that Wordsworth met, he persisted "it was seven." Despairing at last, she remanded the class to their seats. Anxious to facilitate the progress of her pupils, Mary spared no pains to make perspicuous what to them appeared obscure. The little savages could not, or would net understand that the earth was like a ball, and not only turned upon its own axis, but made the entire circumference of the sun. A pair of globes could not be procured, and she taxed her ingenuity for a substitute. Selecting ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... Lyon Mackenzie, who gives a wavering adherence to every party in succession, and is often indignantly disavowed by all. The Liberals of Upper Canada are ably led by Mr. George Brown, who excels in a highly lucid, powerful, and perspicuous course of reasoning, which cannot fail to produce ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... mother, like Aesop's ape, hug her child to death, a [379] wittol wink at his wife's honesty, and too perspicuous in all other affairs; one stumble at a straw, and leap over a block; rob Peter, and pay Paul; scrape unjust sums with one hand, purchase great manors by corruption, fraud and cozenage, and liberally ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... severity, keeping a strict guard over them, and punishing them severely who shall be detected in attempting to join our opposers, this will only be making bad worse, and serve to render our inconsistence, oppression, and cruelty more criminal, perspicuous, and shocking, and bring down the righteous vengeance of Heaven on our heads. The only way pointed out to prevent this threatening evil is to set the blacks at liberty ourselves by some public acts and laws, and then give them ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... tenements; and, fortuitously, one of its rooms is used as a school for young children. It is grateful to know this, even were it only for associating the appropriation of this apartment with the master-mind of Locke, as developed in his "Thoughts on Education," and his perspicuous "Essay ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... skill in the makers of the law, that statutes often give occasion to the most perplexing and distressing doubts and discussions, arising from the ambiguity that attends them. It requires great experience, as well as the command of a perspicuous diction, to frame a law in such clear and precise terms, as to secure it from ambiguous expressions, and from all doubts and criticisms upon its ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... very word for chief, tlatoani, literally means "orator" (from the verb tlatoa, to harangue). In the far south, among the Araucanians of Chili, and their relatives the migratory hordes of the Pampas, no gift is in higher estimation than that of an easy and perspicuous delivery. This alone enables the humblest to rise to the position of chieftain.[61] So it was over ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... he may, or may not, perceive the resemblance suggested; but the rest of the indentures afford strong confirmation of Peters' idea. The upper range is evidently the Arabic verbal root "To be white," whence all the inflections of brilliancy and whiteness. The lower range is not so immediately perspicuous. The characters are somewhat broken and disjointed; nevertheless, it can not be doubted that, in their perfect state, they formed the full Egyptian word. "The region of the south.' It should be observed that these interpretations confirm ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Committee of Ways and Means of the session 1790-91 was entirely prepared by me, known to be so, and laid the foundation of my reputation. I was quite astonished at the general encomiums bestowed upon it, and was not at all aware that I had done so well. It was perspicuous and comprehensive; but I am confident that its true merit, and that which gained me the general confidence, was its being founded in strict justice, without the slightest regard to party feelings or popular prejudices. The principles ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... his honourable friend Mr. Wilberforce for having at length introduced this great and important subject to the consideration of the house. He thanked him also for the perspicuous, forcible, and masterly manner, in which he had treated it. He was sure that no argument, compatible with any idea of justice, could be assigned for the continuation of the Slave-trade. And, at the same time that ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... will become of this poor New-England after all? Shall we sink, expire, perish, before the short time of the Devil shall be finished? I must confess, That when I consider the lamentable Unfruitfulness of men, among us, under as powerful and perspicuous Dispensations of the Gospel, as are in the World; and when I consider the declining state of the Power of Godliness in our Churches, with the most horrible Indisposition that perhaps ever was, to recover out of this declension; ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... to her," quoth the old man, with a sudden spasm of resentment. "Tom 'ud never play such a thrick—I mane it wasn't he invinted the joke; he doesn't throuble himself wid much jokin'; he's too sinsible, and steady, and perspicuous, and oncommon set on me and the child, all the while. There's no better son in Ireland. Och, but the rest of them mane no harm wid it; they're just schemin' to dhrop in prisintly and be risin' ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... in a Country Churchyard, by many held the noblest English lyric, appeared in 1751. His classical ideal of style, according to which poetry should have, in his words, "extreme conciseness of expression," yet be "pure, perspicuous, and musical," was realized both in the Elegy and in the otherwise very different Pindaric Odes. The ethical and religious implications of the Elegy, its piety, its sense of the frailties as well as the merits of mankind, are conservative. Nor is there in the Pindaric Odes any ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... however, dissents from this popular notion, and with much confidence and plausibility broaches a new theory of his own. His style is always forcible, and so perspicuous that he cannot be misunderstood. In his "Dissertation on the Prophecies," he lays down the following canon or rule for expositors:—"Before a commentator can reasonably expect his own system to be adopted by others, he must show likewise that the expositions ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... Creed, and the Ten Commandments, &c. are the offspring of a clear and powerful intellect, expressed in language remarkably perspicuous and elegant. ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... conspirators; for with so much secrecy had the arrangements of the Consul been made, that although Catiline knew himself suspected, knew that his motives were perspicuous, and his measures in some sort anticipated, he yet believed that the time ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... for sea idiom is assuredly proper in a maritime people, especially as many of the phrases are at once graphic, terse, and perspicuous. How could the whereabouts of an aching tooth be better pointed out to an operative dentist than Jack's "'Tis the aftermost grinder aloft, on the starboard quarter." The ship expressions preserve many British and Anglo-Saxon words, with their quaint old preterites ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... unrationalized brain reel; had caught him up into a higher air, on no wings of his own; had added another lover to her company of lovers—and the first impostor she had ever had. She who had known only honest men as friends, in one blind moment lost her perspicuous sense; her instinct seemed asleep. She believed in the man and in his healing. Was ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... would have been regulated by the water-clock,—as indeed we are told was formerly done. But the limit as fixed by the nature of the drama itself is this: the greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous. And to define the matter roughly, we may say that the proper magnitude is comprised within such limits, that the sequence of events, according to the law of probability or necessity, will admit of a change from bad fortune to good, or ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... successively introduced; and everything is therein, according as order itself introduces it: wherefore simultaneous order derives its birth, nature and perfection from successive orders, and the former is only rendered perspicuous and plain by the latter.... What is supreme in things successive takes the inmost place in things simultaneous: thus things superior in order super-involve things inferior and wrap them together, that these latter may become exterior in the same order: by this method first principles, ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... porter are well drawn, nor is much regard paid to perspective; but the general design is carried on by such easy and natural gradations, and the consequent success of an attentive conduct displayed in colours so plain and perspicuous, that these little errors in execution will readily ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... administration of justice. He complied, and a meeting of the Society was summoned specially to hear him. The result is much remarked upon in nearly all the London journals. Mr. Field is a clear headed man, master of his subject, perspicuous in his rhetoric, and distinct in his elocution, so that our new constitution was most advantageously displayed before his learned and critical hearers. The Spectator says of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... great measure, avoided this fatal error; for, though their narratives are as much based on original and contemporary authorities as any histories can be, the quotations are usually given in an abbreviated form in the notes, and the text is, in general, an unbroken narrative, in their own perspicuous and graphic language. Thence, in a great measure, the popularity and interest of their works. Michaud indulges more in lengthened quotations in his text from the old chronicles, or their mere paraphrases into his own language; their frequency is the great defect of his valuable ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... I had never seen a more sensible woman than Agatha's mother. It would have been impossible to announce the success of my suit in a more delicate or more perspicuous manner. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the sentiment that swells and fills out the diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it, for in the same degree that a thought is warmer, an expression will be brighter, as that is more strong, this will become more perspicuous; like glass in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, and refines to a greater clearness, only as the breath within is more powerful, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer |
