"Brevity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lain on the audience broke. This imitation seemed to them to possess in an extraordinary measure the one quality which renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had seen many amateur imitations, but never one as short as this. The saloon ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... morning but one afterwards, John Purcel proceeded to the house of his friend and neighbor, Fitzy O'Driscol, as he was usually termed for brevity. O'Driscol was rather a small man—that is to say, he was short but thick, and of full habit. He was naturally well made, and had been considered well-looking, until his complexion became a good deal inflamed from the effects of social indulgence, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... contemplating this awful record, and much more there is which for the sake of brevity I leave unstated, that one realizes the boon to mankind which the successful researches of the Army Board have proved. The work of prevention, the only one that may be considered effective when dealing with the epidemic diseases, was entirely misguided with regard to yellow ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... "TRADITIONAL" BRIEF AND DESCRIPTIVE.—The only excuses for the term "Traditional," since Dr. Taylor's term is available, are its brevity and its descriptiveness. The fact that it is indefinite is really no fault in it, as the subject it describes is equally indefinite. The "fringe"[12] of this word is especially good. It calls up ideas of information handed down from generation to generation orally, ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... told in a sentence. I received a note from her as you are aware. Its earnest brevity forewarned me that the call involved something of serious import; and I was not mistaken in this conclusion. On calling, and asking for Mrs. Dewey, I noticed an air of irresolution about the servant. 'Mrs. Dewey is not well,' she said, 'and I hardly ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... one from Helen. It was not long. Mrs. Snow was a little inclined to feel hurt at its brevity. Her husband, however, did ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... an expedition to the countries of Ipu, Serampei, and Sungei-tenang, which border to the south-east on that of Korinchi above described; making at the same time my acknowledgments to that gentleman for his obliging communication of the original, and my apologies for the brevity to which my subject renders it ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... Boniface II, to whom the canons were sent, confirmed them in 532: "We approve your above written confession as agreeable to the Catholic rule of the Fathers." Cf. Hefele, 242. For the sources of the canons, see Seeberg, History of Doctrines, Eng. trans., I, 380, note 3. For the sake of brevity the scriptural quotations are not given, merely indicated by references to ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... 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
... any more than the sky in looking blue, asserted this relationship, for by the same glance it seemed to take in equally the farthest and the nearest; only over us in the boat it passed always as over vacant space. Yet any question was answered at once with quiet, willing brevity, not as if he had been interrupted in his thoughts, or was recalled to a recognition of our existence, but just as he would turn the tiller in steering his boat,—while the eye still continued its conversation with that impersonal, elemental company ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... admiration of all who have studied it. Roscher says that it contains 'a theory of money, elaborated in the fourteenth century, which remains perfectly correct to-day, under the test of the principles applied in the nineteenth century, and that with a brevity, a precision, a clarity, and a simplicity of language which is a striking proof of the superior genius of its author.'[3] According to Brants, 'the treatise of Oresme is one of the first to be devoted ex professo to an economic subject, and it expresses ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... of his speech—this evidence of sincerity in every word—with the almost boyish beauty of his face, bound his distinguished audience as with a magic spell. When, at the conclusion of the speech, Mr. Webster left the hall, he remarked to a friend, with his comprehensive brevity, "Nobody can equal ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... death be the mistress of mortals, and the mistress of the universe, reflect then on the brevity of life. "I have been, and that is all," said Saladin the Great, who was conqueror of the East. The longest liver had but a handful of days, and life itself is but a circle, always beginning ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... gave over attempting to comfort his mother, for he began to fear that his father's ship was destined to be placed on the dark, dreary list of those of which it is sometimes said, with terrible brevity, in the newspapers, "She sailed from port on such and such a day, and has not ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... sent Frankie was busy. It was rushed off to convey the good news of promotion, and must necessarily have a business ring. In spite of its brevity, however, it contained two or three ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... Metazoa and Metaphyta is that the organism consists of a plurality of physiological cells, variously modified to subserve different functions in the economy of the animal or plant, as the case may be. For the sake of brevity, I shall hereafter deal only with the case of animals (Protozoa and Metazoa); but it may throughout be understood that everything which is said applies also to the case ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... in making this at all clear (tho I fear that brevity and abstractness between them may have made me fail), the reader will see that the 'truth' of our mental operations must always be an intra-experiential affair. A conception is reckoned true by common sense when it can be made to lead to a sensation. The sensation, which for common sense is not ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... looking at each other consciously, in acknowledgment of a risk which it needed a brave man to run. Angus, the head of the existing branch of the Douglas family, who had already risen into much of the power and importance of his forfeited kinsman, answered with equally grim brevity "I'se bell the cat." But while he spoke, the general enemy, mad with arrogance and self-confidence, and not believing in any power or boldness which could stop him in his career, forestalled the necessity. He came ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... answered Bull with equal brevity, and he led the way straight across the street. There was no danger of being seen. All the life of the town was drawn to a center about the hotel. Lights were flashing behind its windows, men were constantly pounding across the veranda, running in and out. Bull ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... have had in view in writing this book has been to present an account of Greek philosophy which, within strict limits of brevity, shall be at once authentic and interesting—authentic, as being based on the original works themselves, and not on any secondary sources; interesting, as presenting to the ordinary English reader, in language freed ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... smoothing out on her knees the black gloves which, in her nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild brevity, and as if the young man's words ...
— Different Girls • Various
... captains of the latter times; and so many kings. After all these, where Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes; where so many other sharp, generous, industrious, subtile, peremptory dispositions; and among others, even they, that have been the greatest scoffers and deriders of the frailty and brevity of this our human life; as Menippus, and others, as many as there have been such as he. Of all these consider, that they long since are all dead, and gone. And what do they suffer by it! Nay they that have not so much as a name remaining, what are ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... The brevity of Indian songs at once arrests attention. They begin without introduction, almost abruptly, breaking out upon us as though surcharged. This peculiarity arises from the relation of the song to the story. The story is always founded upon a dramatic circumstance, in which at some point the ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... Paris, 26th December, 1831. A copy of it in Le Temps of the 28th December quickly reached Signor Nobili, who, with Signor Antinori, immediately experimented upon the subject, and obtained many of the results mentioned in my letter; others they could not obtain or understand, because of the brevity of my account. These results by Signori Nobili and Antinori have been embodied in a paper dated 31st January 1832, and printed and published in the number of the Antologia dated November 1831 (according at least to the copy of the paper kindly sent me ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... rejoicing, yea, more than there had been upon the capture of the French stronghold. Who shall say whether Brother Moody's brevity may not stretch farther across the intervals of time than the longest preaching ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... this original wolfish attitude of nations is already obsolete, if it ever existed. The expansion and growth of political and moral relations is a gradual process, and the fact that for the sake of brevity and clearness we fix and describe certain arbitrary points in that process must not be taken to imply that it is discontinuous. Anyhow there is no doubt that the specifically wolfish attitude of one nation to another can hardly be found in its pure state, being already ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of the interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the floating corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension, becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash pursuit of this object, he rushes ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Thus, The Rock (April 25, 1873, and May 9, 1873), says that the work is "an extraordinary one, whether regarded as a biographical record or a theological treatise. Indeed the importance of the volume compels us to depart from our custom of reviewing with brevity works entrusted to us, and we shall in two consecutive numbers of The Rock lay before its readers what appear to us to be the merits and demerits ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... sentence of excommunication had a very different significance from that which was attached to it at a subsequent period. Our Lord pointed out its import with equal precision and brevity when he said—"If thy brother....neglect to hear the church, [228:1] let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." [228:2] The Israelites could have no religious fellowship with heathens, or the worshippers of false gods; and they could have no personal ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... and the lawyer's office proved genial and comfortable to him. He liked civil ways and smooth speech, and understood them far better than Master Shaw's brevity and uncouthness. The lawyer chatted kindly and intelligently; he gave Daddy Darwin wine and biscuit, and talked of the long standing of the Darwin family and its vicissitudes; he even took down some ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... your Excellency distinctly to understand that I have not written with this comparative brevity on the subject of the Israelites in Poland, because I think their position less deserving the attention of the Imperial Government than that of the Russian brethren. On the contrary, in Poland affliction and degradation ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... James I. would have done wisely to have embraced the philosophic sentiment of a Hungarian prince (1095-1114) who is said to have dismissed the absurd superstition with laconic brevity: 'De strigis vero, quae non sunt, nulla ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... lyric, both in its grave language and its beautiful balance; and it is too, so far as such a composition can be, or ought to be, intensely dramatic. The thought is just touched, and stated with exquisite brevity and restraint; there is not a word too much or too little; the image is swiftly presented, the inner meaning flashed upon the mind. It seemed to me, too, a beautiful and desirable thing to begin the day thus, with a delicate hallowing of the hours; ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Johnny's gate she said, briefly, "'Night!" and went on, running—running in the dusk. When she reached the house, and found her father and mother on the east porch, she was breathless, which accounted for her brevity in saying that Maurice and Eleanor were coming—and she was just starved! In the dining room, eating a very large supper, she listened for the wheels of the wagon and reflected: "Why was Eleanor mad at me? She was mad at Maurice, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Rendezvous, a French term long associated with English recruiting, the headquarters of the gang were more familiarly, and for brevity's sake, called the "rondy." Publicans were partial to having the rondy on their premises because of the trade it brought them. Hence it was usually an alehouse, frequently one of the shadiest description, situated in the lowest slum of the town; but on occasions, as when the gang was of uncommon ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... like that of Dionysius Halicarnassus; but is much more copious and magnificent; that of Hierocles is venerable and majestic, and nearly equals the style of the greatest ancients; that of Sallust possesses an accuracy and a pregnant brevity, which cannot easily be distinguished from the composition of the Stagirite; and lastly, that of Damascius is clear and accurate, and highly worthy ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... description of controlling movements which follows we shall, for the sake of convenience, and for the sake also of brevity, deal only with the type of "pusher" biplane to which reference has been made already, and on which large numbers of pupils have been, and are being, trained to fly. This casts no aspersion whatever on tractor machines ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... in the customary scientific style. We know, there are repetitions, digressions, excursions into adjacent fields that may be open to criticism. We really do not aim to make this critical review an exhibition of scholarly attainments with all the necessary brevity, clarity, scientific restraint and etiquette. Such style would be entirely out of our line. Any bookish flavor attaching itself to our work would soon replace a natural fragrance we aim to preserve, namely our close contact ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... extent explains mapless Poland, and the political inefficiency of the great empire of Russia. There is not a single person in any English or American novel who can be said to represent his national type in the manner of Rudin. When we remember the extreme brevity of the book, it was an ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... treatise being brevity, I shall bring forward a little of what the learned have said of the causes of twins, and whether there be any such things as superfoetations, or a second conception in a woman (which is yet common enough), and as to twins, I shall have occasion to speak of them when I come to ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... be sought among unlearned Christians, or among a few scholars who survive as cultivators of the old-fashioned argument from the "evidences." Even among these latter the tendency to minimize miracle is undeniably apparent in a reduction of the list classified as such, and still more in the brevity of the list insisted on for the attestation ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... Ella, who was in joyous spirits; a little subdued, indeed, by the unknown brother, but in his absence very communicative. Gertrude was greatly amused with her account of the marriage, in the sitting-room at Massissauga, and of Tom's being so unprepared for the brevity of the American form, that he never knew where he was in the Service, and completed it with ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... congregation again at its post, as devout, as fervent as before. The candles were burning low in their sockets, casting a fitful glare upon the pale faces of the worshippers, reminding them of the flight of time, of the brevity of life, of the inevitable moment when repentance will come too late, when the account of one's good and evil deeds ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... tracts near the teeth he employs not only this Egyptian ointment but also arsenic and corrosive sublimate. What he has to say with regard to the filling of the teeth is, however, most important. He says it with extreme brevity, but with the manner of a man thoroughly accustomed to doing it. "By means of a drill or file the putrefied or corroded part of the tooth should be completely removed. The cavity left should then be filled with gold leaf." It ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... of scenario elaboration MUST NOT lead to over-expansion. Brevity and conciseness are not necessarily one, any more than are fullness and prolixity. Be concise—cut close to the line; having started your action by setting forth a basic incident at once interesting ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... the library only. An article is not like a book;—a long and perhaps serious study, requiring many hours or days to master it. The magazine or review article, whatever other virtues it may lack, has the supreme merit of brevity. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... no pre-arranged scheme of board and lodging. Like every other wanderer in a strange part, we turn first to the policeman. We march towards him at attention; we call a halt at the base of his feet, and then, with the courtesy of the gentleman and the brevity of the soldier, we inform him that we have arrived. The next development is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... The brevity of summer near the shores of the Arctic Sea rendered it advisable that no time should be wasted in looking about too particularly for a site for the new trading-post; and as MacSweenie was well pleased with Mozwa's selection he at once ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... over now with as much brevity as possible the events which led to the crisis of Douglas' life. With the Compromises of 1850 the Whig party began its rapid decline. The South did not like the Whig tariff. The Whig attitude on the slavery question was too ambiguous to appeal to the North. With its dissolution ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... words regarding the peculiar conditions of life and society that are here rudely sketched, and often but barely outlined. The author is aware that, partly from a habit of thought and expression, partly from the exigencies of brevity in his narratives, and partly from the habit of addressing an audience familar with the local scenery, he often assumes, as premises already granted by the reader, the existence of a peculiar and romantic state of civilization, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... at Igoon. The Korsackoff made a much greater swell than the Ingodah, and those who caught its effects were well moistened. We landed from, the steamer's boat and ascended the bank to the village. Several fat old Manjours eyed us closely and answered with great brevity our various questions. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the placid answer. He went on to explain with the direct brevity of his kind. "She's little Aggie Lynch—con' woman, from Buffalo—two years for ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... him questions. He answered, as it were, reluctantly, with extreme brevity, with a sort of disgust which grew more and more marked, though he answered rationally. To many questions he answered that he did not know. He knew nothing of his father's money relations with Dmitri. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... carried round at their entertainments; observing, "After death you will resemble this figure: drink, then! and be happy." A symbol of Death in a convivial party was not designed to excite terrific or gloomy ideas, but a recollection of the brevity of human life. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... left the old church and joined the new. Among them was a saintly woman, who had been a member for half a century of Pilgrim Church. We had one man of means—Philo Sherman Bennett, the friend of Mr. Bryan. The opening meeting was in the Hyperion Theatre. The creed was simple, and brevity itself: "This church is a self-governing community for the worship of God and the service of man." A Jewish Rabbi read the Scriptures, a Universalist minister made an address, and a judge of the city led in prayer. Part of my address was a series ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... direction of affairs; there was no disposition to keep the holiday-makers waiting; the unhappy victims were led up, one after the other, before King Banda, and their supposed crimes very briefly recited to him, whereupon his Majesty, with equal brevity, pronounced their sentence—in all cases that of death—which was at once carried out, the only difference consisting in the mode of execution; some of the unfortunate wretches being secured to the crucifixion tree in ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... generations dictated the principles of dramatic writing, has forty-five short pages; the Republic of Plato, which has influenced thought more than any other philosophic work, has a little over three hundred. Brevity indeed is not always simplicity, and it is possible to be at once simple and lengthy. But any one who examines these Greek writers will find that they are brief, because, avoiding bypaths and by-plots, elaboration or minute detail, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch. What we have to do is to be for ever curiously testing new opinions ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... witness of the fact would have been alarmed by a note which began without an address, except that on the envelope, and ended its peremptory brevity with the writer's name signed in full. Dan read calamity in it, and he had all the more trouble to pull himself together to meet it because he had parted with unusual tenderness from Alice the night before, after an evening in which it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... statement of what train you took and what you had in your lunch basket, but he will be little interested in such details. In order to maintain interest, the point of your story must not be too long delayed. Brevity is desirable, and details that bear little relation to the main point, and that do not prepare the listener to understand and appreciate this point, are ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... constancy of friendship which won him a host of devoted adherents. But no touch either of love or hate swayed him from his course. The student of Machiavelli had not studied the Prince in vain. He had reduced bloodshed to a system. Fragments of his papers still show us with what a business-like brevity he ticked off human lives among the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... vehement and loving is an aspiration, the more truly is it a spiritual lightning-flash. These transports or aspirations, of which we have so many formulas, are the better the shorter they are. One of St. Bruno seems to me excellent on account of its brevity: O goodness of God; that also of St. Francis, My God and my all! and that of St. Augustine, Oh! to love, to go forward, to die to self, to ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... like the senor, the present gobernadorcillo; his predecessor, my distinguished friend, Don Valentine; his other predecessor, Don Julio; our renowned captain of the cuadrilleros, Don Melchior, and so many others, whom, for brevity, I will not mention, and whom you see here present. I entreat your honors to give me the floor before any one else speaks. Am I happy enough to have the assembly accede to my humble request?" And the speaker bowed respectfully, ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... different passages of scripture. His exposition of the epistles to the Romans and Ephesians, coming into the hands of the learned Beza, he wrote to a friend of his, telling him, That he had an incomparable treasure, which for its judiciousness, brevity and elegance of style ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... clutched me. I lay in a strange agony of mind, my heart beating thick, and with an insupportable weight on my heart. It always takes the same form with me—an overwhelming sense of failure in all that I attempt, a dreary consciousness of absolute futility, coupled with the sense of the brevity and misery of human life generally. I ask myself what is the use of anything? What is an almost demoniacal feature of the mood is that it lays a spell of utter dreariness upon all pleasures as well as duties. One feels condemned ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... chief recommendations of the Independent platform, to the voters of the West, was its brevity and definiteness, refreshing qualities in the minds of a people who had been accustomed for years to the platitudes and straddles of the old parties. Most of the Independent county and State platforms could be summed ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... Sir Cropton Fuller. You won't think it so impossible when you know it has happened." The doctor listened for the symptoms with perceptibly less than his normal appearance of knowing it all beforehand. Gwen proceeded, and told with creditable brevity and clearness, the succession of events the story has given, for its own reasons, by fits ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... greater part of his possessions, and quitted the kingdom, well furnished with money and great abundance of merchandise, such as England can supply to foreign countries, and with many other things which, for the sake of brevity, ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... as this good lady had done, would receive such chastisement as royal power guided by prudent counsel could inflict. Parma assured his sovereign, that, if the conquest of England were effected, that of the Netherlands would be finished with much facility and brevity; but that otherwise, on account of the situation, strength and obstinacy of those people, it would be a very long, perilous, and at best ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of reconciling brevity with the copiousness of illustration demanded by those who have not yet mastered the rudiments of the science, I have endeavoured to abridge the work in the manner above hinted at, so as to place it within the reach of many to whom it ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... acrimonious controversy. The question is a difficult and complicated one, and though I am a strong Tariff Reformer myself I hope I am not incapable of seeing both sides of the case. I certainly should have reason to be ashamed if I could not be fair to those whom, for the sake of brevity and convenience, I will call Free Traders, though I do not altogether admit the correctness of that designation. My views were once the same as theirs, and though I long ago felt constrained to modify them, and had become a Tariff Reformer some years ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... letters yesterday of a total victory of the King of Prussia over the Austrians,(787) with their army dispersed and their general wounded and prisoner—I don't know how, but it is not confirmed yet. You must excuse the brevity of my English letter, in consideration of my Chinese one. Adieu! (786) Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese philosopher at London, to his friend Lien ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... his narrative and his conversations, but more often into the latter, scraps of commonplace morality, and bits of sentiment so long worn as to have lost all their gloss. In general, his genius does not appear to advantage in dialogue. His characters have not always a due regard to the brevity of human life. They make long speeches, preach dull sermons, and ventilate very self-evident propositions with great solemnity of utterance. Their discourse wants not only compression, but seasoning. They are sometimes made to talk in such a way that the force of caricature ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... all the developing, before and after, unfortunately confounds the perpendicular with the vertical—a bad way toward future accuracy of thought, or toward making scientific ideas, as they should be, definite as well as practically useful. If we judge by the brevity and incompleteness of the lesson on 'Developing ideas of Drawing'(!), ideas of that particular 'stripe' must be scarce. The Object Lessons at the close of the book we find generally very good models of such exercises, clear ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... associate Jesus therewith, little remains for the author to do save draw the notice of the reader to the admissions of other writers concerning the rise of the cross as the symbol of Christianity; for the sake of brevity more or less confining his attention to two well known works upon the history of ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons
... brevity, we shall, as far as possible, exclude from our present inquiry those prophecies pertaining to civil and political affairs, retaining only such as have an important bearing on the ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... HUBBARD; and having finished her description, enumerates, as was meet, the peculiarities, and, I might say, dogmatic tendencies, of the hero of the tail, Herr Dog! [He (not H.D., but the Author) says "Old Mother HUBBARD."] Here is simplicity for you! Here is brevity! "Old Mother HUBBARD!" How sweetly it sounds; how nicely the words fit each other! What an immense range of thought he must have who first said "Old Mother HUBBARD." Less gifted authors of the present would rejoice ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... I seldom commune with my conscience when I write. This is due to habit and the brevity of my work. And so when I express this or that opinion about literature, I do not take myself ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... of words, are more admired and esteemed and thought wiser[590] than unbridled windbags. And so Plato[591] praises, and compares to clever javelin-men, such as speak tersely, compressedly, and concisely. And Lycurgus by using his citizens from boyhood to silence taught them to perfection their brevity and terseness. For as the Celtiberians make steel of iron only after digging down deep in the soil, and carefully separating the iron ore, so Laconian oratory has no rind,[592] but by the removal of all superfluous matter goes home straight to the point like steel. For its sententiousness,[593] ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... their power." But to-day such a phrase would seem obsolete and ambiguous, if not unmeaning: we are compelled to say that "Rome maintained friendly relations with the Aetolians," etc., using four words to do the work of one. I have tried to preserve the pithy brevity of the Italian so far as was consistent with an absolute fidelity to the sense. If the result be an occasional asperity I can only hope that the reader, in his eagerness to reach the author's meaning, may overlook the roughness of the road that leads ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... let no one fail to see, contains in its extreme brevity more substance than would fill a voluminous treatise. This, then, is ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... of this work, and for the sake of brevity and convenience, I have thought fit to adopt the following terms from the old Roman vocabulary, to designate the apartments of the modern bath. I respectively term the first, second, and third hot rooms, the Tepidarium, ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... one of these Free churches, and listened to a sermon from Dr. Lindsay, a comfortable-looking professor in some new theological school. It was quite common-place, though not so long as the Scotch ministers are in the habit of giving; for excessive brevity is by no means their besetting infirmity. At the close of the exercises, he announced that a third service would be held in the evening. "The subject," continued he, "will be the thoughts and exercises of Jonah in the ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... simple brevity, and Mrs. Brent felt that perhaps Miss Vanderpoel was not really very easy to get ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... expression and cast of thought are, in my view, true to type. He is the Lancashire man of action, who affects no literary arts. These pages are bare of heroics. There is a soldierly brevity in his account of even of the bravest exploit. There is also plenty of quiet humour. The reader will search vainly for any "villain of the piece." The "Hun" is to Captain Wilson, as to the normal British officer, just a "Boche" and no more; to the rank and file he was simply "Jerry." ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... With frankness and brevity which suited the minister and the man, Godfrey told his business, and Lord Oldborough, with laconic decision, equally pleasing to the young soldier, replied, "that if it was possible, the thing should be done for Major Gascoigne"—inquired how long Captain Percy purposed ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... affair in progress, at the time of these statements, was called Cudjoe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of extreme brevity and blackness, whose full-length portrait can hardly be said to adorn Dallas's History of the Maroons; but he was as formidable a guerrilla as Marion. Under his leadership, the various bodies of fugitives were consolidated into one force, and ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and as haughty as possible. He made his visits to the Farm of a scarcity and brevity that brought them near to being no visits at all. Such times as he did condescend to come over to see them, he spent the moments telling of all those gay affairs of which he was a part and which Arethusa did not ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... man, with a brevity the girl herself could not have surpassed. His shyness had left him, and with it ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... with all their faults, have great merits. His principal works, which are of a philosophical character, are essays "On Anger," "On Consolation," "On Providence," "On Tranquillity of Mind," "On the Firmness of the Wise Man," "On Clemency," "On the Brevity of Human Life," "On a Happy Life," etc., together with "Epistles of Lucilius," one hundred and twenty-four in number. Besides these, there are extant ten tragedies attributed to him, entitled, Hercules Furens, Thyestes, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... chief magistrate; he prided himself upon his "invariable" principles of justice, and he allowed nothing to influence his decisions. His plan for arranging all differences had the merit of being brief; and if brevity be the soul of wit, it certainly was most unreasonable in his subjects to consider his judgments no joke. He always counted the quarterings in the shields of the respective parties, and decided accordingly. Imagine the speedy redress gained by a muddy-veined peasant against one of the cousins; who, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... is he that convinces you!" says Florian. And about them, who were young in the world's recaptured youth, spring triumphed with an ageless rural pageant, and birds cried to their mates. He noted the red brevity of her lips and ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... gallery; and by the time they had resumed their seats, the line which they had delivered to the operator had been read in telegraphic offices in towns and cities hundreds of miles away. It was distinguished by frankness of language as well as by brevity: ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... salvation! Meantime, in the still recurring fear Lest myself, at unawares, be found, While attacking the choice of my neighbors round, With none of my own made—I choose here! The giving out of the hymn reclaims me; I have done: and if any blames me, Thinking that merely to touch in brevity The topics I dwell on, were unlawful,— Or worse, that I trench, with undue levity, On the bounds of the holy and the awful,— I praise the heart, and pity the head of him, And refer myself to THEE, instead of him, Who head and heart alike discernest, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... that idea seems to persist with you—the brevity of life," said Neale, smiling. "What are the average days for a mortal in ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... Italian lines of eleven syllables are converted into eight lines of eight syllables each. We submit it to the candid reader of Italian to say, whether aught of the original has been sacrificed to brevity. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... early an hour of the evening and on so early an evening of the week. Link nodded affably to one or two men he knew and bade them line up at the bar with him. After the second drink he prepared to leave. To the tavern's proprietor, who was mildly surprised at the brevity of his call, Ferris explained that he was going across to the store to get his check cashed and that he would ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... leave it. He therefore, to support his argument that life is evil, calls up evidence which proves that it is brief and transitory. But if life is evil, one of its few redeeming features should be its brevity; the pessimist should look forward to death as a man in prison looks toward the day of his release. Yet this attitude toward death is almost never taken by the atheists or the pessimists, while it is the burden of many of the triumphant hymns of the Christian Church. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... the card-table bent their heads over the crumpled piece of note-paper spread out before them. Ross smoothed out its edges with his big hand, and the words became distinct enough; the very brevity of the message was touched with sensationalism. It ran: 'I am your brother. Save me!' and there was not another vestige of ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... break off, or you will have double postage to pay for this letter. Pray excuse it; and pardon the style, which is, purposely, as meagre as I could make it, for the sake of brevity. I hope that you can gather the meaning, and that is enough. I find that I have a few moments to spare, and will, therefore, address a word to those who may be inclined to ask, what is the use of all these objections? The schoolmaster is, and will remain, abroad. The thirst of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... I have begun to speak of the visions I had concerning the dead, I will mention some matters which our Lord was pleased to reveal to me in relation to certain souls. I will confine myself to a few for the sake of brevity, and because they are not necessary; I mean that they are not for our profit. They told me that one who had been our Provincial—he was then of another province—was dead. He was a man of great virtue, with whom I had had a great deal to do, and to whom I was under ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... can here supply the brevity of the historian, and report the whole of what the apostle said to Felix on these important points? It seems to me that I hear him enforcing those important truths he has left us in his works, and placing in the fullest luster those divine maxims interspersed in our Scriptures. "He reasoned of ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... learned more than to read and cipher a little and to write in a scrawly fashion; for he had been rather irregular in his attendance at all times. He now stopped altogether, giving the teacher as his reason, with characteristic brevity: "Got ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... great, we cannot wonder that all superfluous particles or other words that could be dispensed with were ruthlessly cut away. So it came about that all the old classical works were composed in the tersest of language, as remote as can be imagined from the speech of the people. The passion for brevity and conciseness was pushed to an extreme, and resulted more often than not in such obscurity that detailed commentaries on the classics were found to be necessary, and have always constituted an important branch ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... payment of his debts. His recent disgraceful flight from England, and the prompt action of his legal brethren in view of his conduct, render it highly improbable that he will ever return to the scene of his former triumphs and excesses. Besides its brevity, which was commendable, his speech this evening presented no point ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... his children, with their flocks and herds,—the wealth of a pastoral people,—into this land as the invited guests of Pharaoh, the monarch of Egypt. And as he bowed before the king, the aged patriarch taught him at once the brevity of man's life and the unsatisfying nature of all earthly enjoyments, as recalled at the close of a long pilgrimage: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage." Pharaoh received the aged man with respect, and showed him all honour; ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... the lapidary style of ancient Rome, I confess it is often hard to improve on the brevity of the vernacular, though the admonition "to keep your end up" can be condensed from four words to two in "sursum cauda." Again the familiar eulogy, "Stout fellow," can be rendered in a single word by the Virgilian epithet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... How admirable are the brevity and the lightness of that 'adieu, mes gens'! In three words the instantaneous vanishing of the animals is indicated with masterly precision. One can almost see their ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... anything, on the side of brevity, but in the succeeding quarter of an hour Eve was able to gather from his careless talk, which sedulously avoided the pathetic note, a fair notion of what his existence had been from boyhood upward. It supplemented the account of himself she had received from him when they met for ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... were hired without reference to their religion. As soon as Hetty's house was all in order, and her shrubs and trees set out, she went one morning to this House, and asked to see the physician in charge. With characteristic brevity, she stated that she had come to St. Mary's to earn her living as a nurse, and would like to secure a situation. The ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... sensibility. And so he can enjoy the faint autumnal splendour of the landscape, as he sees hill and plain, vineyard and forest, clad in one wonderful glory of fairy gold, which the first great winds of winter will transmute, as in the fable, into withered leaves. And so too he can enjoy the admirable brevity and simplicity of such little glimpses of country and country ways as flash upon him through the windows of the train; little glimpses that have a character all their own; sights seen as a travelling swallow might see them ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... business, but they did not deter Galba from proceeding to the camp. Either he disregarded such things as the result of pure chance or else he felt that the blows of fate may be foretold but not forestalled. He addressed a crowded assembly of the soldiers with true imperial brevity, stating simply that in adopting Piso he was following the example of the sainted Augustus, and the old military custom whereby each man chose another.[44] He was afraid that by suppressing the news of ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... embarrassment, but he had no mind to refer to an order given, and disobeyed through overzealousness. That, too, could wait—or be forgotten. He contented himself with a single question. "How long?" he asked laconically. With equal brevity the Jap replied: "Two days," and postponed further inquiries by slipping a clinical thermometer into his master's mouth. He had always been useful in attending on minor camp accidents, and during the last two years in Central ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... the sagging of one hind-quarter betrayed a bad leg. His head he held in spiritless fashion on a level with his knees. As if to add a note of irony, his tail had been docked to the regulation of absurd brevity and served only to tag him as one fallen ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... the tyrant. An idealist may say to a capitalist, 'Don't you sometimes feel in the rich twilight, when the lights twinkle from the distant hamlet in the hills, that all humanity is a holy family?' But it is equally possible for the capitalist to reply with brevity and decision, 'No, I don't,' and there is no more disputing about it further than about the beauty of a fading cloud. And the modern world of moods is a world of clouds, even if some ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... again supply what is desired: to have the directions and descriptions clear, complete and concise. Especially has this been the case in the chapter on Marketing. Much more of interest might have been written, but the hope which led to brevity was that the few pages devoted to remarks on that important household duty, and which contain about all that the average cook or housekeeper cares and needs to know, will be carefully read. It is believed that there is much in them of considerable value to those whose knowledge of meats, ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... quae per alios erant gesta temere crediderit, et quae per se vel consulto vel etiam memoria lapsus perperam ediderit, existimatque rescripturum et correcturum fuisse.' The style is remarkable for its brevity, directness, and the absence of ornament and emotion (Cic. Brut. 262, 'Nudi sunt, recti et venusti, omni ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... happy, exuberant, overflowing with a quaint vitality. A description of the desert in spate, thumb-nail sketches from a station-agent's window, queer little flavorous stories of crime and adventure and petty intrigue in the town; all done with a deftness and brevity that was saved from being too abrupt only by broad touches of color and light. And he had had a letter. He told ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... possibility of 'holding forth' after this. A. short address on the brevity of life, as being co-equal with the evanescent joys of a Maypole, would hardly serve,—and a fatherly ambition as to the unbecoming attitude of mendi-cancy assumed by independent young villagers carrying a great crown of flowers round to every house in the neighbourhood, and demanding pence ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... same vice, the very same petitio principii, may be imputed. The syllogism, he contends, (and apparently with complete success,) is but a statement in full of what takes place mentally even in the most rapid acts of reasoning. We often suppress the major for the sake of brevity, but it is understood though not expressed; just as in the same manner as we sometimes content ourselves with merely implying the conclusion itself, because it is sufficiently evident without further words. If any one should so far depart from common sense ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... conspired to hang a series of dirty cargoes on his newest skipper, for the dual purpose of teaching Matt Peasley his place and discovering whether he was worthy of it, grinned evilly when he received that two-word message; and, not to be out-done in brevity, he dictated ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... single new fact, and has in all cases conceded the thoroughness and sufficiency of Motley's investigations. The present writer's apology for attempting what has been done so incomparably well is, that he feels an essay of moderate length, which, because of its brevity, may find an audience, is a desideratum in English literature, this essay to point out the heroic proportions of William; enough so, if may be, to lend eagerness to those who read, so they may be decoyed into perusing Motley's noble ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... enchantment from a world so dressed In hues of high romance. I cannot rest While aught of beauty in any path untrod Swells into bloom and spreads sweet charms abroad Unworshipped of my love. I cannot see In Life's profusion and passionate brevity How hearts enamored of life can strain too much In one long tension to hear, to see, to touch. Now on each rustling night-wind from the South Far music calls; beyond the harbor mouth Each outbound argosy with sail unfurled May point the path through ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... the land system in Java is too well known to need comment here, but there were a few facts learnt by X. which should remove any idea amongst those who have not studied the question, that the laws were either harsh or intricate. Indeed, they seem to attain that brevity and simplicity which are the great desideratum when dealing with a native peasantry. Thus, a man need pay no rent until his land is in bearing. Coffee is the only product whose sale to Government is compulsory. All land is classified and subject to a fixed rent, there ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... the Sakais is simply a woman. In speaking of her those good sons of the East neither calumniate the dove nor the gazelle, and they do not slander the tiger and the snake but when they are inclined to praise her charms they do so with affection and brevity And this is not to be wondered at when one considers that the female sex in the jungle, although not beautiful to our taste (but very much so according to the Sakay criterion) is good, laborious and incorruptible. ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... on which writing materials were placed. "You shall breakfast in peace, you old fidget," he replied, and addressed himself forthwith to Mr. Darch, with his usual Spartan brevity of epistolary expression. "Dear Sir—Here I am, bag and baggage. Will you kindly oblige me by being my lawyer? I ask this, because I want to consult you at once. Please look in in the course of the day, and stop to dinner if you possibly can. Yours truly. ALLAN ARMADALE." Having read this ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... which follow, taken from the American Farmer, and referring to a still later period, are selected for their brevity, from many others, and principally from Maryland and Ohio. It is considered unnecessary to extend the list, for the operation and character of the machine is too well and too widely known at this day to render it necessary to the intelligent farmer and general reader, ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... the best Davidge could do. But the agony of the brevity of existence seized them both by the hearts, and their hearts throbbed and bled like birds crushed in the claws of hawks. Their hearts had such capabilities of joy, such songs in them, such love and longing, such delight in beauty—and beauty was so beautiful, so frequent, so thrilling! ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... three times or ten times in the course of a long life, the Muse has approached, touched, and forsaken. And yet hardly like them; not always so docile, nor so wholly prepared for the departure, the brevity, of the golden and irrevocable hour. Few poets have fully recognised the metrical absence of their Muse. For full recognition is ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... an easy matter, since in all qualities he seemed to be his elder brother's opposite. Indeed, his reserve and brevity of speech emulated Agatha's own; so they got on together ill enough, until by some happy chance they lighted on the subject of Canada and the Backwoods. Where is there boy or girl of romantic imagination who did not, at some juvenile period of existence, revel in descriptions of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... with the gaiety which it excites; but when expressive of grief, it also gives birth to a sweet sentiment. The heart beats more quickly while listening to it, and the satisfaction caused by the regularity of the measure, by reminding us of the brevity of time, points out the necessity of enjoying it. You no longer feel any void, any silence, around you; life is filled; the blood flows quickly; you feel within you that motion which gives activity ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... altered equivalents, shale, slate, etc.; (2) the sands, with their altered equivalents, sandstone, quartzite, quartz-schist, etc.; (3) the marls, limestones, and dolomites, with their altered equivalents, marble, talc-schist, etc. For brevity these groups are referred to respectively as shale, sandstone, and limestone. The proportions of minerals in each of these groups ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... from intending to represent this work as useless. Many particularities are of importance to one man, though they appear trifling to another; and it is always more safe to admit copiousness, than to affect brevity. Many informations will be afforded by this book to the biographer. I know not where else it can be found, but here, and in Ward, that Cowley was doctor in physick. And, whenever any other institution, of the same kind, shall be attempted, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Ukraine campaign.[1] It passed into the keeping of Stanislas Potocki, one of the great pioneers of educational reform in Poland, not to be confounded with his ill-famed namesake, Felix Potocki. In it Kosciuszko gives with brevity and characteristic modesty the account of the battle: how, with Poniatowski too far off to render assistance, and the safety of the whole Polish army depending upon Kosciuszko, "left to himself," to cite his own words—he invariably employs the third person—he threw up defences ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... Lowland—the Aristocrats and the Peasantry. Miss Brooks was dark, and she succeeded in convincing the freckled and sandy-haired man that he was of a race of rebels, also that the rule of the rebels was brief—brief, my lord, as woman's love. Then they argued as to the alleged brevity of woman's love. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... adopted son, Mototsune, carried it out. A halo rests on Seiwa's head for the sake of his memorable descendants, the Minamoto chiefs, Yoritomo, Takauji, and Ieyasu. Heaven is supposed to have compensated the brevity of his own tenure of power by the overwhelming share that his posterity enjoyed in ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... glanced rapidly at his unknown guest. "Excuse me," he said, with respectful business brevity, "but I thought every one was out," ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... so explicit in its brevity, and implied so many terrible accusations, that Wilkie was dismayed. "The devil!" he exclaimed, "and ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... here," said the great father, "nine disks of wax. You see they are very small, but so they shall serve my purpose the better. Will each of you take one and retire from the table and write upon it the thing he most desires? Now, my dear friends, brevity is ever as the point of the lance. Wit is blunt and Truth half armed without it. I ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... of composing essays there is the counterbalancing advantage that the matter comes with the full effect of force and completeness from the author. Another admirable circumstance is brevity, by the rejection of all useless details. After weighing the pour and the contre, I think it not impracticable to retain in my case ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... little book. It is the introductory part of a catechism (a series of questions and answers) entitled "Scientific Socialism Study Course" published by Charles H. Kerr & Company, 341 East Ohio Street, Chicago, and is reprinted here by their consent, with certain changes in the interests of brevity and perspicuity. As a whole this short Study Course of only thirty small pages in large type is the greatest piece of catechetical literature of which I have any knowledge. Even the synopsis as given here contains more of the education which makes for the good of the world than all ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... madam, to the Society for Piratical Research, under the patronage of his gracious Majesty, the King of this Island. You behold before you a committee of that Society; the Committee on Doubtful and Fabulous Tales, sometimes called for the sake of brevity, from the initials of its title, the Daft Committee. As Third Vice-President of the Society for Piratical Research, I have the honour to be Chairman of the Daft Committee. The seat of our Society is far from here, ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... brevity; and I changed the subject, remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely good-humored appreciation of my intentional ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... storm itself is described in a few phrases, so the cessation of the flood may have been dismissed with equal brevity; the gradual abatement of the waters, as attested by the dove, the swallow, and the raven, may well be due to later elaboration or to combination with some variant account. Under its amended form the narrative leads naturally up to the landing on the mountain and ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... treatises are Maitland, Lectures on Equity (Cambridge, 1909), and C. S. Kenny, Outlines of Criminal Law (New York, 1907). Maitland's article on English Law in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, IX., 600-607, is valuable for its brevity and its clearness. On the English conception of law and the effects thereof see Lowell, Government of England, II., Chaps. 61-62. The character and forms of the statute law are sketched to advantage in C. P. Ilbert, Legislative Methods and ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... wise men, which abounds in bread and wine, and many other good things, but the Tartars have nearly destroyed it. From this city to Jerusalem, to which the three wise men we're led by miracle, the distance is fifty days journey. For the sake of brevity I omit many wonderful things which I saw in this city. Going from thence, we came to the city of Geste[7], whence the sea of sand, a most wonderful and dangerous track, is distant only one days journey. In the city of Yezd there is abundance of all kinds of victuals, especially ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... of wit is brevity; we want a place for an approaching combat between my friend here and a brave from town. Passing by your broad acres this fine morning we saw a pightle, which we deemed would suit. Lend us that pightle, and receive our thanks; 'twould be a favour, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... For brevity I compress the events of the next few months; it is a pity, but it would print to three the length otherwise. Briefly I was obliged to get back once or twice to my aunt's to see Pender privately, though I did not want to have her. I was mostly in London. One or two funny whoring ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... sitting in this manner a quarter of an hour without hearing Miss Bingley's voice, Elizabeth was roused by receiving from her a cold inquiry after the health of her family. She answered with equal indifference and brevity, and the others ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... see your wife and baby," he said, with considerate brevity. He added to himself, as Edward vanished up the stairway, "A case of special providence that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... answers. "Well, there's a great deal of it, you know," he remarked. I bowed. I knew, having written it. "Well, call in a week's time." I retired, silently blessing the British Army Officer for his blunt courtesy, his admirable brevity ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... very next one of you who mentions tobacco inside this cabin will be banished to the smoke-house to live by himself. I mean every word I say!" With hang-dog looks the culprits turned away and disappeared through the door. Ellen, with business-like brevity, climbed up into the loft ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... present occasion." Aware of the watchful and formidable opponent who would in due time answer him, and also of being himself entitled to the general reply—to the last word—Mr. Subtle proceeded to state the nature of the plaintiff's case with the utmost brevity and clearness. Scarcely any sound was heard but that of the pens of the short-hand writers, and of the counsel taking their notes. Mr. Subtle, having handed up two or three copies of the pedigree which he held in his hand to the judge, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... produce nothing equal to Heinrich's sauer-kraut and sausage. My earliest relationship with Mr. Scherer was that of an errand boy, of bringing to him for his approval papers which might not be intrusted to a common messenger. His gruffness and brevity disturbed me more than I cared to confess. I was pretty sure that he eyed me with the disposition of the self-made to believe that college educations and good tailors were the heaviest handicaps with which a young man could be burdened: ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to tell Teresa and Fanny of Mrs. Meyer's arrival, and beg them to treat her as kindly as possible, and not appear alarmed when they saw her. At the same time, he told them the cause of Mrs. Meyer's flight, and all this he explained with such brevity that he had quite finished by the time the coach was heard rumbling along the road outside, and was already standing outside in the gate to ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... English from this point of view. The same tendency is also illustrated by the vain re-iterations of ordinary speakers. The English intellect, with all its fine qualities, is not sufficiently nimble for either speaker or hearer to keep up with the swift brevity of the English tongue. It is a curious fact that Great Britain takes the lead in Europe in the prevalence of stuttering; the language is probably a factor in this evil pre-eminence, for it appears that the Chinese, whose language ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... money he remarked "Seine Majestät"—Foreign Office brevity for conveying that His Majesty was satisfied. Without more ado, von Wedel plunged into the subject. Leaning back and crossing his legs, he began to talk ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... were at his disposal sufficient for his maintenance as a public man. Then or never must he make some bold and comprehensive movement to countervail the majority of the assembly. The issue of this conflict has been presented by the author, in another of his works, with such brevity, that he cannot hope to offer a more complete condensation. It was as follows:—"On the 1st of December a proclamation was put forth dissolving the assembly, and calling upon the people by universal suffrage to accept a government ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... poems of profounder imagination (however imperfect), and by a madrigal written for the music (however the stanzas may flag in their quibbling). But the work of choosing among his lyrics for the sake of beauty shows too clearly the inequality, the brevity of the inspiration, and the poet's absolute disregard of the moment of its flight and departure. A few splendid lines may be reason enough for extracting a short poem, but must not be made to bear too great ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... boletin, form, slip, price list bolsa, Exchange, Bourse bombas de aire, air pumps bondadoso, kind bonificar, to make an allowance, a rebate bonito, pretty bordado, embroidered botas, boots boticario, chemist botines, boots boton, button bramante, twine brazo, arm brevedad, brevity, shortness (a la mayor) brevedad, as soon as possible brisa, breeze brochado, brocade buey, ox bufanda, muffler bufete de abogado, lawyer's office buje, hub bullir, to boil bultos, packages buque, barco, navio, ship, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... aloft, guides, as it is phrased, the destinies of the conveyance. It was, indeed, one of the most notable of these—a humble friend of my own—who had the fortune to make the acute, recorded, historic observation which, with the hearty, pungent, cursory brevity and point of his class and metier—the envy of the painstaking, voluminous analyst and artist of our ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... of their adventures be passed over with merciful brevity. Both watch-guns had been fired by the troupe of tiny wou-wou monkeys! Iris did not know whether to laugh or cry, when Jenks, with much difficulty, lowered her to mother earth again, and marveled the while how he had managed ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... utterance are, in nearly every instance, in their origin figurative. The brevity is brought out by comparison with something that is noticeably short or small. Let us examine the words of our list for their figurative qualities. A concise statement is one that is cut down until a great deal is said in a few words. A terse ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... part, was as taciturn as his friend Bache was garrulous. Such remarks as he made were brief, but they were as galling as lashes, as cutting as sabre-strokes. At the same time his ideas and theories remained somewhat obscure, partly by reason of this brevity of his, and partly on account of the difficulty he experienced in expressing himself in French. He was from over yonder, from some far-away land—Russia, Poland, Austria or Germany, nobody exactly knew; and it mattered little, for he certainly acknowledged ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... published by Arrian, contained eight books, of which only four have come down to us. They are in many respects the most valuable expression of his views. There is something slightly repellent in the stern concision, the "imperious brevity," of the Manual. In the Manual, says M. Martha,[66] "the reason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassibility which is little human; it imposes silence on all the passions, even the most respectable; ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... [Greek: Ha apodarenta kai physethenta].] "Which being skinned and blown out." From brevity, Xenophon has said that of the animals which he ought to have said of their ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... later the welcome jolting of couplings reached the crew in the caboose, who promptly settled themselves down to await the next call of duty. The conductor's relief at the brevity of the delay was expressed in smiling contempt at the expense of ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Andronicus, from the old comedy of the Grecians; and out of all these sprang two several branches of new Roman satire, like different scions from the same root, which I shall prove with as much brevity as the ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... a beery sadness in their eyes, suddenly reminded that you were here to-day and gone to-morrow, pierced with a sense of the tragic brevity of Life, their hearts oppressed with a pleasant anguish at the pity and wonder of this ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone |
