"Perspicuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 78: Thus 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 of the Greek Philosopher; and it evidently ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... the brief sickness and speedy death of Washington is so short, yet circumstantial and perspicuous, and may not be condensed without injury to its completeness, that we will give ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... disliked; the cry is all against it; some of the lines are pretty, but it is not perspicuous enough, and is deficient in novelty ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... requisite that the Language of an Heroic Poem should be both Perspicuous and Sublime. [1] In proportion as either of these two Qualities are wanting, the Language is imperfect. Perspicuity is the first and most necessary Qualification; insomuch that a good-natur'd Reader ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Colbertina: seu Catalogus Librorum Bibliothecae quae fuit primum J.B. Colbert, deinde J.B. Colbert (fil) postea J. Nic. Colbert, ac demum C.L. Colbert. Parisiis, 1728, 8vo., three vols. The preface to this valuable catalogue (executed by Martin) gives us a compressed, but sufficiently perspicuous, account of the auspices under which such an extensive and magnificent collection was assembled and arranged. It contains not fewer than 18,219 articles; being perhaps 60,000 volumes. The celebrated Baluze was the librarian during the life of the former branches of the Colbert family; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... 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 made evident, to the meanest understanding, that the public ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... were 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 like reasons ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... appearance of General 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 ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... 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
... a 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 ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Barristers, frame a just Idea of the University of Dublin, which, for Compass and Extent of the Sciences, Variety of elegant Arts, found Erudition, and polite Literature therein taught, in the most regular and perspicuous Methods, is equalled by few, excelled ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... Counter-turns of Plot, as some of them have attempted, since CORNEILLE's Plays have been less in vogue; you see they write as irregularly as we! though they cover it more speciously. Hence the reason is perspicuous, why no French plays, when translated, have, or ever can succeed upon the English Stage. For, if you consider the Plots, our own are fuller of variety; if the Writing, ours are more quick, and fuller of spirit: and therefore 'tis a strange mistake in those who decry the way of writing Plays in ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... most perspicuous and fascinating of all games to the impartial spectator, is, of course, chiefly played in Canada, but there is a Lacrosse League in the Atlantic cities of the United States. The visitor to Canada should certainly make a point ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... a fond 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
... Brougham have occupied their leisure, or consoled themselves in retirement from office, by the composition of works which have become part of the standard literature of the world. Thus 'Caesar's Commentaries' still survive as a classic; the perspicuous and forcible style in which they are written placing him in the same rank with Xenophon, who also successfully combined the pursuit of letters with ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... 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 ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... Institute of France, where the prize for the best essay on Algonquin language was awarded to him. He writes to Dr. James, in 1834, in reference to these lectures: "His description of the composition of words in the Chippewa language, is the most elegant I have yet seen. He is an able and most perspicuous writer, and treats ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... 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! ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... for they concluded 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 ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... 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 opinion of Peters ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... predecessors, or contemporaries, with the significant language under consideration. I have written a purely flash song; of which the great and peculiar merit consists in its being utterly incomprehensible to the uninformed understanding, while its meaning must be perfectly clear and perspicuous to the practised patterer of Romany, or Pedler's French. I have, moreover, been the first to introduce and naturalize amongst us a measure which, though common enough in the Argotic minstrelsy of France, has been hitherto utterly unknown to our pedestrian poetry." How mistaken Ainsworth ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... 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 and instructive, of ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... Baptist Register of 1842, exhibits the statistics of the Regular or Associated Baptists in a perspicuous light:— ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... have been 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 ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... 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 ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... we mistake not, the scheme of predestination, or rather the doctrine of election, which 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 Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... 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 have ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... his judgment is to be avoided. Wherefore, they which have reason in themselves have freedom to will and nill. But yet I consider not this equal in all. For the supreme and divine substances have both a perspicuous judgment and an uncorrupted will, and an effectual power to obtain their desires. But the minds of men must needs be more free when they conserve themselves in the contemplation of God, and less when they come to their bodies, and yet less when they are bound with earthly fetters. ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... Jun. See page 221 ante. Mr. S's own account of the tapestry may be seen in the XIXth volume of the Archaeologia. It is brief, perspicuous, and satisfactory. His fac-simile is one half the size of the original; executed with great neatness and fidelity; but probably the touches are a little too ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Is my style too perspicuous? It is precisely that which Philostratus admires. Is it obscure? Such is that of Cicero to Attica. Negligent? An agreeable negligence in letters is more graceful than elaborate ornaments. Laboured? Nothing can be more proper, since we send epistles to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... pronoun referred to Lady Delawarr or to Gatty, Rhoda was not sufficiently perspicuous to indicate. Phoebe went on disentangling her hair in silence, and Rhoda likewise ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... such evident absence of sophistry, and even of that refining and hair-splitting which usually beget the suspicion of sophistry—his statements are so sincere, and his conclusions so direct, the language is so perspicuous, and the appeal is made so honestly to each reader's understanding, that his popularity as a reasoner is inevitable. We need not say that the author of the Pilgrim possessed imagination; but it is important to note the service it rendered to his preaching, and ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... this essay will be allowed by all, except the prejudiced, to be a deep, metaphysical work, though abstruse, etc. etc. Caius Gracchus must have been little accustomed to abstruse disquisitions, if he deem Mr. Godwin's work abstruse:—A chief (and certainly not a small) merit is its perspicuous and "popular" language. My chapter on modern patriotism is that which has irritated you. You condemn me as prejudiced—O this enlightened age! when it can be seriously charged against an essayist, that he is prejudiced in favour of gratitude, conjugal fidelity, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Punctual Pride 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 ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... 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 ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... seldom indeed that we find history so written,—in a style at once vigorous, perspicuous, and picturesque. The author's heart is thoroughly with his subject; and he exhibits, ever and anon, flashes of the old Scottish spirit, which we are glad to believe has not decayed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... a dance particularly fashionable in the nineteenth century. In order to render our details perspicuous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... the one, was inexhaustible in resources, so composite and so averse from theory as to appear incongruous, but justified in the result; not formal, not always entirely perspicuous. Webster's mind, like the other, is eminently logical, reduced into principles, orderly, distinct, reconciling abstraction with convenience, various in manifestation, yet pervaded by an unity ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... that 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
... will derange the thread of Tasmanian history, the reader may be compensated by a view more perspicuous and useful. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... interesting passages for my edification (still acting as the mouthpiece of his deceased friend), with the exception of a few "love-passages," as Queen Elizabeth would have called them, the import of which was sufficiently perspicuous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... because the same doctrine is plainly 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 passage is the simple ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... 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 Buddhism exhibits itself in ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... 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 ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... 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; and see ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... 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 ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... trust you will not find him, a 'barren fig-tree,' but one in 'whom faith worketh by love;' though, peradventure, his face is not shaped in exact conformity to your notions of a religious aspect, and his mode of study may have led him to doubt, where you are certain, and to deem that perspicuous, in which you see difficulties." The controversialists ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... allow that 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 had not suddenly ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... 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 ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... not wish to occupy time; but I cannot perceive the justice of the criticisms made upon these resolutions of the Convention. They seem to me to be perspicuous and intelligible in every part and in every sentence. I do not see where the difficulty is to arise. Gentlemen need not tell us here, in respect to these resolutions, that a member of the Convention told them thus and so. No matter what ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... and as Mrs. Musgrove did not reside at Yamacraw, and could not often assist him as an interpreter; and, perhaps, could not readily make perspicuous in the Indian dialect what was somewhat more mystical than even his English hearers could comprehend, his cherished purposes for the conversion of the Indians seemed to be thwarted. Besides, the condition of the people at Savannah was such as to require ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... The Light of humane minds is Perspicuous Words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; Reason is the Pace; Encrease of Science, the Way; and the Benefit of man-kind, the End. And on the contrary, Metaphors, and senslesse and ambiguous words, are like Ignes Fatui; and reasoning ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... 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 had called ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... 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 a master of grammatical construction, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to this now fashionable nebular theory, began as a single vast ocean of matter of immense tenuity, spread all alike over all space as far as nowhere, and comparatively little different within itself when looked at side by side with its own final historical outcome. In Mr. Spencer's perspicuous phrase, evolution in this aspect is a change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the incoherent to the coherent, and from the indefinite to the definite condition. Difficult words at first to apprehend, no doubt, and therefore to many people, as to Mr. Matthew ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the "Lauh 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... of an imperfect artist, he was risking the three hundred thousand francs that he possessed. A similarity of religious faith had drawn Madame de Guersaint and Madame Froment together; but the former was altogether a superior woman, perspicuous and rigid, with an iron hand which alone prevented her household from gliding to a catastrophe; and she was bringing up her two daughters, Blanche and Marie, in principles of narrow piety, the elder one already being as grave as herself, whilst the younger, albeit very devout, was still fond of play, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... 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 ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... answered 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? ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... oriental life. Manners are portrayed in vivid colors, so that one may come to have a very accurate knowledge of them. Customs are depicted from which one may learn of the formality and regard for precedents which is a perspicuous trait of oriental character. The rigid etiquette of court and home may be remarked. From the view of morals here described, one may appreciate how far we have progressed in ethical culture from that prevailing in former times ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... follow, collect, master, make out; see with half an eye, see daylight, see one's way; enter into the ideas of; come to an understanding. Adj. intelligible; clear, clear as day, clear as noonday; lucid; perspicuous, transpicuous[obs3]; luminous, transparent. easily understood, easy to understand, for the million, intelligible to the meanest capacity, popularized. plain, distinct, explicit; positive; definite &c. (precise) 494. graphic; expressive &c. (meaning) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... 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 at this ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... 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 ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... of 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
... the less I am impressed by the bold and perspicuous idealism displayed by some of these young Latin Swiss in the discussions ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... stimulated associations of ideas brought all treasures of thought and knowledge within command; the spell, which often held his imagination fast, dissolved, and she arose and gave him to choose of her urn of gold; earnestness became vehemence, the simple, perspicuous, measured and direct language became a headlong, full, and burning tide of speech; the discourse of reason, wisdom, gravity, and beauty changed to that superhuman, that rarest consummate eloquence—grand, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... from Holinshed, Shakespeare has often inserted whole speeches, with no more alteration than was necessary to the numbers of his verse. To transcribe them into the margin was unnecessary, because the original is easily examined, and they are seldom less perspicuous in the poet than ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... credit," he had earnestly recommended its adoption in the first general system which he presented to the view of congress; and, at the present session, had repeated that recommendation in a special report, containing a copious and perspicuous argument on the policy of the measure. A bill conforming to the plan he suggested was sent down from the senate, and was permitted to proceed, unmolested, in the house of representatives, to the third reading. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... 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 ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson |
