"Cursory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... torn apart by torture and persecution in various ages of past history; he is the father and creator of the various races and elements of the human organization, etc." Any one who has done even a cursory reading in mythology cannot but be struck by the similarity in form as well as in thought between this production and what ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... lecture will not permit the discussion of the subject upon an extended scope, nor will it allow a more than cursory review of the general doings, adventures, and methods of pirates in general, leaving the historical treatment for ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... the last warlike expedition which Major Denham accompanied; and while his zeal for discovery is commendable, yet he seems to have acted most injudiciously in exposing himself to danger, for the sake of acquiring a cursory and superficial knowledge (all that his opportunities enabled him to do) of certain ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... Michelangelo," published in 1893: "Discovered some forty years ago, hidden away in the cellars of the Gualfonda (Ruccellai) Gardens, Florence, by Professor Milanesi and the famous Florentine sculptor, Santarelli. On a cursory examination they both declared it to be a genuine Michelangelo. The left arm was broken, the right hand damaged, and the hair had never received the sculptor's final touches. Santarelli restored the arm, and the Cupid passed by purchase into ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... leaving the county, he ordered his housekeeper to furnish every thing needful for them as often as they wanted it, and to take care they were well used by the women with whom he had placed them; and delivered these commands not in a cursory or negligent manner, but in such terms as terrified any failure of obedience in this point would ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... lay chiefly in her left leg and in her face—the lower part of her face. The surgeons, taking their cursory view of her, as they did of the rest of the sufferers, were not sparing in their remarks, for they believed her to be insensible. She had gathered that the leg was to be amputated, and that she would probably die under the operation—but her turn to be attended to was not yet. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... desired that this intellectual training should be efficient, the most cursory perusal of this article will show how far he placed the moral training above the intellectual, which, by itself, would only turn the gutter-child into] "the subtlest of all the beasts of the field," [and how wide of the mark is the cartoon at this period representing him ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... a tomb, with a youthful female weeping over it, exhibiting a church with arched windows in the background. On the tomb were the names, with the dates of the births and deaths, of several individuals, all of whom bore the name of Grant. An extremely cursory glance at this record was sufficient to discover to the young hunter the domestic state of the divine. He there read that he was a widower; and that the innocent and timid maiden, who had been his companion, was the only survivor of six children. The knowledge of the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... In most cursory accounts of the Roman religion it has been the practice to lay particular stress upon an immense number of "gods," as they used to be called, each of which is supposed to have presided over some particular act or suffering of the Roman from the cradle to the grave—from Cunina, the "goddess" of ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... was once more alight in my father when I got back to our camp that morning; and one might have supposed it nourished him, if one had judged from the cursory manner in which his share of our simple breakfast was dispatched. Then, carrying with him a tomahawk, I remember, he led us down across the sand to where the ship lay, so deeply bedded that one stepped over her rail as it ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... researches in these various departments are likely to produce. The subjects which have engaged his attention are regarded with deep interest by the philanthropist, the philologist, the archaeologist, as well as many other liberal inquirers, both in Europe and America, who, amid the scanty facts, cursory observations, and hurried, random conjectures of those who have been favored with a comparatively near view of them, have lamented the want of such deliberate investigations and comparative examinations, continued with sober judgment through a long series ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... to this point, more or less cursory attention may be given individual patents; but when an arrangement of subclasses shall have been tentatively adopted it will be necessary to consider each patent carefully to ascertain whether it ...
— The Classification of Patents • United States Patent Office
... question namely, whether, afterall, the art of the Assyrians was really of home growth, or was not rather imported from the Egyptians, either directly or by way of Phoenicia. Such a view has been sometimes taken; but the most cursory study of the Assyrian remains in chronological order, is sufficient to disprove the theory, since it will at once show that the earliest specimens of Assyrian art are the most un-Egyptian in character. No doubt there are certain analogies even here, as the preference ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... a painter who has "come on" visibly since the war. He has drawn right away from "the field" to join those leaders—Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Bonnard, shall we say, with one or two more in close attendance—a cursory glance at whom, as they flash by, provokes this not unprofitable exclamation: "How different they are!" Apparently, amongst the chiefs, that famous movement no longer counts for much. Look at them; to an eye at ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... the Savages are inconceivably swift walkers, and can endure great fatigues, they arrived at the principal town of the Five Nations. There, and elsewhere within the limits of that confederacy, our traveller abode two full years. The public must not expect to find in this brief introduction a cursory statement, much less a minute journal of his curious observations and discoveries during that period. The Editor would make a very bad use of the confidence reposed in him, if he were to attempt either. Public curiosity, however, will be gratified, for the highly learned and ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... accession of population, but lost to some extent by a portion of the Bear people moving across to Walpi. No important event seems to have occurred among them for a long period after the destruction of Sikytki, in which they bore some part, and only cursory mention is made of the ingress of "enemies from the north;" but their village, apparently, ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... think: what did he possess worth stealing? Nothing of any great value: a modest collection of masculine jewelry—stick-pins and the like; a quantity of clothing; a few fairly good pictures; a few rare books. But the merest cursory examination showed that these were intact, one and all. What cash he had was all upon his person. His desk, where the lamp had been lighted, held nothing valuable to anybody other than himself: manuscripts, account books, some personal papers strictly non-negotiable. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... have known one remain, altho' its mate was killed, in the same tree, in such a state of torpor did it appear to be...." The screech owl is a harmless bird and a terror to mice, and any doubt as to its claim on the farmer's hospitality would at once be removed by cursory examination of the undigested pellets which, in common with hawks, these birds ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... diversity as the emotion we feel on seeing our name unexpectedly in print. We may soar to the heights or we may sink to the depths. Jimmy did the latter. A mere cursory first inspection of the article revealed the fact that it was no eulogy. With an unsparing hand the writer had muck-raked his eventful past, the text on which he hung his remarks being that ill-fated encounter ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... right-hand man of his former schoolfellow and lifelong friend, General T—-. One can imagine them talking over the case of Mr. Razumov, with the full sense of their unbounded power over all the lives in Russia, with cursory disdain, like two Olympians glancing at a worm. The relationship with Prince K—- was enough to save Razumov from some carelessly arbitrary proceeding, and it is also very probable that after the interview at the Secretariat he would have been left alone. Councillor Mikulin would ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... it presents a wonderful design and a no less wonderful adaptation of means to ends. He sees that when the bird is poised in the air the wing is essentially air-tight and that when the bird elects to ascend or descend the feathers open a free passage for the air. Even a cursory examination of the bird's wing must persuade the boy that, with any skill he might attain, he could never fabricate anything so wonderful. This knowledge must, in the nature of things, beget a feeling of respect, and thereafter, whenever the boy sees a bird, he will ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... sight it appeared to be as unblemished in every part of it as Nature's choicest and most perfect handiwork could be. So little did a mere cursory view suggest the possibility that life would have been destroyed by any external violence, that the Professor was about to take the necessary steps for ascertaining what light could be thrown on the manner of her death by the internal condition of the different portions ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Desmond made a cursory tour of the walls and passed on into the second room. Paul, increasingly anxious every moment, lagged behind and consulted his watch. It was twenty-five minutes past eleven. Would she ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... enter into some particular detail, and after having remarked, en passant, how the custom of fuddling is very ancient, I shall then shew, that the primitive christians used to get drunk: I shall speak something of the tippling of churchmen in general, afterwards I shall take a cursory review of popes, saints, and bishops, then I shall come to kings and emperors, and give a small catalogue of these illustrious topers; I shall not forget the philosophers, and much less the poets, who ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... to its maker, October 10, 1846, a cursory view of a Neptunian attendant. But the planet was then approaching the sun, and it was not until the following July that the observation could be verified, which it was completely, first by Lassell himself, and somewhat later by Otto Stuve and Bond of ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Now, as a cursory study of ornithology will tell you, the corncrake's method of attracting his bride is by song, and the criterion of excellence in C.C. circles is that the song shall be protracted, consistent and perfectly monotonous. To those who are unacquainted with his note I would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... later, when I exhibited my Pandora in the salon of 1837, I one day saw the whole Lanty family approach it. The mother was on the arm of Comte Maxime de Trailles, a well-known lion. Nil admirari is the natural instinct of all men of the world; so, after a very cursory glance at my work, Monsieur de Trailles began to find shocking faults in it, and in so high and clear a voice that not a word was lost within a certain range. Marianina shrugged her shoulders as she listened to ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... the more dimly lighted footway on the further side. At this hour the park row in which he found himself was almost deserted; now and again single pedestrians went by, and as he received from none of these more than a cursory and inattentive glance, his sense of incognito increased, and he stepped out more confidently to the task that ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... house she had designated. It was one of a row. His pace slowed to a nonchalant stroll again. It was still quite light, and he was by no means the only pedestrian on the street; a moment's preliminary, even if cursory, examination of the exterior would not be amiss! Counting the numbers ahead of him, he had already located the house. He frowned a little. A light burned in the upstairs front room. There was a light in the lower hallway as well, but that was to be expected. Why the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... restriction, Teufelsdrockh, has nevertheless contrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least, the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being indispensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in the most cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by omnivorous learning, and utmost patience and fairness: at the same time, in its results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the Compilers of some Library of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even Useless ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... this circumstance in the cursory tone of an ordinary remark, but he could not conceal the pride he felt in the rank and condition of his guest. As for Gorman, perhaps it was his foreign breeding, perhaps his ignorance of all home matters generally, but he simply assented to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... requires time to re-educate the senses and make them accustomed to the new order of things. But even a cursory view will always remain in the memory as the event of a lifetime in the experience of the ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... had not provided against this contingency, we suffered in proportion. Altogether this part of the road offers considerable obstacles to the progress of an army, from its numerous ravines and steep though short ascents and descents, which would be very difficult for artillery; I should, from a cursory glance at the country, imagine that these steep pitches might be avoided by a more circuitous route, though the one we pursued was the beaten track for the caravans, and they generally find out the most convenient passage. The approach to Koorrum was pretty, but the scenery was ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... part of the east coast that is situated between the Percy Isles and Torres Strait; a distance of 900 miles; the detailed survey of which had never before been made, for Captain Cook merely examined it in a cursory manner as he passed up the coast. The opportunity, therefore, was not lost of making such observations on our voyage as enabled me to present to the public a route towards Torres Strait infinitely preferable on every account to the dangerous navigation without ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... village after the cursory look and plunged again into the unbroken wilderness. Two or three hours later he decided that he was being followed. He had not seen or heard anything, but it was a sort of divination. He sought to throw it aside, telling himself that it ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sovereign jurisdictions, I must observe, Sir, that whoever takes a view of this kingdom in a cursory manner will imagine that he beholds a solid, compacted, uniform system of monarchy, in which all inferior jurisdictions are but as rays diverging from one centre. But on examining it more nearly, you find much eccentricity and confusion. It is not a monarchy in strictness. But, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mutineers, having been served with tobacco and brandy, had lighted their pipes and provided themselves, each man, with a stiff rummer of grog. A cursory observer would possibly have thought the scene grotesque; but the four men ranged at the foot of the table speedily detected in the countenances of their self-constituted judges, an expression of stern determination which caused their ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... octave, and so on. (It is advantageous and psychologically correct to touch occasionally, in passing, upon points which will be more thoroughly taught later. It excites the interest of the pupil. Thus the customary technical terms are sometimes made use of beforehand, and a needful, cursory explanation given of them.) That is right; you can tell them pretty well already; now we will repeat once more the names of the keys, and then we will stop for to-day. Just see how many things you have learned ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... ajar, he crossed to the case and secured one of the weapons. For a moment he studied it. There was nothing complex about the mechanism; a cursory examination sufficed to reveal how it was operated. Pressure on a little knob at the back of the handle ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... merely state the question, you must solve it; I can leave you only some cursory ideas, which I am satisfied are just, and upon which you may meditate at your leisure. Only for fools or the weak does materialism become a debasing dogma; assuredly, in its code there are none of those precepts of ordinary morals which our fathers entitled virtue; but I do find there ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... independent thinkers who made their appearance after the Reformation, we can trace our ethical pedigree. For our purpose we need seek no wider field. Here we may find sufficiently notable contrasts of opinion to disturb the dogmatic slumber of even an inert mind. The most cursory glance makes us inclined to accept with some reserve Stephen's claim that "the difference between different systems is chiefly in the details and special application of ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... proceeded to the second stage of the journey from Coban to Quiche, that he was shown the engravings in the first volume of Stevens's Central America, in which they are so faithfully depicted. He recognized many of them as old acquaintances, and still more as new ones, which had escaped his more cursory inspection; and in all he could trace curious details which, on the spot, he regretted the want of time to examine. He, moreover, knew the surly Don Gregorio, by whom Mr. Stevens had been treated so inhospitably, and several other persons in the vicinity ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... A cursory reading will suggest to any young person that the paragraph says Ailie is going to die, and that she does not fear death; but how much more it means to him who can understand it all. The end was drawing on—Ailie was going to her death. The ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... present; and are in expectation of a call to Windsor, to attend Lord W——'s nuptials: she will therefore, having attendants enough, and two men of consideration in her train, one of whom is not unacquainted with England, take cursory tours over the kingdom; having a taste for travelling, and finding it a great relief to her spirits: and when Lady L—— and Lady G—— are more disengaged, will review the seats and places which she shall think worthy of a ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... of the greatest prose writers of the eighteenth century, was born of English parents in Dublin in 1667. It is absolutely necessary to know something of his life in order to pass proper judgment on his writings. A cursory examination of his life will show that heredity and environment were responsible for many of his peculiarities. Swift's father died a few months before the birth of his son, and the boy saw but little ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... gateway at one point. The opposite row was more elevated, no doubt overlooking cultivated fields beyond the confines of the ruin. No kivas were discovered, but if such exist they ought to be found in the mass of houses at the southern end. I thought we had found circular rooms in that region, but cursory excavations did not demonstrate their existence. As there is no reason to suspect the existence of circular kivas in ancient Tusayan, it would be difficult to decide whether or not any one of the large rectangular rooms was used for ceremonial ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... had surmised, the winches had been housed over and fairly buried in grease when the ship laid up; hence they were in absolutely perfect condition. The engines, too, had received the best of care, as nearly as Matt could judge from a cursory view. Her cargo space was littered up with a number of grain chutes, which would have to come out; and her boats, which had been stored in the empty hold aft, away from the weather, were in tiptop shape. She had a spare anchor, plenty of ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... public lands to put them to their most productive use, and it is said with truth that this best use is the tillage of small areas by small owners. Unfortunately, the facts and this theory disagree. Even the most cursory examination of large holdings throughout the West will refute the contention that the intelligent self-interest of large owners results promptly and directly in the making of homes. Few passions of the human mind are stronger than land hunger, and the large holder clings ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... far, were I to attempt to give anything more than the most cursory sketch of the animals of the Tertiary age; and, indeed, they are so well known, and have been so fully represented in text-books, that I fear some of my readers may think even now that I have dwelt too long upon them. Monkeys were unquestionably ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... did not take note of all this, or give the poor pawns thus parading for his purpose more than a cursory glance. When he did think, which was when he was halfway up the staircase, it was to look back upon a changed scene. For with his going, interest had flagged and the tableau lost its pointedness. No one had ventured as yet to leave his place, but all had turned their faces his way, ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... as usual, postponed to a more convenient season. At length Mr. Latrobe himself undertook to pay a visit to Gippsland. He was a splendid horseman, had long limbs like King Edward Longshanks, and was in the habit of making dashing excursions with a couple of troopers to take cursory views of the country. He set out in the month of May, 1844, and was introduced to the settlers in the following ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... his pocket, and for this alleged attempt against the life of a member of parliament, Dun was carried before the commons, who voted him insane, and ordered his dismissal. The court of king's bench, however, committed Dun to prison for want of bail and securities, and looking upon facts only in a cursory light, the people believed that the government was determined to make away with the defender of their liberties. All this tended to render the cabinet so obnoxious, that Horace Walpole was apprehensive that there would have been ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... out of the bones, near the top of the crater. Already young palm-trees and a variety of vegetable productions were springing up round the base of the cone, so that this spot in a few years hence may afford ample support to any one cast away on it. After a very cursory inspection of the place we hurried back to the boat, and returned ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... other authors he embodies variations which stand already severely condemned by first-class chess critics in various chess periodicals; and his original researches contain a considerable portion of "skittle" analysis, which does not bear cursory examination. ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... was not so blessed. After a cursory treatment in the cemetery gate-keeper's lodge, he was removed, wrapped in blankets, to his quarters in the great barracks; the iron constitution, of which Daniels spoke, bore him up, and before Claudius was on foot again, the officer was ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... poor man, seem to be. Although I have a general idea of your situation, I am very desirous to know precisely how your affairs and those of your dear ones really stand. I feel aggrieved because you touch upon them always in a very cursory manner. From all I can make out, I must fear that the Princess has been cut off from her estate permanently and completely, and I must own that such losses are well adapted to upset one's equanimity. I also understand that you look ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... The aspect of this place was not at all hopeful; for there were none of those convenient "cubby holes," which most houses contain, wherein he could bestow his body with any hope of escaping even a cursory search for him. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... the mind of the layman who makes even a cursory study of the sculptors and their works at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is the fine, inspiring sincerity and uplift that each man brings to his work. One cannot be a great ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... too, greeting Mr. Fellowes, and looking for his son, and with the cursory assurance that Mr. Archfield was well, and that they would explain, a hasty introduction of Miss Darpent was made, and all moved in to where Lady Archfield, more feeble and slow of movement, had come into the hall, and the nurse stood by with the little ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which, if authentic, may justly be regarded as the most important that the annals of this people record: we allude to the circumnavigation of Africa. As this voyage has given rise to much discussion, we may be excused for deviating from the cursory and condensed character of this part of our work, in order to investigate its probable authenticity. All that we know regarding it is delivered to us by Herodotus; according to this historian, soon after Nechos, king of Egypt, had finished the canal that united the Nile and the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... jesting stops and mystic fear steps in. These customs, these symbols, these masks, all that tradition and atavism have jumbled together in the Japanese brain, proceed from sources utterly dark and unknown to us; even the oldest records fail to explain them to us in anything but a superficial and cursory manner, simply because we have absolutely nothing in common with this people. We pass through the midst of their mirth and their laughter without understanding the wherefore, so totally do ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... upon his chest and back. From these aprons hung long tassels or switches of hair tapering from the outer edges toward the center which reached below the bottom of his torso. It required but the most cursory examination to indicate to the ape-man that these ornaments consisted of human scalps, taken, doubtless, from the heads of the sacrifices upon the eastern altars. The headdress itself had been carved ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... things to tell you their story; as you always may, if you will cross-examine them long enough; and will lead you into many subjects beside mere botany or entomology. So various, indeed, are the subjects which you will thus start, that I can only hint at them now in the most cursory fashion. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... of the outlying portions of his costume, dragged him to the ditch and rolled him in on top of his friend, who had just recovered sufficiently to be thinking about getting out again. The pair of them lay there in a tangled heap. Charteris picked up the bicycle and gave it a cursory examination. The enamel was a good deal scratched, but no material damage had been done. He wheeled it across ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... This very cursory survey of the main influences and circumstances that have shaped the course and set the fashion of our modern novel of adventure may be useful in explaining its actual position at the present moment. Scepticism and research have effectually ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... A cursory glance must be given to the use of purls and other fancy threads, but these are mostly used nowadays for badges on uniforms, or for masonic purposes, and are carried out by the trade. These threads, when tarnished, ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... uniforms, sky-blue, indigo, and bottle-green, relieved the civilian attire of the groups that clustered in lounge and card rooms and corridors. Yeovil rapidly came to the conclusion that the joys of membership were not for him. He had turned to go, after a very cursory inspection of the premises and their human occupants, when he was hailed by a young man, dressed with strenuous neatness, whom he remembered having met in past days at the houses of ...
— When William Came • Saki
... conception of a pearl purchased may convey it more impressively to another; and so, although the lesson of the second parable had been more nearly identical with that of the first than it is, it would not have been expedient to dismiss it with a cursory notice. By a full examination of the principle under the picture of a precious pearl, we shall obtain the advantage which in moral questions, as in material operations, is often unspeakably great, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... strictly in order, this seems not an inappropriate place to notice one of the most curious peculiarities connected with the bats—their singular parasite, the Nycteribia.[1] On cursory observation this creature appears to have neither head, antennae, eyes, nor mouth; and the earlier observers of its structure satisfied themselves that the place of the latter was supplied by a cylindrical sucker, which, being placed ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... well—felt that there was a certain inadequateness about the ceremony. Was that all there was to it? Did just those few muttered phrases make them man and wife? It had been over in a few moments, but it had bound them for life. Had not something been left out? Was not the whole affair cursory, superficial? It was disappointing. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... said, his voice tense in his anxiety to prove his reliability, "I find that in the past I have taken only a cursory view of conditions. I see clearly that what you have outlined is a high order of statesmanship. You are constructive: I have been on the side of those who would tear down. I will gladly join hands with you and build up, so that the wealth and power of this country shall ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... MISUSE of HISTORICAL EXAMPLES, and a display of great reading or learning. What the history of the Art of War is we have already said, and we shall further explain our views on examples and on military history in general in special chapters. One fact merely touched upon in a very cursory manner may be used to support the most opposite views, and three or four such facts of the most heterogeneous description, brought together out of the most distant lands and remote times and heaped up, generally distract and bewilder the judgment and understanding ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... letters give but an incomplete picture; and that, while writing them, Balzac was throwing much energy into schemes, which he either does not mention to his correspondent, or touches on in the most cursory fashion. Therefore the perspective of his life is difficult to arrange, and ordinary rules for gauging character are at fault. We find it impossible to follow the principle, that because Balzac ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... coming in between these two series, and covering the period extending from 1776 to 1789, have never been published, and in great part have either never been examined or else have been examined in the most cursory manner. The original documents are all in the Department of State at Washington, and for convenience will be referred to as "State Department MSS." They are bound in two or three hundred large volumes; exactly how many I cannot say, because, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... nearly a century ago. In 1820, Mr. Rich visited the spot; he obtained a few square sun-dried bricks with inscriptions, and some other slight remains; and we can all remember the profound impression made upon the public mind, even by these cursory ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... had grown seriously alarmed as she began to realise what sort of a fix she was in. The stranger came forward to lend his aid to the inspection, and after a cursory glance added his verdict ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... its traditions of truculency against Keats, Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Tennyson, Ruskin, and some others. I read "A.'s" volume with great attention, and piqued myself somewhat upon having introduced into my review some reference (detailed or cursory) to every poem in it. Possibly (but I hardly think so) the critique was afterwards shortened, so as to bereave ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... paternal standard. The park grounds below the house bear evidence of his appreciation of the beauties of scenery, in the taste with which he has performed that difficult task of selecting the groups of trees requisite for landscape, while cutting down a forest; and the most cursory view of his library can leave no doubt that his was a highly-cultivated mind. I will add no more, lest I be led insensibly to trench upon the privacy of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... from anyone else his age where food was concerned. "Sure; come on in and rest a spell," I told him. "Marty, can you fix a plate of something? We've got a guest." Marty—my wife—glanced through the kitchen doorway. After a cursory look at the boy, she smiled at him and went ...
— Stopover • William Gerken
... employer and friend; while in every free moment he read law, feeling that, as almost all his forbears had been lawyers, he might perhaps be destined for the bar. This acquaintance with the fundamental basis of law, cursory as it was, became like a gospel to Edward Bok. In later years, he was taught its value by repeated experience in his contact with corporate laws, contracts, property leases, and other matters; and he determined that, whatever the direction of activity ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... since it is not revelation; or the narrative is, as a whole, divinely dictated, and must be true throughout, if we can only arrive by due study at its true meaning. That part of it is, or may be, true, even on the most cursory study, is not denied; that it is all true will appear, ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... his prize would not allow of more than a very cursory inspection of the general contents of the volume. So far as he could make out, it seemed to be a political satire veiled under the transparent garb of an Eastern story. Parthenio was represented as a holy man—a Spiritualist or Mystic—who had lived for many years ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... from his pocket a bank-note, and handed it to Chekalinsky, who, after examining it in a cursory manner, placed it ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... glance at the bottom of this article—as the wary connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while it reads, seems as though it read not,) never fails to consult the quis sculpsit in the corner, before he pronounces some rare piece to be a Vivares, or a Woollet—methinks I hear you exclaim, Reader, Who ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... "A cursory visit," said the Doctor, "a formal inspection—you cannot fairly judge boys by that. They will naturally be reserved and constrained in the presence of an elder. But you should observe them without their knowledge—you want to know them, my dear Mr. Bultitude, ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... solidified into a mountain. On the western bank, numerous handsome facades and porticos have indeed been hewn out; and mightily interesting they were to wander through, with their elaborate tablets and cursory inscriptions, their hieroglyphical scrolls, their sculptured gods and symbols, and all the luxury of their architectural ornaments. But the grandest impressions are to be sought for on the other side, whence the materials of whole capital cities must have been removed. There is, in fact, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... of fact with regard to the main body of the Louvre, as well as with respect to its individual components, will open never-ending vistas and pageants. It is not possible in a chapter, a book or a five-foot shelf to limn all that is even of cursory interest. The well-known, the little-known and the comparatively unknown mingle in varying proportions, according to the individual mood or attitude. To some the appeal will lie in the vastness of the fabric, to others in the varied casts of ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... was the immediate future in which he figured most clearly. Her thoughts hovered round the pleasant summer to come with the distant excitement of a wedding to crown it. She never considered, or only in the most cursory way, the long years ahead, the daily companionship with the man she had chosen. She was honestly attached to Geoffry. She believed she was in love with him, whereas, as is far more often the case than the young ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... never been clearly accounted for. The precise nature of his malady was not known, since with quiet hopelessness he had refused to take medical advice. His friend Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was the only physician who had an opportunity to take even a cursory view of his case, which he did in the course of a brief walk and conversation in Boston before Hawthorne started with Mr. Pierce; but he was unable, with that slight opportunity, to reach any definite conclusion. Dr. Holmes prescribed and had put up ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sheriff or sheriff depute of Dumfries. But to relate all the sining, spoiling, oppression and murders committed by this worthy of Satan, or champion of his kingdom, were beyond my intention. I must leave it to his elegy, and the histories of that time, and only in a cursory way observe, that besides 1200l. of fines exacted in Galloway and Nithsdale shires, he was accessory to the murdering, under colour of their iniquitous laws, Margaret McLauchlan aged sixty-three years, and Margaret Wilton a young woman, whom they drowned at two ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... search of the two men and the horse. Monk, left alone with Athos, affected to speak to him on nothing but indifferent subjects while examining the vault in a cursory manner. Then, hearing ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that I shall be forced for the present to pass over the argument mainly relied on by abolitionists of every grade, to prove the sinfulness of American slavery; or at least, I can give it but a cursory notice. I understand that a celebrated D.D., has published a work, in which, he labors hard to prove the sinfulness of American slavery from its evils. It was the design of the author of Uncle Tom's ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... had prepared so that I was more than able to pass in these subjects. But when it came to mathematics I was no less than an idiot. He informed my father that he had been mistaken in me, before ... that he had given me a too cursory look-over, judging me after the usual run ... he announced that he would admit me as special student at the Keeley Heights ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... and slid off on the near side, though not till he had stolen a cursory kiss. He sprang down on ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... been awaiting the summons, welcomed them heartily; and Bobbie was relieved to see—on taking a cursory glance at the table—that besides the usual array of good things, there was a covered dish, which meant, as ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... Shakspeare's works generally, that we have no full impress of him there; even as full as we have of many men. His works are so many windows, through which we see a glimpse of the world that was in him. All his works seem, comparatively speaking, cursory, imperfect, written under cramping circumstances; giving only here and there a note of the full utterance of the man. Passages there are that come upon you like splendour out of Heaven; bursts of radiance, illuminating the very heart of the thing: ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... cursory part in the discussion, putting in a word here and there where contradiction or approval might further ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the room, however, was but cursory. She was interested only in the flat-topped desk in front of her. She stepped quickly around it—and stopped-and a low cry of dismay came from her as she stared at the floor. The lower drawer had been completely removed, and now lay upturned beside the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... A cursory glance through the seventy-four newspapers and periodicals published by the Army—generally weekly—in twenty-one languages, would show any one how variously our people everywhere are seeking to meet the different habits of life in each country, and how constantly new ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... and it tormented not the big Nations only, and threw an absurd Europe into paroxysm after paroxysm; but it whirled up, in its wide-weeping skirts, our little Fritz and his Sister, and almost dashed the lives out of them, as we shall see! Which last is perhaps the one claim it now has to a cursory mention ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... it. But to the point! When you left the room I was determined to be trifled with no longer, and I asked him, in a firm voice and very marked manner, whether I might command his immediate attention to important business. He professed to be at my service. I opened the affair by taking a cursory, yet definite, review of the principles in which my political conduct had originated, and on which it was founded. I flattered myself that I had produced an impression. Sometimes we are in a better cue for these expositions than at others, and to-day I was really unusually ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... indulging in this prodigious Napoleonic dream and for delineating it in what is likely to be regarded as the best product of his intellectual career. We can only take what he has produced and give it such cursory notice ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... limit and was accordingly suppressed in the year just mentioned. Now look at the second. It also is an inventory—of the jewels and plate of the Priory of Mellerton, made in the same year, and similarly suppressed. But though both these houses were of the smaller sort, it is quite evident, from a cursory glance at these inventories that they were pretty rich in jewels and plate. By the term jewels is meant plate wherein jewels were set; as to the plate it was, of course, the sacramental vessels and appurtenances. And judging by these entries the whole ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... the detectives tell Norvallis they had found nothing. Anyway, if I don't miss my guess, they were so satisfied with something they're keeping up their sleeve that I don't believe they paid more than cursory attention to other details. Just gave everything a perfunctory once-over and let ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... it is impossible for us to attempt, even in the most cursory manner, to go over the whole. We must content ourselves with dealing with one or two of the salient points. And there are three things in this narrative which I think well worthy of our notice. There is the revelation of Christ ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Having in this cursory manner, introduced the subject of the following pages, I proceed to the narration of a life that has been viewed with attention, for a great number of years by a few, and which will be read by the public ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... Australia New South Wales. Sterile, sandy, dry, it lacked all that was most necessary for the establishment of a colony. And the English could not ascertain from their cursory inspection or hydrographical examination that, mineralogically speaking, it was one of the richest countries of the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... absent from the country, and leaving them to rest solely on his own unsupported assertion—without citing or referring to any of the facts which he declares exist—is highly censurable. We have found no evidence of the truth of his charges in a cursory examination of a considerable part of both works; and a friend upon whose judgment we place full reliance, and who has carefully compared the labors of the two editors, assures us that there is nothing which at all substantiates them. Mr. Lawrence has needlessly involved his own character in this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... Caius was obliged to relate wherefore he had come and whither he was bound. He told his story with a feeling of self-conscious awkwardness, because, put it in as cursory a manner as he would, he felt the heroism of his errand must appear; nor was he with this present audience mistaken. The wrinkled maidens, with their warm Irish hearts, were overcome with the thought ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... it a final anticlimax—by a remark from my uncle Augustus to his daughter: seated duskily in our group, which included two or three dim dependent forms, he expressed the strong opinion that Marie should go to bed—expressed it, that is, with the casual cursory humour that was to strike me as the main expressional resource of outstanding members of the family and that would perhaps have had under analysis the defect of making judgment very personal without quite making authority so. Authority they hadn't, of a truth, these all so human ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... up inside. Anywhere else in Chicago he would have stood a good chance of being arrested; but the policemen in Packingtown were apparently used to these informal movings, and contented themselves with a cursory examination now and then. It was quite wonderful to see how fine the house looked, with all the things in it, even by the dim light of a lamp: it was really home, and almost as exciting as the placard had described it. Ona was fairly ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... in my opinion (worthless, were it not backed by such a virtuoso as Comrade Jackson), needs more snap, more go. All these putrid pages must disappear. Letters must be despatched to-morrow morning, informing Luella Granville Waterman and the others (and in particular B. Henderson Asher, who from a cursory glance strikes me as an ideal candidate for a lethal chamber) that, unless they cease their contributions instantly, you will be compelled to place yourself under police protection. After that we ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... equations, soluble 'in the head.' But he called for slate and pencil, offered materials for doubt and speculation, though it would not have been easy to tell wherein they lay. What displayed itself to a cursory inspection was quite unremarkable: simply a decent-looking young Englishman, of medium stature, with square-cut plain features, reddish-brown hair, grey eyes, and clothes and manners of the usual pattern. Yet, showing through this ordinary surface, there ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... they are, I can truly promise the reader that he will find nothing wilfully misrepresented, nor advanced without just authority; and if the rapid and cursory character of the observations, allusions, and anecdotes, shall enable an hour to pass agreeably that has no better employment, I am content, and gratified with the attainment of all I ever hoped or designed by an unpretending publication, which I cheerfully dedicate to ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... the drawings, and young Somerset's brain-work for the last six weeks lay under their eyes. To Dare, who was too cursory to trouble himself by entering into such details, it had very little meaning; but the design shone into Havill's head like a light into a dark place. It was original; and it was fascinating. Its originality lay partly in the circumstance that Somerset ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... I have given are sufficient to convey to my readers the general idea I have in view, when I speak of studying the Bible, in contradistinction from the mere cursory reading of it, which ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... library; I've heard it's worth while," one had observed to the butler at the door. "Only a bit of a peep around!" His manner of putting his desire, supplemented by a half-crown, left the butler no alternative save to comply with the request, until the "peep around" began to develop into more than cursory examination, when his sense of propriety became outraged and the visitor's welcome ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... made a cursory examination of the samples of supposed vegetable material sent by you day before yesterday, collected at Sikyatki, Arizona, in supposed prehistoric burial places, I have the following preliminary ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... After a cursory inspection of each other's persons, I stretched her at full length upon the bed and getting upon her I made her herself insert my stiffly distended champion into her delicious pleasure-sheath, and enabled her for the first time to enjoy the delicious sensation occasioned by the complete ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... casting a cursory glance round the room, strode its length towards the bar where Haase stood, a crowd of plain-clothes men and policemen at his heels. Then quite suddenly the light went out, plunging the place into darkness. Instantly the room was in confusion; women screamed; a voice, which I recognized as Clubfoot's, ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... of American statesmanship, a large number of those most eminent for public services were also born and nurtured on the frontier. A cursory examination of the biographies of those distinguished men will show how largely they were indebted to the early training which they received from ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... is not more startling than is the defiance with which they have hurled it from the housetops. This purpose they claim to have accomplished by taking advantage of the ignorance and poverty of the Negro; but the most cursory glance at these enactments will convince any one that neither intelligence nor wealth constitutes the basis of electoral qualification under them, while the confessions of the framers of them as well as their operation proves that neither ignorance ...
— The Disfranchisement of the Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 • John L. Love
... reaches.' As Schnaase says,[6] though with some exaggeration, such formulae, in their summary survey of earth and sky, often give a complete landscape poem in a few words. He points out that in northern, as opposed to classic mythology, Nature was considered, not in the cursory Hebrew way, that hurried over or missed detail, but as a whole, and in her ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... cursory perusal of the Scriptures will reveal the large and important place which the doctrine of Prayer finds therein. The Christian life cannot be sustained without it; it is the Christian's vital breath. Its importance is seen ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... eighteenth dynasty, and throughout the period of its decline; and this applies not merely to the pictures proper, but to the forms of the hieroglyphic letters themselves, for it requires but the most cursory inspection to show that these give opportunity ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... morning, after a cursory inspection of the defences, the Sheriff rode over to Pendennis and held consultation with the Governor. The Governor, who had fifty men in garrison, agreed that twenty would suffice for the job; so twenty were told ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
