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Brief

verb
1.
Give essential information to someone.



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"Brief" Quotes from Famous Books



... Thus ran the brief official notice so tersely given in the "Intelligence Summary," known to the ribald as "Comic Cuts"; later it will appear even more tersely in the daily communique which delights the matutinal kipper and twin eggs of England. It's all so simple; it all sounds such a ridiculously easy ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... but must leave two, out of which the chapter may elect, but in case of irregularity or inconvenience the chapter may make a second list. The Netherlands have the same system of limited veto and second list, and the confidential brief in addition.[10] The chapters have the right of election, the Pope of confirmation, by canonical institution as the necessary condition of the bishop's consecration; but besides a confidential brief was agreed on desiring the chapter not to elect as bishop a person 'minus gratam ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... tremendously, Janie," said Honor, who revelled in her friend's brief hour of triumph. "Vivian Holmes was most impressed by your sketch of the cliffs. I heard her telling one of the Aldwythites about it. She said you were quite an artist. There, don't blush! I'm particularly rejoiced, because Vivian is so superior, and always ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... with the suddenness of a summer storm. One night the gates of the town were closed by the Regent Shurruf Khan in Humayon's name; the next dawn saw the Iron Entry, after a brief scuffle, opened in the name of Kumran! There was a rush of armed men through the streets of the town, a murder or two of loyal men in ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... us see what we can make out of a brief, general, sentimental consideration of political democracy, and whence it has arisen, with regard to some of its current features, as an aggregate, and as the basic structure of our future literature and authorship. We shall, it is true, quickly and continually ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... gladdening love of all delicious flavors.... In the stomach, judging by what there is done, what a scene we are about to enter! What a palatial kitchen and more than monasterial refectory! The sipping of aromatic nectar, the brief and elegant repast of that Apicius, the tongue, are supplanted at this lower board by eating and drinking in downright earnest. What a variety of solvents, sauces, and condiments, both springing up at call from the blood, and raining down from the mouth into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... encouragement he had received was that Sunday in the country, when for the fraction of a second she had let him hold her hand. Since then he had written her five letters and received but one brief note in reply. Her silence, however, did not depress him. She had told him she hated to write letters, a sentiment he fully shared. Only in this case he could not help himself. The moment anything of interest happened, he was seized with an uncontrollable impulse to tell Eleanor. He ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... gathered around Mark Twain's table. Booth, Barrett, Irving, Sheridan, Sherman, Howells, Aldrich: they all assembled, and many more. There was always some one on the way to Boston or New York who addressed himself for the day or the night, or for a brief call, to the Mark ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... exalted of male beings can, by his will alone, bring the earth, firmament, and heaven under his control. Thou askest me repeatedly, O king, about the Pandavas for knowing their strength and weakness. Listen now to all that in brief. If the whole universe be placed on one scale and Janardana on the other, even then Janardana will outweigh the entire universe. Janardana, at his pleasure, can reduce the universe to ashes, but the entire universe is incapable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... have communicated the grief of his heart, or the doubts of his conscience! Alas! never on earth should he hear that soft voice again! Anne, too, the gentle, childlike Anne, was afar; but she was happy,—a basker in the brief sunshine, and blind to the darkening clouds. His elder child, with her changeful moods, added but to his disquiet and unhappiness. Next to Edward, Warwick of all the House of York had loved Clarence, though a closer and more domestic intimacy had weakened the affection by lessening ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the mountainous districts, where they add greatly to the picturesque charm of the scenery, and are believed to be connected with the religious ceremonies of the people. In the flat country around Shanghai they are not to be met with; at least it was not our fortune to see any during our brief stay. The only structure like a tower, if we except the turrets on the city walls and watch towers erected within the past few years, when the Tae-Pings have threatened the city, is a tall, white ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... to let the woman of Samaria illustrate many Christians to-day who are bound in one way or another and so are shorn of power. For this suggestion I am indebted to my dear friend, the Rev. F. B. Meyer, a brief outline of whose sermon I recently had the privilege ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman

... wringing interest for a set of money-grubbers in the City, out of a poor and down-trodden peasantry overburdened by the exactions and extortions of their rulers. Mr. Brailsford, of course, puts his case much better than I can, in any brief summary of his views. He has earned and won the highest respect by his power as a brilliant writer, and by his disinterested and consistent championship of the cause of honesty and justice, wherever and whenever he thinks ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers

... which I have given the above title, forms the greater part of a review of poems by John James Piatt. The brief, concluding portion of the review is of little value and is omitted here. Piatt died several years ago. He was a great friend of William Dean Howells, and once published a volume of poems in collaboration with ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... be brief, for I have weighty affairs depending—our stratagem succeeded as you intended—Bluffe turns errant traitor; bribes me to make a private conveyance of the lady to him, and put a shame-settlement upon ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... to treat a many-sided subject, as, for example, intemperance, they still used proverbs, but combined them into brief gnomic essays (e. g., xxiii. 29-85, xxvi. 1-17). Sometimes, to fix the attention of their hearers, they combined two proverbs, so as to produce a paradox, as in Proverbs ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... by several disgusted doctors to one Jay Jay Lawrence who tacks A.M., M.D. to his patronymic, evidently as an anchor to hold it to the earth. Jay Jay and his vestibule-train title are conducting a sickly concern at St. Louis, sporting the euphonious cognomen of The Medical Brief, a monthly devoted to patent medicine and politics, blue ointment and economics, vermifuge and philosophy. Although Jay Jay finds it necessary to mix display ads with his reading matter to make the latter palatable, he declares ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... that Montague had met Hegan they had talked about horses, and about old days in Texas; but Montague was wise enough to realise that this had been in the evening. "I have come on a matter of business, Mr. Hegan," he said. "So I will be as brief as possible." ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... perused by his private friends fifteen or sixteen years before. Perplexed in what manner to do full justice both to his friend and to himself, Mr. Darwin placed the matter in the hands of Dr. Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell, by whose advice he communicated a brief abstract of his own views to the Linnaean Society, at the same time that Mr. Wallace's paper was read. Of that abstract, the work on the 'Origin of Species' is an enlargement; but a complete statement of Mr. Darwin's doctrine is looked ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley

... officers dining with the commander-in-chief that evening. Lord Wellington asked Terence several questions as to the route the convoy of prisoners had followed, the treatment they had received, and the nature of the roads, and whether the Spanish guerillas were in force. Terence gave a brief account of the attack that had been made on the French convoy, and the share that he and his fellow prisoners had taken in the affair; at which Lord Wellington's usually impassive face lighted ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... wages of a labourer, possessing but small authority over the men working on the farm, and no liberty but such as the will of a tyrannical master allowed him. Then suddenly the father died, and Brand succeeded to the farm. All his long-checked manhood asserted itself. There was a brief period of drinking, betting, and high living. The old man had left a small sum of ready money in the bank, which to the son, who had always been denied the handling of money, seemed riches. It was soon spent, and then unexpected burdens and claims ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... with each, but beyond a short nod of his head and a brief "Glad to meet you," displayed no knowledge ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... little time before the intermission, but reappeared at the supper-table. The spread was worthy of the occasion, and the guests did full justice to it. When the coffee had been served, the toast-master, Mr. Solomon Sadler, rapped for order. He made a brief introductory speech, complimenting host and guests, and then presented in their order the toasts of the evening. They were responded to with a very fair display of ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... like all the tennis world, felt a sense of keen personal loss at his heroic passing. Wilding was a man whose sterling qualities gave even more to the game than his play, and tennis is better for his all too brief career. ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... her two young charges, for such they were, was somewhat gruff and brief, and there was nothing very respectful in the manner of their reply. An elderly squaw, even though the wife of a chief, is never considered as anything better than a sort of servant, to be valued according to the kind and quantity of the work she can ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard

... a brief whispered consultation with the judge, who spoke privately to the king, and suddenly Frances was told that the proceedings were over. Evidently the king had refused to have her questioned further, fearing, no doubt, that she might testify to having ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... are many manufacturing towns and small cities that are built on one industry. Thousands of workers, young and old, answer the morning summons of the whistle and pour into the factory for a day's labor at the machine. A brief recess at noon and the work is renewed for the second half of the day. Weary at night, the workers tramp home to the tenements, or hang to the trolley strap that is the symbol of the five-cent commuter, and recuperate for the next day's toil. They are cogs in the great wheel ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... moment upon one foot. The huge gentleman waved a hand. "You will enter the carriage," he said, in a voice large, like himself, but smoothed by art and habit. Obedience belonged in the path of such a voice. Brief as was the young poet's hesitation, it was cut shorter still by a renewal of the command. David's foot went to the step. In the darkness he perceived dimly the form of the lady upon the rear seat. He was about to seat himself opposite, when the voice again swayed him to its will. "You will sit ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... the heavy breathing of Margaret beside her, due to the unwonted strain of pressing her chin close to her chest. The minister's voice droned on and on, but Hannah was sending up a fervent petition of her own, and for a brief space heard nothing. Then—Bang! "I want to sit by Her." There was a thud of falling bodies, and Elsmere, late but ardent, plumped himself into the place at Hannah's right, from which he had forcibly removed a little boy with fat red legs, which were ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... not appear in the morning papers—only a very brief summary in one or two of them; but the meaning of it was clear. The fact that the House of Representatives organized itself in one day and that the President addressed Congress on the evening of that day told the story. The noon papers had the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... however, to have been a sudden irruption of the Indians. These were of the same voluptuous and gentle race which peopled the other Great Antilles, but, like them, might have been roused to temporary madness by the diabolical cruelties of the Spaniards. If so, their brief revenge availed them little, for by 1558, the sixty thousand Indians, who inhabited the island when discovered, had been extirpated, it is said, to the very last one. Near the seashore in the east of the island are some caves, in which mouldering bones of the unhappy aborigines ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... affiliations of Berkshire have always been closer with Connecticut and New York than with Boston and Eastern Massachusetts. Accordingly, when, in 1825, Bryant yielded to the attractions of a literary career, he betook himself to New York city, where, after a brief experiment in conducting a monthly magazine, the New York Review and Athenaeum, he assumed the editorship of the {514} Evening Post, a Democratic and Free-trade journal, with which he remained connected till his ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... approach the place, find all still, and the mother bird upon her nest. As I draw near she seems to sit closer, her eyes growing large with an inexpressibly wild, beautiful look. She keeps her place till I am within two paces of her, when she flutters away as at first. In the brief interval the remaining egg has hatched, and the two little nestling lift their heads without being jostled or overreached by any strange bedfellow. A week afterward and they were flown away,—so brief is the infancy of birds. And the wonder is that they escape, even for this short time, the skunks ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... She made a brief inspection of the drawers in the dressing-table, and so far as she could see nothing was missing. She went back to the writing-bureau, mechanically put away the papers, little memorandum-books and letters which had ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... Penshurst exactly a century before Walpole, gives the Following brief notice of the place:-"July 9, 1652. We went to see Penshurst, the Earl of Leicester's, famous once for its gardens and excellent fruit, and for the noble conversation which Was wont to meet there, celebrated by that illustrious person Sir Philip Sidney, who there composed divers of his pieces. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... less fortunate than the other little nations: in his fanatical hatred of Russia, Carp rejoiced in her ally's defeat—albeit that country was his own—and Marghiloman remained in Bukarest to curry favour with its conquerors, and ultimately to become for a brief and discreditable period the Premier whom the Germans imposed on Rumania after the Treaty of Bukarest. Meanwhile the patriotic parties rallied round the ministry at Jassy and formed a ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... his soul by the good counsel of Jehannot de Chevigny, and Melchisedech by his own good sense safe-guarded his wealth against the stratagems of Saladin, I hope to escape your censure in narrating a brief story of a monk, who by his address delivered his body from imminent peril of ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Hunter's brief and precise official account of his voyage discloses little of the great distress of that thirteen months' passage; but it shows how the spirit of discovery was in the man; how, in spite of the care of one hundred and twenty-three people in a 300-ton vessel, and half rations, ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke

... obeyed her, as though recognizing one with authority, and how curiously the gentleman scanned her stonily white face, so worn in this brief moment of suffering, and listened to ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... she hurried down to Jefferson Market court room. There was a full blotter that morning, and the Judge was rushing through with it. He wanted to get home to his Christmas dinner. But he paused long enough when he got to Jimmy's case to deliver a brief but stern lecture upon the evil of child-gambling in New York. He said that as it was Christmas Day he would like to release the prisoner with a reprimand, but he thought that this had been done too often and that it was high time to make an example ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... his foaming horse into Waldstricker's gateway and galloped up to the porch. It took him but one brief moment to fling himself to the ground, and up the steps into the house. Andy had told him Tess had gone to Ebenezer's with little Elsie. To know his darling was out in such a night nearly drove him mad. It hadn't taken him long to decide to ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... item of business I think we should have, and that is a brief report from Mr. Ellis who was our delegate to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... may be also shown with regard to the New Testament canon. Very important is the declaration of Eusebius (H. E. VI. 14) that Origen, on his own testimony, paid a brief visit to Rome in the time of Zephyrinus, "because he wished to become acquainted with the ancient Church of the Romans." We learn from Jerome (de vir. inl. 61) that Origen there became acquainted with Hippolytus, ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... run down the barrels of their guns. The wind blew harder and harder: presently they seemed to spring out of the darkness; and, turning, they found that the cloud had swept onward toward the sea, leaving the rocks on the nearest hillside all glittering wet in the brief burst of sunlight. It was but a glimmer. Heavier clouds came sweeping over; downright rain began to pour. But Ogilvie kept manfully to his work. He climbed over the stone walls, gripping on with his wet hands. He splashed ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... say, "What would you? I have been here since youth; you know my life." But to you I say there was a past; brief, full, crowded into a few years; but I cannot tell it; my lips are sealed! Again thanks for your sympathy, madame. And now I will ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... compliance with my promise, I now proceed to give you a brief statement of the objects aimed at by General Rosecrans and General Burnside's movement into East Tennessee, and of the measures directed to be taken ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... excuse himself from doing so. The present writer lived for some time within a short distance of his house, but found no opportunity to meet him until it became necessary to obtain his portrait for an anthology in course of publication. The interview was brief, and the interviewer could not help feeling although treated with pleasant courtesy, that more important matters were in hand than the perpetuation of a romancer's countenance to future generations; but a friendly family acquaintance grew up from the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... the way with cyclones, it smote the vessel almost without warning. A howling squall tore out of the east, catching the ship nearly abeam, and making her shudder; then, after a brief lull, came another and even a fiercer blast, and in a few minutes the wind increased to a roaring hurricane, enveloping the ship in a mist of driving rain that half choked the officers and crew as they crouched under the lee of the bulwarks and ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... as well in a literary as a theological point of view, that any extant sermons of so renowned a divine should be made accessible to general readers? At present they are too rare and expensive to be largely useful. A brief Narrative of the Life and Death of Mr. Henry Smith (as it is for substance related by Mr. Thomas Fuller in his Church History), which is prefixed to an old edition (1643) of his sermons in my possession, concludes in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various

... shall be brief. As regards food, we obtain supplies from the hostile Kaffirs, who are all, with the exception of one tribe, in rebellion against us. In Waterberg all the Kaffirs are sitting on the fence, and are in a way still well disposed, so that we cannot take anything from ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... have shot at me, but he'd have had to hit me to get me. He'd have never run after me, for two hoboes in the hand are worth more than one on the get-away. But like a dummy I stood still when he halted me. Our conversation was brief. ...
— The Road • Jack London

... great extent of the United States, the number of their inhabitants, and the diversity of their interests, without taking into view at the same time the circumstances which will distinguish the Congress from other legislative bodies, the best answer that can be given to it will be a brief explanation of ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... in Murderers' Row in Folsom, the drowsy hum of flies in my ears as I ponder that thought of Pascal. It is true. Just as the human embryo, in its brief ten lunar months, with bewildering swiftness, in myriad forms and semblances a myriad times multiplied, rehearses the entire history of organic life from vegetable to man; just as the human boy, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... teeth for a moment, with a look which, however, wonted perhaps in his youthful days, I had very rarely seen called up in him. It passed then, and he wrote the brief word I had asked for, of addition to his letter, and gave it to me; and then took me in his ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... in the holidays—in her brief days at home of the holidays—in which these wishes were expressed, that Rosalie found Doda was corresponding with officers at ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... seen Benjamin Grimshaw and got him to give us a brief extension. They had let me stay out of school to work. I was nearly thirteen years old and rather strong and capable. I think that I got along in my books about as well as I could have done ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... brief yet important period in Mrs. Behn's life, which unless we are content to follow (with an acknowledged diffidence and due reservations) the old Memoir and scattered tradition, we find ourselves with no sure means whatsoever of detailing. It seems probable, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... the curtain and recoiled with white faces and staring eyes. "Not me!" was the brief rejoinder of Jimmy. Cathy said, "Not much!" And she meant it, ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... nationality, may be considered as in the main divisible into two sections, which, in spite of partial variations, correspond on the whole with two divergent directions of apparent interest. Let us call them (in brief general terms) laborers on the one hand, employers of labor on the other; including, however, along with employers of labor not only retired capitalists and the possessors of inherited wealth, but all that highly paid description of laborers (such as the professions) ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... when he was relieved by a young man who served as apprentice, and he knew the breadth and windings of the channel, and the extent of all the yearly-shifting shoals from the Rio Negro to Loreto, a distance of more than a thousand miles. There was no slackening of speed at night, except during the brief but violent storms which occasionally broke upon us, and then the engines were stopped by the command of Lieutenant Nunes, sometimes against the wish of the pilot. The nights were often so dark that we passengers on the poop deck could not discern ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... 'For a brief time that may be endured,' answered the vagrant, 'and if within that period I cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief from my comrades, I can always die, and death is the most perfect ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... very desirable that Authors, and those who may have to give directions to the Printer, should be acquainted with the manner in which Printing is performed, it may be proper, in commencing this little work, to give in the first place a brief outline of ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders

... corresponding emotion. Such effusive love pours itself in words, and is most generally the token of intense selfishness. Any man who seeks to make his words a true picture of his emotions must be aware that few harder precepts have ever been given than this brief one of the Apostle's, 'Let love ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... to the many questions which my legal adviser put to me led him to a conclusion that made my heart ache. He was of opinion that my brief absence, while I was taking that fatal "breath of air" on the banks of the river, had offered to Cristel her opportunity of getting away without discovery. "Her old father," the lawyer said, "was no doubt in his bed, and you yourself found nobody watching, ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... length, and particularly on hot afternoons, a faint physical nausea, a kind of secret headache. But, hitting one day upon the doleful book of verses, and observing its religious character, I asked 'May I read that?' and after a brief, astonished glance at the contents, received 'Oh ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... proposal. The manner, however, of mother and daughter disturbed him; something he saw was amiss; there was a sadness and constraint in the words of both which distressed and embarrassed him. After a brief conversation on commonplace topics Mary rose hastily and left the room. Mark hesitated, but feeling that he must seize the opportunity, he at once asked Mrs Franklin's permission to avow ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson

... the beautiful poems Wordsworth has addressed to her; and this seemed peculiarly the temper of her spirit—peace, the holy calmness of a heart to whom love had been an 'unerring light.' Surely we may pray, my friend, that in the brief season of separation which she has now to pass, she may be strengthened with ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... enough to guard their loop-hole for escape, but they found themselves outnumbered, and in turn had to fight for their own lives. The blazing huts lighted up the snow in a weird fashion; the shrieks and cries and jargon of the Iroquois added to the frightfulness. Yet the struggle was brief. The enemy, finding themselves on the losing side, began to fly, pursued by the soldiers, and indeed, many ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... in Art. When the young painter forsakes poverty and sincerity for wealth and popularity, he steadily degenerates as an artist and eventually loses his soul. The ending of the story, with the disappearance of the portrait, is remarkably clever. The brief tale called "The Cloak" or "The Overcoat" has great significance in the history of Russian fiction, for all Russian novelists have been more or less influenced by it. Its realism is so obviously and emphatically realistic that it becomes exaggeration, but this does not lessen its ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... Congoland. Kind Mme. Trouessart (nee Walcker), distressed and unusually moved at the sad circumstances of Mrs. Warren's death, had called in her uncle the Baptist pastor (who also in some unexplained way seemed to hold a brief for the Salvation Army). He prayed silently by the death-bed which, under the circumstances, was more tactful than open intercession. He helped greatly over all the formalities of the funeral, and he took upon himself the arrangement of the ceremony, so that everything was done decorously, and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... Christmas Tree we long to linger, but they are evanescent. The Candy Man must see the children home after a few brief words ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard

... how about it? Aren't you going to make me that brief little sketch of the length plan and cross-section of the Tube? I remember your sketch of it in college, and it tends to confuse me with the real changes that were made necessary when the wind-propulsion ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen

... every government is liable, from within and from without. And we are just now beginning to see, that, in the Constitution they adopted, they not only provided for the interests of peace, but for the dangers and emergencies of war. Brief sentences, hardly noticed before, now throw open their doors like a magazine of arms, ready for use in the hour of peril. And while we shall come out of this struggle, and the political contest that will follow it, without impairing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... averse to being ruled by them, but he was far from being insensible to their charms. Opposition exasperated him; all his caprices found many obsequious allies ready to further his suit, and more than one woman made a deep, if brief, impression upon him. His disdain of woman has, we are sure, been much exaggerated. At Saint Helena he declaimed against women, but his remarks were mere paradoxes, not meant ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... presents, in fifty-four articles, duly numbered, objections to the course and policy of Fox. It was, in brief, an arraignment of that distinguished gentleman. But it was not intended for publication, at least at that time. It was transmitted to the Duke of Portland, with a letter, asking that it might not even be read at once, but that the Duke would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... this diplomatic defeat dates the renaissance of Serbia. It restored her to a sense of hard realities, and taught her to substitute hard work for loud talk. So rough a challenge put the national spirit on its mettle. The brief period between 1908 and 1912 worked a real transformation in Belgrade, which could not fail to impress those who took the trouble to look beneath the surface. Nowhere was the change more marked than in the Serbian army, from which the regicide elements had been slowly but steadily ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... much exhausted, seemed to forget what he had stopped for, and said little or nothing of the incidents of the day. This was the second occasion on which I had met him in the midst of misfortune, for during the fight in the cedars at Stone River, when our prospects were most disheartening, we held a brief conversation respecting the line he was then taking up for the purpose of helping me. At other times, in periods of inactivity, I saw but little of him. He impressed me, now as he did in the cedars, his quiet, unobtrusive: ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... a night, and yet another day and they drove constantly southward, halting only for a brief time in the khors in order not to fatigue the camels too much, to water and feed them, and also to divide their provisions and water. From fear of the pursuit they turned yet farther to the west, for they did not have to concern themselves about water for some time. The downpour had lasted ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... utterance, and it was brief. Emmy Lou was to advance one foot, stretch forth a hand and say, in the character of orphan for whom no asylum was offered, "We know not where ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... next day after the death of his son, the Czar, in order to anticipate and preclude the false rumors in respect to the case which he knew that his enemies would endeavor to spread throughout the Continent, caused a brief but full statement of his trial and condemnation, and of the circumstances of his death, to be drawn up and sent to all his ministers abroad, in order that they might communicate the facts in an authentic form to the courts to ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... home includes the parlor. This department we must give but a brief and passing notice. Yet it is as important and responsible as the nursery. In it we have a view of the relations of home to society beyond it. The parlor is set apart for social communion with the world. Much of momentous interest is involved ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... had a wild, strange beauty that made other women seem tame beside her; and in the course of time the young men found themselves regarding their ward not so much like brothers as at first. In brief, they found themselves in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... over the gate, he told her the story of his life, of his cramped childhood and youth, of his brief moment of happiness and success at college, of his first attempts to make himself a power among younger men, of the gradual dismal failure of all his efforts, the dying down of desire and ambition. From the general narrative there stood out little pictures of individual persons ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... inexpiable Fate is made the ruling principle: it envelops and overshadows the whole; and under its louring influence, the fiercest efforts of human will appear but like flashes that illuminate the wild scene with a brief and terrible splendour, and are lost forever in the darkness. The unsearchable abysses of man's destiny are laid open before us, black and profound and appalling, as they seem to the young mind when it first attempts to explore them: the obstacles that thwart our faculties ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... had come and where they were going, but he had no understanding of a map. I remember, after we had come to the Harbor at dusk and told our story, the general asked him to indicate our landing-place and our journey home on a big map at headquarters. D'ri studied the map a brief while. There was a look of embarrassment ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... me," said Agatha, "that if I were in Philly's place I'd want something more than a brief call on the first evening, after so ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... only manufactured, but cleaned and shaken by machinery, and (be it remarked en passant) lose their nap prematurely in the process. To satisfy our national love of the new, an endless and nameless variety of trifles appears each season, so-called labor and time-saving combinations, that enjoy a brief hour of vogue, only to make way for a newer ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... wedding morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden. Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the Gospel, One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven. 935 Simple and brief was the wedding as that of Ruth and of Boaz.[56] Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal, Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate's presence, After the Puritan ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... would be as well to get on further down the road and under the shadow of the trees, which were not so very far off, and which looked invitingly cool in their spreading dark soft greenness. So, rising from his brief rest, he started again "on the tramp," and soon felt the full glare of the sun, and the hot sensation of the dust about his feet; but he went on steadily, determining to make light of all the inconveniences and difficulties, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... from this late-recognised member of our system to bestow some brief attention upon the still fruitful field of discovery offered by one of the immemorial five. The family of Saturn, unlike that of its brilliant neighbour, has been gradually introduced to the notice of astronomers. Titan, the sixth Saturnian moon in order of distance, led the way, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... Voice of Edendale. Due to mechanical difficulties there will be a brief musical interlude until contact is resumed with our portable transmitter bringing you an onthespot account ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... that is courtly or gentle, is among them like a merlin after Michaelmas in the field with crows."—A Brief Character of the Low Countries, by ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 39. Saturday, July 27, 1850 • Various

... U.S. district engineer, said before the members' council of the Association of Commerce, February 17, 1921, the Industrial Canal will be the means of removing the handicaps on New Orleans' foreign trade. "I hold no brief for the Industrial Canal," he continued, "but speaking as one who has no interest in it but who has studied the question deeply, I will say that five years from now, if you develop the Industrial Canal as it should be developed, ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney

... chosen the simplest way of proving that he had naturalized himself in New England, he could not have selected more fortunately than he has done by adopting our word Turtle to cover all the Testudinates. To an Englishman a turtle is a sea-monster, that for a brief space lies on his back and fights the air with his useless paddles in the bow-window of a provision-shop, bound eventually to Guildhall, there to feed Gog and Magog, or his worshippers, known as aldermen. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... seconds after that brief speech during which the room might have been empty, so profound was the silence. The hissing of a kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. Seven white faces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set motionless with utter terror. Then, ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Hugo's charge, with some brief instructions, and commanded John Canty to keep away from him and let him alone; he also warned Hugo not to be too ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... commander's fingers on the stud board in the control room. "Crash Dive" filled her tanks and put her nose perilously down, so that in thirty seconds only a swirling patch of water was left to show where once she'd lain. A brief command to the helmsman and she pointed straight for the dark cavern marked on ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... about to discover that," I replied, and he was quiet at once. It was not difficult to divine that he feared Nina Carrington a good deal more than he did the devil. Our leave-taking was brief; in fact, we merely stared at each other over the waiting-room table, with its litter of year-old magazines. Then ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... and De Burgh awaited them. The latter was too angry to speak. He handed Katherine into the carriage, and uttering a brief good-night, stepped back to make way for Captain Darrell, who expressed his pleasure at having met Mrs. Ormonde, and begged to be allowed to call ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... to search out and discuss the causes which have led many nations or tribes to adopt certain processes with a view to prevent that return to dust which all flesh must sooner or later experience, but the necessarily limited scope of this preliminary work precludes more than a brief mention of certain theories advanced by writers of note, and which relate to the ancient Egyptians. Possibly at the time the Indians of America sought to preserve their dead from decomposition some such ideas may have animated them, but on this point ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... strange, Henry; but when we come for but a brief moment to reflect upon the circumstances which have occurred, we shall, I think, be able to find some cause even to pity ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... farmer near who could lend a stable; so the horse was led off by Charles; and the rider, without any delay—for the hour did not admit it—entered the cottage to make his brief preparation for dinner. ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... feet the ground was in motion: it heaved and rolled in countless places. Rounded shapes in myriads were emerging. Plants—mushroom growths—poured up from the earth to drink in the sunshine of their brief summer. They burst the earth to show unfolding leaves or blunted, rounding heads, that grew ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... To recount, in brief, so much of her history as has come to my knowledge will best account for that zeal, almost to idolatry, with which she has, ever since I thoroughly knew her, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... when the President of the Free State, whose name was also Brand, had rendered important services to the British Government, I made one of the briefest of my brief minutes and put it in a box, and sent it round the Cabinet: "I think Brand should be knighted.—Ch's W. D." Nearly all the members of the Cabinet having added their initials in approval, Brand was knighted, but the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... those who do the thinking for thinking men by the hundred thousand in editorial, criticism, and article. It is for this order of work on a newspaper that a school of journalism trains. It is to these posts that, if its men are properly trained, its graduates rapidly ascend, after a brief apprenticeship in the city-room and a round in the routine work of a paper. Dull men, however educated, will never pass these grades, and not passing they will drop out. A school should sift such out; but so far, ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... can see no wisdom or purpose in anything now but to get to one's journey's end as quickly and bravely as one can. And even then, even if we do call life a journey, and death the inn we shall reach at last in the evening when it's over; that, too, I feel will be only as brief a stopping-place as any other inn would be. Our experience here is so scanty and shallow—nothing more than the moment of the continual present. Surely that must go on, even if one does call it eternity. And so we shall all have to begin again. Probably Sabathier himself.... But ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare



Words linked to "Brief" :   instruct, abbreviated, concise, official document, precis, synopsis, amicus curiae brief, legal instrument, apprise, jurisprudence, apprize, briefing, short, outline, abstract, legal brief, law, instrument, legal document, brevity, briefness



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