"Perspicacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she rose from the table might have been taken for assent. It was in reality satisfaction at her own perspicacity. She had not supposed for one moment that he had been ill but in no other way could she express what she wanted to know. It was in itself an innocuous and natural remark, but the sudden gloom that fell on him warned her that her ingenuity was, perhaps, ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... sharp sight, quick sight, eagle sight, piercing sight, penetrating sight, clear glance, sharp glance, quick glance, eagle glance, piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis^. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus^. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Myth.]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken [Scot.]; get a sight of, have a sight of, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... opinions of Virtu. They are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here, too, are some chefs d'oeuvre of the unknown great; and here, unfinished designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence and to me. What think you," said he, turning abruptly as he spoke—"what think you ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Bargeton made no interruption. She was struck with his perspicacity. The queen of Angouleme had, in fact, counted ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... village, and there rout out a sleigh to convey him to Weymore; but what if, on his arrival at Mrs. Culme's, no one remembered to ask him what this devotion to duty had cost? That, again, was one of the contingencies he had expensively learned to look out for, and the perspicacity so acquired told him it would be cheaper to spend the night at the Northridge inn, and advise Mrs. Culme of his presence there by telephone. He had reached this decision, and was about to entrust his luggage to a vague man with a lantern who seemed to ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... that was a proof of your perspicacity. You may recall that in my book I referred to the battle ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... once stopped and had a talk with a farmer whom I had asked for work. Although he had none to give me he was very civil, and we talked of tramps and tramping. He looked at me keenly. "I can see you are not of the regular professionals," said he. "Thank you for your perspicacity," I answered, and though perspicacity fairly floored him, he saw it was not an insult, and went on talking. "Now look here, my boy, they say we're hard on tramps, and perhaps some of us are, but I reckon we sometimes get enough to make us rough. Last summer I was in my orchard, picking ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... circled smoothly in and out among the dancers, as notable a couple as the room contained. Then he raked the shifting crowd for Quita's grey-green figure,—in vain. Neither she nor Garth was to be seen. It needed small perspicacity to locate them: and grinding his teeth Lenox went out again into a night jewelled with the unnumbered bonfires of the universe. Striking a match, he lit his pipe, in defiance of the knowledge that for the past few weeks he had been persistently overstepping his self-imposed ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... "in the evening," like David's enemies, "they grin like a dog and run about the city:" young women were content to find much beauty in the galleries and in the museums, and were simple enough to admire what they liked; young ladies of the present day can find nothing to admire except their own perspicacity in detecting faults in Raphael's drawing or Michael Angelo's colouring. This is the age of incompetent criticism in matters artistic, and no one is too ignorant to volunteer an opinion. It is sufficient to ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... people is most certainly, taking it in the aggregate, favorably disposed to Bonaparte. Any tale of distress from the Revolution was among this class always ended with this, 'but now, we are quiet, thanks to God and to Bonaparte.'"—Mallet-Dupan, with his accustomed perspicacity, ("Mercure Britainnique," Nos. for November 25 and December 10, 1799), at once comprehended the character and harmony of this last revolution. "The possible domination of the Jacobins chilled all ages and most conditions.... Is that nothing, to be preserved, even for one year, against ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... ignorant indeed in their sort, but far too sophisticated to entertain aught but the most contemptuous disbelief in her pretensions of special foresight and mysterious endowment. They did not fear her discrimination, and told their story, through an interpreter, with a glib disregard of any uncanny perspicacity on her part. She was one of the many Indians of the reservation who speak no English. Her cabin was far from Quallatown, and indeed at a considerable distance from any other dwelling. With her and her few associates, the moonshiners thought the child would soon forget his name, ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Alsatian was equalled by his perspicacity; he soon fathomed the intentions of the chairman and understood that the chief purpose of the committee was the exact opposite of that which its flowing terms of reference were intended ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... respecting Tsz-kung and Yen Yu he answered similarly, pronouncing Tsz-kung to be a man of perspicacity, and Yen Yu to be one versed in ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... every quarter of the town to find the prince's physician, and while a courier galloped off to Paris in order to hasten the attendance of the king's physicians, who had remained at Meaux with the queen, Catherine, with less knowledge, very probably, but not with less perspicacity than Miron himself could possibly have shown, examined the diagnostics of that singular malady which had struck down her son ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... and laughed again. Seeing that I had never so much as hinted that any such idea as he suggested had entered my head, I was somewhat taken aback by the old gentleman's perspicacity; for if the truth must be told (and it will out, sooner or later) I had quite resolved in my own mind that as soon as I attained captain's rank, and had gained some store of prize money, as I had no doubt I should do, I would endeavor to settle Dick Cludde's hash so ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... that you were all false. I should have been wise enough to know differently. But what will you?—to assume evil is easy, and always gives one a proud sense of superior perspicacity. I condemned you, Miriam, without a hearing, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... for one moment doubt their constancy. Alas! it required but little perspicacity on her part to perceive that the letters on either side must have been intercepted by ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... and congratulating myself on my perspicacity, I started straight for the mill-pond, but to my utter amazement, in the few short hours while I had been asleep, that entire body of water had evaporated, the dam had disappeared, and the stream had dried up. I must certainly present the facts in this remarkable ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... become the rhetorical staple of the South, produced solely for exportation to the North, to be used there in manufacturing pro-slavery votes out of the timidity of men of large means and little courage or perspicacity, was then freely made by both divisions of the Union. Had we been of French or Spanish descent, there would have been barricades, coup-d'etats, pronunciamentos; but the English race know better how to treat the body-politic. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... but of the English. He declares (February 1st) that "the best English regiments are already disintegrated," that "the immensity of the cost will frighten the English shopkeepers," that "the ministerial majority will likely soon be dissipated." In giving these proofs of perspicacity, Dr. Kuyper charitably adds, concerning England, "her reverses may be her salvation." And in order to ensure her this salvation, he looks forward to "those projected alliances, whose tendency it ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... apparent. One seems to see in them, compressed and symbolized in the characters of these two friends, the conflicting qualities of sense and spirit, of worldliness and self-immolation, of the most shrewd and literal perspicacity and the most visionary exaltation, which make up the singular antithesis of the ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... observation and accuracy of distinction which books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original and native excellence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon mankind with perspicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diversify them only by the accidental appendages of present manners; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the same. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... not say so, Harry. You are too modest. Besides, was it not your quickness that saved Victor? No, we owe you everything, and disclaimers are only thrown away. As for me, I feel quite jealous of Jeanne's superior perspicacity, for she trusted ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... believe in the disinterestedness of a politician, reformer, office-holder, a corporation, or a rich man. But to believe evil, to expect to be swindled, or prepare to be deceived is the height of perspicacity and wisdom. How wonderfully Shakspere in Othello portrays the wretchedness of the suspicious man. One reason why Iago so hated the Moor ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... buoyant imagination in another, and the sweet self-oblivion which Faith imparts in a third, sentiment here and will there, work the same miracle. Foresti belonged to that class of Italians who combine perspicacity and force of reasoning with a frank, affectionate, and trustful disposition,—types of the manly intellect, the childlike heart; incarceration, while it failed to enfeeble the former, by seclusion from life's game and the world's encroachments from early ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Acquisition are strongly delineated. Self-will is normally developed, while Size, Form, Observation, Weight, Locality, Calculation, and Memory of various sorts are manifest. The signs of Language in the eye and mouth denote fluency, while the practical faculties, being dominant, would give clearness, perspicacity, and directness to his style of expression, either oral or written. Time, Order, Reason, and Intuition are well developed. The long-continued observation and experiments of this noble physician in his endeavor ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... quite natural, and was waiting in much curiosity for the answer of Montignac, of whose perspicacity I was now beginning to lose my high opinion, when the inn-maid entered the kitchen, and the secretary repressed the reply already on his lips. She took from the spit a fowl that had been roasting, and brought ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... do not need your confidence, because in our camp we have sufficient perspicacity. There is the matter of the prince's daughter—that is all. But I am always afraid that for her sake you will abandon public affairs. As I am working for you, I am responsible for you, therefore ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... conscience," referring to its extreme tenderness, and his nervous scrupulousness lest he should wear the remotest appearance of evil. His religious works are chiefly critical and controversial, and are written in a style of quiet and graceful simplicity, with great perspicacity of expression and perspicuity of thought. His "Scripture Testimony of the Messiah" is a wonderful monument of human learning and clear, candid, and cogent logic. It is the greatest standard work in the language, on "the Unitarian Controversy." When ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... this cordial speech, which was to him more than a reparation for all he had endured during the interview. He rejoiced, too, at his own perspicacity in having so accurately divined the real cause of M. Belmont's misunderstanding. It was lamentable, indeed, that Arnold's letters which he had delivered to the Lieutenant-Governor should have implicated M. Belmont—if they did implicate ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... and distraction of Louisa and her mother may be easily imagined. It might be a subject of more deep and curious interest to trace the influence of such a catastrophe on the mind of Mildred; but this also we must leave to the reflection and perspicacity of the reader. Mr. Bloomfield and his sister soon after left Italy, embarking in the steam-boat direct for Marseilles: they had grown weary of travel. Colonel Willoughby and his daughter Mildred took the route by land, and quitted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... one is quite as extreme as the other," again declared the discoverer of this fact, feeling that his perspicacity had not been ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... perspicacity. You do not know, but you suspect, what I am about to disclose to you. My hope is that, when I am done, your Majesty will throw Kant and the rest of your philosophers out of the window. The people are ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... marvellous perspicacity of thought; Lynn looked admiringly down at her sister, and Muffie stood, with her mouth open, digesting this freshly-minted fact, and making clear resolutions for all ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... King. "I have never seen a more despicable creature than you. The admirable perspicacity inherent in your tribe seems to have deteriorated in you to a hyperbolated insousancy." Then he reached out his arms and slapped the king four times, twice on one side of his face and twice on ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... an admirable perspicacity in discerning what was false; and it may be said that in everything and always truth was the sole object of his mind. From his childhood he could only yield to what seemed to him evidently true; and when others spoke ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... the Baroness Bonnar in a carriage, with a lady a-sitting beside her. The two gentlemen takes off their 'ats, and they all shakes hands together, and then Mr. Brunow and Mr. Sacovitch gets into the carriage, and they all drives off together." He stopped there with such an air of triumph and perspicacity that I was angry with him. Certainly the news that Brunow was about again was interesting, and might perhaps be useful. But that, being at large, he should be in the companionship of the baroness and the Austrian police spy was not at all by ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... wood-work, looking behind the pictures for the hiding place of the famous diamond. In his time he had seen so many secret drawers, double-seated chairs, and numerous contrivances of a similar sort, that it would be a cunning hand that could baffle his perspicacity and experience. ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... her communications would have surprised anybody who did not know Tilling. A less subtle society, when assured from a first-hand, authoritative source that a report which it had entirely refused to believe was false, would have prided itself on its perspicacity, and said that it had laughed at such an idea, as soon as ever it heard it, as being palpably (look at Miss Mapp!) untrue. Not so Tilling. The very fact that, by the mouth of her ambassador, she so uncompromisingly denied ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... might be a big drama, which took public opinion captive, it might be a drama in appearance insignificant, and then each one saw and followed traces which were more or less normal and ordinarily probable. Fandor and Juve, Fandor alone, or Juve isolated, following the indications which only their perspicacity enabled them to discover, still and always felt the presence, the trace of this monster, this being so enigmatical, so indefinable, who was ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... Byron, and from Hobhouse a volume of notes, which constitutes a work of very great merit. If such a companion was agreeable to Byron, Byron was not less so to Hobhouse, who deplores a journey he had made without the company of that friend, whose perspicacity of observation and ingenious remarks united in producing that liveliness and good-humor, which take away half the sting of fatigue, and soften the aspect of ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... attempt to do for her in prose what Dante had done for Beatrice in poetry. But the vehicle of Comte's thoughts creaked. The exact language of science when applied to a woman becomes peculiarly non-piquant and lacking in perspicacity and perspicuity. No woman can be summed up in an algebraic formula, and when a mathematician does a problem to his lady's eyebrow, he forgets entirely that femininity forever equals x. Those who can write Sonnets from the Portuguese may place their loves on exhibition—no others ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Bailly's work pen in hand, and he proposed to the illustrious astronomer some queries, which proved both his infinite perspicacity, and wonderful variety of knowledge. Bailly then felt the necessity of developing some ideas which in his History of Ancient Astronomy were only accessories to his principal subject. This was the object of the volume that he published in 1776, under the title of Letters on the Origin ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Maupin, Notre-Dame de Paris, Salammbo, Madame Bovary, Adolphe, M. de Camors, l'Assommoir, Sapho, etc., still can be so bold as to write "This or that is, or is not, a novel," seems to me to be gifted with a perspicacity strangely akin to incompetence. Such a critic commonly understands by a novel a more or less improbable narrative of adventure, elaborated after the fashion of a piece for the stage, in three acts, of which the first contains the exposition, the second the action, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... made much history, and he likewise did much for the royal palaces of France. After him a gap supervened until the advent of Napoleon III, who, weakling that he was, had the perspicacity to give the Baron Haussmann a chance to play his part in the making of modern Paris, and if the Tuileries and Saint Cloud had not disappeared as a result of his indiscretion the period of the Second Empire would not have been at all discreditable, as far as the impress ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... diaries. I have written the first volume of my autobiography, encouraged by some of my friends—but no one has criticised my literary efforts with more perspicacity and insight ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... had such a good time in all his life, despite the fact that chance alone, and not his own skill and alertness and perspicacity, had ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... wanted her to be attached to the household at Shortlands, he was using Winifred as his stalking-horse. The father thought only of his child, he saw a rock of salvation in Gudrun. And Gudrun admired him for his perspicacity. The child, moreover, was really exceptional. Gudrun was quite content. She was quite willing, given a studio, to spend her days at Shortlands. She disliked the Grammar School already thoroughly, she wanted to be free. If a studio were provided, she would be free to go on with her work, she ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... his great work has lately appeared, edited in an opposite interest; and the standard reference on the law of nations, so honorable to the legal knowledge, perspicacity, and candor of an American author, goes forth perverted and deformed by annotations and comments indirectly sympathetic with the wicked rebellion now devastating the nation. Can a greater literary outrage ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... exactly, and yet—unless—? Pshaw! impossible——!" upon which lucid commentary he stopped, gazing with anxious inquiry into Captain Jack's smiling eyes. "Ah, I believe you have just a glimmer of the truth with that confounded perspicacity of yours," saying which the sailor laughed and blushed not unbecomingly. "This is how it came about: I had transactions with old John Harewood, the banker, in Bristol, transactions advantageous to both sides, but perhaps ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Persistent persista. Persistency persisteco. Person persono. Personage persono. Personal persona. Personality personeco. Personate reprezenti. Personate personigxi, imiti. Personification personigxo. Perspective perspektivo. Perspicuous sagaca. Perspicacity sagaceco. Perspiration sxvito. Perspire sxviti. Persuade konvinki. Persuasive konvinka. Pert malrespekta. Pertinacious trudpeta. Pertinacity obstineco, persisteco. Perturb konfuzi, turmenteti. Perturbation turmentado. Peruke peruko. Perusal legado. Peruse legadi, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... a great deal of esprit, to whom forty years' experience of the great world had given a prodigious perspicacity of judgment, the Duchess of Chalux, arbitress of the opinion to be held on all new comers to the Faubourg Saint Germain, and of their destiny and reception in it;—one of those women, in a word, who make or ruin a man,—said, in speaking of Gerard de Stolberg, whom she ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... really craved friendship hardly less than Schiller's, there was something very grateful in this frank homage combined with rare perspicacity. He saw that Schiller understood him or was at least concerned to understand him. With all their differences they were spiritual congeners, and much might be hoped for from this new connection. So he sent a very cordial reply to the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... could she keep up the fiction of ignorance. This, quickly realizing, she again and more flagrantly fibbed. The voluntary lie acts as a tonic giving you—for the moment at least—most comforting conceit of your own courage and perspicacity. And Henrietta just now stood in need of a tonic. She had been strangely overcome by the force of her own emotion—an accident which rarely happened to her and which she very cordially ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... least, too frank to pretend any of the assurance which was then de mode. She saw what was coming, and was fully persuaded that it must come. I hope that her eye may rest on this testimony to her perspicacity, though I know not whether she still graces this planet with her very pleasing presence. For as, alas! in so many scores of other instances, our lives have drifted apart, and it is many years since ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... that she was glad to see her. She understood now that Mrs. Toomey had accepted the loan hoping to carry water on both shoulders, and finding herself unable to do so, had eased herself of the burden which required the least courage. The perspicacity of years of experience seemed to come to Kate in a few minutes, so surely did she follow Mrs. Toomey's motives ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... and an alert gait. The other Mantis is ash-grey. Her prothorax is short and her movements heavy. The coloration therefore is no guide to the huntress, any more than the gait. The green and the grey, the swift and the slow are unable to baffle her perspicacity. To her, despite the great difference in appearance, the two victims are Mantes. And ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... several other jars, labeled "Fluff from Omnibus and Road Car Seats," "Cocoanut Fibre and Rope Strands from Mattings in Public Places," "Cigarette Stumps and Match Ends from Floor of Palace Theatre, Row A, 1 to 50." Everywhere were evidences of this wonderful man's system and perspicacity. ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... the warmth of an increased liking for him, because of the perspicacity he showed. They lighted cigarettes, and together looked over the marvelous scene, so rich in color and life, while they talked of things that bore no relation to ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... your royal highness has studied my notes to great advantage; your amazing perspicacity ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and the country in which we live," without endeavouring, by the enactment of more stringent laws, to correct it, the evasions, by means of which they now seek to palliate their neglect, and the strange want of perspicacity which they display in not being able to discover the real source of mischief, or their timidity in not daring to denounce it, must naturally excite our astonishment. Let any man read the reported speech of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... self-esteem? The money did not matter and he was sure that Aunt Caroline, at least, would say that he could spare the self-esteem. Besides, he would recover it in time. His opinion of himself as a man of perspicacity in business had recovered from harder blows than this. There was that affair of the South American mines, for instance,—but anybody may be mistaken about South American mines. He had told Aunt Caroline this. "It was," he told Aunt Caroline, "a financial accident. I do not blame ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... reconstruction now came clearly into view; and what a base! An official Supreme Being, and a regulated Terror. The one was to fill up the spiritual void, and the other to satisfy all the exigencies of temporal things. It is to the credit of Robespierre's perspicacity that he should have recognised the human craving for religion, but this credit is as naught when we contemplate the jejune thing that passed for religion in his dim and narrow understanding. Rousseau had brought a new soul into the eighteenth century by the Savoyard Vicar's Profession ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... earth, or the earth about the sun, [13] Pre Labat was, nevertheless, no more credulous and no more ignorant than the average missionary of his time: it is only by contrast with his practical perspicacity in other matters, his worldly rationalism and executive shrewdness, that this superstitious navet impresses one as odd. And how singular sometimes is the irony of Time! All the wonderful work the Dominican accomplished has been forgotten by the people; while all the witchcrafts ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... so critical to her happiness, approached. The mind of Emily could not fail, on this occasion, to be extremely agitated. She had first exerted all her perspicacity to elude the vigilance of her attendant. This insolent and unfeeling tyrant, instead of any relentings, had only sought to make sport of her anxiety. Accordingly, in one instance she hid herself, and, suffering Emily to suppose that the coast was clear, met her at the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... am now receiving from my friends (more especially from my Liberal friends) congratulations upon my perspicacity, and, although I am no Schnadhorst, I must now regard myself in the light of a Parliamentary prophet. Having in that capacity chanted my incantations and calculated the number of square feet of Irish linen in one of Mr. Gladstone's collars to be in inverse ratio ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... which easily takes possession of the French nation, and of which the United States were just then the object. M. de La Fayette was the first who managed to win the general's affection and esteem. A great yearning for excitement and renown, a great zeal for new ideas and a certain political perspicacity, had impelled M. de La Fayette to America; he showed himself courageous, devoted, more judicious and more able than had been expected from his youth and character. Washington came to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... William James' phrase, is "mawkish and dishwatery." Books are still judged among us, not by their form and organization as works of art, their accuracy and vividness as representations of life, their validity and perspicacity as interpretations of it, but by their conformity to the national prejudices, their accordance with set standards of niceness and propriety. The thing irrevocably demanded is a "sane" book; the ideal is a "clean," ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... significant words, he watched carefully the face of the youth, where, however, all indications defied his perspicacity, inasmuch as blank astonishment was still the prevailing expression. But after some minutes the young ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... to be sure, can be divined from the acts and conversations, from the dress and manners of the characters, but there is always more that has to be directly expounded. The writer cannot rely upon the reader's perspicacity to make the right inferences, or upon his knowledge to supply sufficient data; nor can he make his characters tell all that he may want told about their past and the life of the world in which they live, and through the influence of which they have become ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... hide anything from the perspicacity of the astute Annas? You have pierced to the very heart of Judas. Yes, they insulted poor Judas. They said he had stolen from them three denarii—as though Judas were not the most honest man ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... "perhaps you have found a prince of the church, pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together the indicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncanny acumen that you stood aghast at his perspicacity?" ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... genuineness of Ossian to a blind man, who should dispute the reality of colours, and deny that the British troops are cloathed in red. The blind man's doubt would be rational, if he did not know by experience that others have a power which he himself wants: but what perspicacity has Mr. Clark which Nature has withheld from me ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... emphasis, and the rhetorical artifice is apparent, as it is in all literature of this kind. In his letters he uses a very simple and naturally witty style. He was a great coiner of sentences, many of which can be found in his proclamations and addresses. His political perspicacity was remarkable. He could and did break the conventionalities and the political principles sacred in that epoch, to formulate those which were better for the condition of the country. He was a shrewd judge of men, and knew how to honor them ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... difficult to interpret the sudden look he gave her, but her perspicacity warned her that she was on the wrong tack with this man of the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... becoming the Demiurgus. Ganymede (who possibly gave rise to the old Lat. "Catamitus") was probably some fair Phrygian boy ("son of Tros") who in process of time became a symbol of the wise man seized by the eagle (perspicacity) to be raised amongst the Immortals; and the chaste myth simply signified that only the prudent are loved by the gods. But it rotted with age as do all things human. For the Pederastia of the Gods see ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... a pleasant young man. Perceiving that I was a stranger, he volunteered the additional information that the masculine roles, as well as the feminine ones, were being played by girls; and I trust that I will not seem to be boasting of perspicacity when I declare that there had already entered my mind a suspicion that ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... historical works, has placed the result of his researches at my disposal with a disinterestedness I shall never be able adequately to acknowledge. He has also carefully read the whole of my work. M. Jean Brousson has given me the advantage of his perspicacity which far surpasses what one is entitled to expect from ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... rules, as to demonstrate the inconveniences and incongruities which the poet might have avoided, had he been more studious of design and uniformity. It is true that his romantic materials claim great liberties; but no materials exclude order and perspicacity." Warton assures the reader that Spenser's language is not "so difficult and obsolete as it is generally supposed to be;" and defends him against Hume's censure,[38] that "Homer copied true natural manners . . . but the pencil of the English poet was employed ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... said Smith "that I am trying to lead you blindfolded in order later to dazzle you with my perspicacity. I am simply afraid that this may be a wild-goose chase. The idea upon which I am acting does not seem to have struck you. I wish it had. The fact would argue in favor of its ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... "Good," said he, "it is about a lady, is it? It is from a personage fully as important, a giant in power, whose words resound from one extremity of Europe to another, and whom the Choiseuls believe their own entirely." "It is M. de Voltaire," I said. "Exactly so: your perspicacity has made you guess it." "But what does he want with me?" "To be at peace with you; to range himself under your banner, secretly at first, but afterwards openly." "Is he then afraid openly to evince himself ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... for mastery as between two sides. The combatants strain their powers to say everything that can be said so as to shake the case of their opponents. The debate is a field-day, a challenge to a trial of strength. Now, while I admit that the intellectual powers may be quickened to unusual perspicacity under the sound of the trumpet and the shock of arms, I also see in the operation many perils and shortcomings, when the subject of contest is truth. In a heated controversy, only the more glaring and prominent facts, considerations, doctrines, distinctions, can obtain a footing. Now truth is the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... the windows of the third floor, ventured to place himself on the stone flag where Monsieur Guillaume was standing. He took two steps out into the street, raised his head, and fancied that he caught sight of Mademoiselle Augustine Guillaume in hasty retreat. The draper, annoyed by his assistant's perspicacity, shot a side glance at him; but the draper and his amorous apprentice were suddenly relieved from the fears which the young man's presence had excited in their minds. He hailed a hackney cab on ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... perspicacity to guess what had just taken place, he did not in any way show it. He sat down; and it was only after conversing for a few moments upon indifferent subjects, that he asked ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... expression of quick intelligence on his florid features, the trooper backed out of the room. With his hands behind him, his shoulders bent forward, the duke long pondered, his look, keen and discerning; his perspicacity clear, in spite of Francis' wine, or the intoxication of the princess' eyes. Although the noble's glance seemed bent on vacancy, it was himself as well as others he was studying; weighing the memorable events of the evening; recalling to mind every word with the princess; ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... eye Dartie had spotted this weakness in James the very first year after little Publius's arrival (an error); he had profited by his perspicacity. Four little Darties were now a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that distressing story of the Austrian-Succession War than readers are again like to be, can imagine to himself the difficulties of Friedrich at this time, as they already lay disclosed, and kept gradually disclosing themselves, for months coming; nor will ever know what perspicacity, patience of scanning, sharpness of discernment, dexterity of management, were required at Friedrich's hands;—and under what imminency of peril, too; victorious deliverance, or ruin and annihilation, wavering fearfully in the balance for him, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... then later to see her suggestions acted upon—a feminine consolation which men would do well to take unto themselves. As soon as they entered the ball-room, Mrs. Ingham- Baker, with that supernatural perspicacity which is sometimes found in stupid mothers, saw that Agatha was refusing her usual partners. She noted her daughter's tactics with mingled awe and admiration, both of which tributes were certainly deserved. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... penetrating thought. His descriptions are vivid; his characters are studied with a keen sagacity, and set before us in their most striking points of view; those of Egmont and Orange occur to every reader as a rare union of perspicacity and eloquence. The work has a look of order; of beauty joined to calm reposing force. Had it been completed, it might have ranked as the very best of Schiller's prose compositions. But no second volume ever came ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... the limits which he had predicted. Nor in the disastrous commencement of the year 1572 did the Duke less signally manifest his military genius. Assailed as he was at every point, with the soil suddenly upheaving all around him, as by an earthquake, he did not lose his firmness nor his perspicacity. Certainly, if he had not been so soon assisted by that other earthquake, which on Saint Bartholomew's Day caused all Christendom to tremble, and shattered the recent structure of Protestant Freedom in the Netherlands, it might have ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... copies of the works of the ancients. Nor were they contented only with the praise of never-ending industry. They forged many works, that afterwards passed for classical, and which have demanded all the perspicacity of comparative criticism to refute. And in these pursuits the indefatigable men who were dedicated to them, were not even goaded by the love of fame. They were satisfied with the consciousness of their ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... with the same eye as those of us of the Middle Classes, who, unhappily perhaps for our finer feelings, have been obliged to experience the harsh contacts of common life. Your devotion to Mr. Shaw has a romantic ardor which I can not but admire. But permit us also our enthusiasm for the perspicacity of Mr. Tubbs, to which we owe the wealth now ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... than average ability. Some of them doubtless believed that the course pursued by their organization was for the advantage of the colony, though, reasoning by the light of present knowledge, it is difficult to comprehend how men of even moderate perspicacity and judgment could have brought themselves to such a conclusion. It was, however, inevitable that persons of such narrow and contracted views—persons to whom self and pelf were the mainsprings of life—should degenerate, mentally as well as morally. The persons composing the second generation ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... some discovery he had made, or some observation which he thought necessary to record. He had been asked now and again to make reports to the Foreign Office upon matters pertaining to the countries he knew; and Lucy had heard his perspicacity praised in no measured terms by ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... and so did Kathlyn, but she did so because occultly she felt that her father expected her to laugh. She was positively uncanny sometimes in her perspicacity. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... because he was bound to appear neutral if he was to prompt the other actors who were to play in his drama. So, to give himself a countenance, he had attached himself to the jealous Amelie, the better to lull suspicion in Lucien and in Mme. de Bargeton, who was not without perspicacity. In order to spy upon the pair, he had contrived of late to open up a stock controversy on the point with M. de Chandour. Chatelet said that Mme. de Bargeton was simply amusing herself with Lucien; she was too proud, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... exclaimed, beaming with satisfaction at his own perspicacity. "I thought there was something suspicious about the fellow. I believe I can almost smell out a ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... greatness, such as seems to pass out of the limits and courses of ordinary life, often lies above the ken of intellectual judgment; but its merits and its infirmities never escape the sleepless perspicacity of the common sentiment, which no novelty of form can surprise, and no mixture of qualities can perplex. The mind—the logical faculty—comprehends a subject, when it can trace in it the same elements, or relations, which it is familiar with elsewhere; if it finds but a faint analogy of form ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... that was akin to dismay. He had not expected such perspicacity on the part of one whom he had contemptuously esteemed as merely a savage. Moreover, in addition to his indignant confusion over the introduction of Jean's name into the conversation, there was something vastly disturbing to him in realization of the fact that his own belief ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... within me; you have enlightened without dazzling me; you have given me the experience of the old, without depriving me of the graces of youth; but it is not with impunity that you have whetted the edge of my intellect, expanded my view, roused my perspicacity. Tell me, what is the source of your wealth, is it an honorable one? Why do you forbid me to confess to you the sufferings of my childhood? Why have you given me the name of the village where you found me? Why do you prevent me from searching out ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... retorted, still smarting a little, "I shall not presume to match my stupidity against your perspicacity. I haven't cat's eyes ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... dreams. There is cruelty, horror, and a sense of the wickedly magnificent in the ensemble. What crimes were committed to merit such atrocious punishment? The boldness and clearness of it all! With perspicacity George Saintsbury wrote of Flaubert's Temptation of Saint Anthony: "It is the best example of dream literature that I know—most writers who have tried this style have erred, inasmuch as they have endeavoured to throw a portion of the mystery with which the waking mind invests ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... so pleased with my perspicacity that he offered to sell me a village for 20 pounds sterling. But I buy no village in the Himalayas so long as one red head flares between the tail of the heaven-climbing glacier and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... honorificabilitudinity, Where is the maid could resist your vicinity, Wiled by the impudent grace of your plea? Then your vivacity and pertinacity Carry the day with the divil's audacity; No mere veracity robs your sagacity Of perspicacity, Barney McGee. When all is new to them, What will you do to them? Will you be true to them? Who shall decree? Here's a fair strife to you! Health and long life to you! And a great wife to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... looked at her with a ruminating eye. That eye, with unfathomable perspicacity, seemed to pry into her empty pockets and pierce her penniless state. He did not ask her if she wanted to be driven there, but intimated with a shake of his grey head that Paddington was a goodish walk. Then he gave her directions ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... and Lady Alicia, with a boldness that surprised herself, and a perspicacity that would have surprised her friends, asked, "How could they—I ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... under the impression that I expressed myself with considerable perspicacity," remarked the ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... side of the trench for cover and even edge into a dugout with the men, who made room for as much donkey as possible, or when in the open they would seek the shelter of shell-craters. Lest their perspicacity be underrated, French soldiers even credited the wise elders among them with the ability to distinguish ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... least, she had reckoned herself safe from molestation. And, that precisely in the hour of peace, the hour of politic insurance against accident, this accident of all others should befall her, was maddening! But anger did not lessen her perspicacity. How to inflict the maximum of discomfort upon M. Destournelle with the minimum of risk to herself was the question. An interview was inevitable. She wanted, very certainly, to get her claws into him, but, for safety's sake, that should be done not ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... may almost persuade himself that he alone perceives, since this softly gracious creature seems so little to insist upon it—seems, indeed, to be herself unaware of its presence. Whereupon the man conceives a new idea of his own perspicacity in detecting a thing at once so agreeable and so little advertised. He may, with a woman of this kind, go long upon the third 'tack'—may, indeed, never know it was she who gently 'shunted' him, still unenlightened, and left him side-tracked, but cherishing to the end of time the soothing conviction ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Her perspicacity disconcerted him. He had expected to bolster up the ruins of his honor by her delighted acquiescence. He had not known till now how much he had been counting on the justification of her relief. It was a proof, however, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... reading just after it was published M. Camille Mauclair's little book on the Impressionists. Long ago I ceased much to admire M. Mauclair's writing: his theorizing and pseudo-science now strike me as silly, and his judgements seem lacking in perspicacity. But whatever I may think of it now I shall not forget what I owe that book. Even at Cambridge the spirit of the age, which is said to pervade the air like a pestilence, had infected me; and I set out on my first visit to Paris full of curiosity about what was then the contemporary movement—at ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... awkwardness of his structure, he dissected with a singular perspicacity, the Avare, "the ordinary man," and "the passion of unhappiness," revealing meanwhile interesting comparisons which could be constructed between the operations of photography ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... inference. 'There has been an accident' thought he, and was elated at his perspicacity. Almost at the same time his eye lighted on John, who lay close by as white as paper. 'Poor old John! poor old cove!' he thought, the schoolboy expression popping forth from some forgotten treasury, and he took his brother's hand in his with childish tenderness. It was perhaps ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... whom for his merits we accord the full Christian name—do any discredit to the perspicacity of his master, if it was not that he rather exceeded the hopes of his benefactor, for he was attentive to the horses, civil to the farmers, and handy at anything that came in his way. Then, to render the connection reciprocal, William was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... opinions of the people, and as an additional tie which was to attach them to a Government rendered legitimate by the solemn sanction of the Papal authority. Bonaparte was not deceived. In this, as well as in many other things, the perspicacity of his genius enabled him to comprehend all the importance of a consecration bestowed on him by the Pope; more especially as Louis XVIII., without subjects, without territory, and wearing only an illusory crown, had not received that sacred unction by which the descendants of Hugh ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... was silent for a moment, and seemed to be looking at a problem in his shrewd mind. For he had a shrewd mind, which took in the whole situation, Mrs. Mavick and all, with a perspicacity that would have astonished that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sixteenth century," I went on with that excessive perspicacity which our wives have to put up with, "he'd have been a Drake or a Dampier; in the seventeenth, the commander of a privateer or slaver; in this age, I shall not be at all surprised if he turns out a great railway or financial magnate. It's like a whiff ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... the punctured places ceased. The Comte de la Fere puzzled his brains for some time, to divine what the musketeer could be going to do at Cannes, and what motive could have led him to examine the banks of the Var. The reflections of Athos suggested nothing. His accustomed perspicacity was at fault. Raoul's researches were not more successful than ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Hermoso; "you credit me with a much larger measure of perspicacity than I can lay claim to. To be perfectly frank with you, I cannot conceive why you should desire a private interview with me, unless—how shall I put it?—unless—you find yourself in a position of temporary pecuniary embarrassment; and in that ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... the curtain stopped short these discussions, which displayed so much good-nature and perspicacity. But some laid the blame on the influence of that little bigot of a Talbrun, who had secretly blown up the fire of religious enthusiasm in Jacqueline, when Madame d'Avrigny's energetic "Hush!" put an end to the discussion. It was time to come back to more immediate interests, to the ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... Saint-Germain through the Listomeres, the Lenoncourts and the Vandenesses. He caused himself to be presented at Mme. Firmiani's as M. de Rouxellay, the name of his estate. The advice of Bourbonne, which was marked by much perspicacity, if followed, would have extricated Francois Birotteau from Troubert's clutches; for the uncle of M. de Camps fathomed the plottings of the future Bishop of Troyes. Bourbonne saw a great deal more than did the Listomeres of Tours. [Madame ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... habit of asking any one on the road for any common information. For these sorts of details, unless in very serious circumstances, he confided in his perspicacity, which was so seldom at fault, in his experience of thirty years, and in a great habit of reading the physiognomies of houses, as well as those of men. At Melun, D'Artagnan immediately found the presbytery—a charming house, plastered over red brick, with vines climbing along the gutters, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he explained to Bob and Frank. "I have to go back to the city, and Hampton is going to motor me to the railway. I can't thank you fellows enough for your part in this affair. If it hadn't been for your perspicacity, in the first place, we might not have gotten wind of what was going on. And the way you all fought and acted on your own initiative time and again when we were ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... telling me to-night a long story of machinations against him in the club; the perspicacity with which he detected them, the odious repartees he made, the effective counter-checks he applied. "I was always a combatant," he says, with a leering gaiety. Then the next moment he is girding at the whole crew for their stupidity, their ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... than Kate did herself. While the writer didn't precisely say that he counted on Kate to supply the woof of the fabric of life, that expectation made itself evident between the lines to Mrs. Barrington's sentimental perspicacity. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... much social perspicacity that I hoped you would see without my having to tell you. It's chiefly ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... before. He saw the double file of men stretching up one street, and stretching down the other from the corner of the bakery where the loaves were to be given out on the stroke of twelve, and he hugged himself in a luxurious content with his perspicacity. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... service in the United States army, he became Professor of Chemistry at the Military College. He was afterwards much engaged in the manufacture of machinery in the Northern States. At the commencement of this war, with his usual perspicacity, President Davis selected Colonel Rains as the most competent person to build and to work the Government factories at Augusta, giving him carte blanche to act as he thought best; and the result has proved the wisdom of the President's choice. Colonel Rains told me ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... Republicans thought, as far back as 1832. In 1868-69 they made us swallow once again ideas of brotherhood from beyond the Rhine, by lulling our perspicacity, by enervating the courage we used to display towards foreigners, and it was several weeks before we realised in 1870 that all Germany, from one end to the other, was of the same type of honesty, the same character as the ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... one must be blind, surrender one's self absolutely, see nothing, question nothing, understand nothing. One must adore the weakness as well as the beauty of the beloved object, renounce all judgment, all reflection, all perspicacity. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... joined the perspicacity of the heart to that of the brain, knew his daughter's whole past; he knew, or he had guessed, the history of the hidden love that united her with Emmanuel: he now showed this delicately, and sanctioned their affection by taking part in it. It ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... relieved from these alternatives of extenuation and approval. A paragraph in the morning paper announced the sudden death of Doctor Lombard, the distinguished English dilettante who had long resided in Siena. Wyant's justification was complete. Our blindest impulses become evidence of perspicacity when they fall in ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... did not realise the wisdom of this advice. The future was only too thoroughly to justify Greatauk's perspicacity. La Trinite demanded the documents belonging, to the Pyrot affair. Peniche, his Minister of War, refused them in the superior interests of the national defence, telling him that the documents under General Panther's care formed the hugest mass of archives in the world. La Trinite studied the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... was it that, in the midst of so much perspicacity as to detail, blinded Burke at the time when he wrote the Reflections to the true nature of the movement? Is it not this, that he judges the Revolution as the solution of a merely political question? If the Revolution had been merely political, his judgment ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the Viceroy of Egypt, Ismail I., a prince whose superior intelligence is ever anxious to develop the resources of his country. His Highness was perhaps the only man in his own dominions who, believing in the buried wealth of Midian, had the perspicacity to note the advantages offered by its exploitation. For the world around the Viceroy pronounced itself decidedly against the project. My venerable friend, Linant Pasha, suggested a comparison with the abandoned diggings of the Upper Nile; forgetting ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... kind of way. Heretofore he had been steering by the wind; now, that scanty peripatetic band, adrift on celestial highways, assisted him in keeping his course. When one sleepy-eyed planet went in, another, not far away (from the human scope of survey) came out, and Francois, with the perspicacity of a follower of the sea, seemed to have learned how to gage direction by a visual game of hide-and-seek with the pin-points of infinitude. Between watching the stars, the sea and the sail, he found absorbing occupation for mind ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... with his habitual perspicacity: "It is the widespread belief in the Great Spirit, whatever his precise nature and origin, that has long and deservedly drawn the attention of European thinkers to the native religions of the North American tribes". Now while, in recent times, Christian ideas ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... my wife with her usual perspicacity, "have dropped it on his way out. Let's see who the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... diplomatists ought to play. It was thus, in all probability, that he used to play with some influential dignitary at St. Petersburg, whom he wished to impress with a favorable idea of his solidity and perspicacity. "One hundred and one, hundred and two, heart, hundred and three," said the measured tones of his voice, and Lavretsky could not tell which it expressed—dislike ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... government, of religion, of right, of wealth, a man must be a historian beforehand, a jurisconsult and economist, and have gathered up myriad of facts; and, besides all this, he must possess a vast erudition, an experienced and professional perspicacity. If these conditions are only partially complied with, the result will only be a half finished product or a doubtful alloy, a few rough drafts of the sciences, the rudiments of pedagogy as with Rousseau, of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that knowledge which makes all clear before the mental vision. Tunis Latham's perspicacity did not compass this thing. He did not grasp the psychological moment, as we moderns call it, and consummate there and then the only reasonable and righteous plan that it was ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... natural perspicacity that enabled him, as soon as he heard these remarks, to grasp ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... said nothing. When her first surprise was over, she vainly endeavored to find a plausible explanation of M. Fortunat's acquaintance with her affairs, for she was not at all deceived by his pretended perspicacity. Meanwhile, delighted by the supposed effect he had produced, he recklessly continued: "Reserve your amazement for what I am about to disclose, for I have made several important discoveries. It must have been your good angel who inspired you with the idea of coming to me. You would ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Bostons had been much in request, and after hours they had had a further spurt, closing at L7 10S. Already in these three days he had cleared his option, and at present prices the shares showed a profit of a point. Mills would have to acknowledge that his perspicacity had been at fault, when he ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... besides being wealthy, was a man of business. His daughter should marry a man who had money sufficient to insure his worth. With perspicacity rare in a man, he had observed that the two singular men of this narrative admired his daughter. Now, Bat, being a freak, was making money rapidly, while Sampey was only a poor literary bureau! Castellani felt the need of a partner. Why should not a partner be a son-in-law? ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... looked at Mademoiselle de Fontaine with a surprise that was full of perspicacity. A suspicion flashed upon him. He glanced inquiringly from his brother to his partner, guessed everything, clasped his hands, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and began to laugh, saying, "I am an idiot! You are the handsomest person here; ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac |
