"Cursory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this 'marvellous boy' is familiar to all the readers of English poetry, and requires only a cursory treatment here. Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol, November 20, 1752. His father, a teacher in the free-school there, had died before his birth, and he was sent to be educated at a charity-school. He first learned to read from a black- ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... made in an almost cursory tone. I could see that what was upmost in his mind was the fact that I had read 'Negations.' His pale eyes had for the first time gleamed. I felt as one who is about to be examined, viva voce, on the very subject in which he is shakiest. I hastily asked him how soon ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... The pointing I consider a matter to be dealt with as any one pleases—for the sake of sense, of more sense, of better sense, as much as if the text were a Greek manuscript without any division of words. This position I need not argue with anyone who has given but a cursory glance to the original page, or knows anything of printers' pointing. I hold hard by the word, for that is, or may be, grain: the pointing as we have it is merest chaff, and more likely to be wrong than right. Here ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... from their lamps fails to penetrate the darkness of the gloomy apartment. At the cursory glance, such as they at first cast round the room, it appears to be empty. Their hearts sink within them. Have ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... cursory survey of the main influences and circumstances that have shaped the course and set the fashion of our modern novel of adventure may be useful in explaining its actual position at the present moment. Scepticism and research have effectually retrenched the very liberal credit formerly assigned ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... design was produced, and some of the later patrol boats were converted and called "P Q's." These vessels had the appearance of small merchant ships at a cursory glance. They would not, however, stand close examination owing, again, to their fine lines, but being better sea boats than the "P's," by reason of their greater freeboard, the design was continued, and they met with considerable success against submarines (especially ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... Having taken a cursory view of the ruins in the mead, we ascended the hill which borders upon it, and surveyed a prospect of the same nature, though in a more lovely and expanded style, than that which I beheld from Mosolente. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... high praise; and beyond this we cannot with justice go. It is clear that Addison's serious attention, during his residence at the University, was almost entirely concentrated on Latin poetry, and that, if he did not wholly neglect other provinces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed to them only a cursory glance. He does not appear to have attained more than an ordinary acquaintance with the political and moral writers of Rome; nor was his own Latin prose by any means equal to his Latin verse. His knowledge of Greek, though doubtless ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his falling into the hands of Henry, presents in every line transactions stained with so much of falsehood and baseness, such revolting treachery and deceit, such wilful deliberate perjury, that we would gladly pass it over unread, or throw upon it the most cursory glance compatible with a bare knowledge of the facts. But whilst the desperate wickedness of the human heart is made to stand out through these transactions in most frightful colours, and whilst we shudder at the ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... made their appearance after the Reformation, we can trace our ethical pedigree. For our purpose we need seek no wider field. Here we may find sufficiently notable contrasts of opinion to disturb the dogmatic slumber of even an inert mind. The most cursory glance makes us inclined to accept with some reserve Stephen's claim that "the difference between different systems is chiefly in the details and special application of generally ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... Having in this cursory manner, introduced the subject of the following pages, I proceed to the narration of a life that has been viewed with attention, for a great number of years by a few, and which will be read by the public the mixed sensations of pleasure and ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... Chinese here had proceeded as if by merest accident. All I could think as I returned their wondering glances was that their world must be very, very old. But I have no time or space to talk of them here. To throw more than a cursory glance at them Would lead me into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, anthropological, craniological, and antediluvian nature for which one would not find universal approval among his readers. ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... "containing every variety of person, from the excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney to the base situation of a lady who humbleth herself that she may be exalted." In saying this he was understating rather than overstating the case, since a very cursory inspection of the State papers will reveal the fact that the mistresses and bastards of every English King, from Charles II. to George II., drew their incomes from the Irish establishment free from the inquisitive prying of the English House of Commons. Although ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... own opinion of the present school, I can only give it as formed after what was merely a cursory and superficial inspection, as I do not believe that I was in the house above half an hour; but it was and is this,—that the house at Casterton seemed thoroughly healthy and well kept, and is situated in a lovely spot; that the pupils looked bright, happy, and well, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... A cursory inspection will show that this volume lays no claim to be ranked with those of Boswell in point of dramatic interest. Coleridge differed not more from Johnson in every characteristic of intellect, than in the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... cursory patrol of the place, was no more than an overgrown village. The court-house and jail stood on the main street, and just beyond was the bank. Bud rode here and there, examining closely the fronts of various buildings ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... dealt in a necessarily cursory manner with volcanoes of distant parts of the globe, we may proceed to the consideration of the group of active volcanoes which still survive in Europe, as they possess a special interest, not only from their proximity ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... public days, with artists who are at liberty to copy anything they please. Where in England can we boast of anything like this? Our British Museum is only to be seen by interest, & then shewn in a very cursory manner. Our Public Libraries at the Universities are equally difficult of access. It is the most politic thing the Government could have done. The Arts are here encouraged in a most liberal manner. Authors, Painters, Sculptors, and, in short, all persons in France, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... therewith his horror of his father's knowing. It was of no use for his mother to hang over him, hold his hands, and assure him that she knew (as, in fact, she did, for Bernard had been obliged to make a cursory explanation), and that nothing could hinder her loving him still; he forgot it in the next interruption, and turned from her with terror and dismay, and once he nearly flung himself out of bed, fancying that the policeman ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... capitals of columns, placed one upon the other, each adorned with four busts in relief projecting from a cluster of palm leaves. The heads of the busts are wanting; the sculpture is indifferent. A covered way leads from the inside of the gateway into the interior; of this I took a very cursory view, as the day was near closing, and my companions pressed me very much to depart, that we might reach a village three hours distant; there being no water here for my horse, I the more readily complied with their wishes. Over the entrance of ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... brusque, austere, abrupt, gruff, boorish, uncourtly; boisterous, tumultuous, tempestuous, stormy; harsh, hard, severe, inclement, drastic, violent; harsh, grating, raucous, discordant, inharmonious; unkempt, disheveled, shaggy; incomplete, superficial, cursory, crude, uncut, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... An even cursory study of Morgan's record will convince the military reader, that the character he bore with those who served ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Tryon arrived, a short, square man with most unprofessional high spirits and a jolly laugh that filled everyone with hope. It was late in the afternoon when he got to Wankelo, and, after a cursory test of Druro's eyes, he announced himself unable to give a decisive verdict until after a more complete examination the following day. He then departed to his brother's house for dinner and a good night's rest after his ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... is the new gallery, of a magnificent plan but unfinished, known as Tirumala's Choultrie. There is so much of interest and detail connected with all of these Dravidian temples that one should plan to have more time to devote to them. The cursory examination we were afforded measures the disadvantage of an itinerary. We left after luncheon for Tuticorin, and arrived ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... to stop our work to read it then and there, or to do more than give it a cursory glance. We turned feverishly to those years that covered, as we figured, the period of the Hynds tragedy. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... not seen her at all for several weeks and had seen her but little for a year, but her off-hand cursory manner had not altered in the interval. She spoke remarkably fast, as if speech were not in itself a pleasure—to have it over as soon as possible; and her brusquerie was of the dark shade friendly critics account for by pleading shyness. Shyness had never appeared to him an ultimate ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... distant or cursory glance that will give you a just idea of the importance of this ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... what would you say as to the shoes from a cursory examination, without the instruments?" he inquired with ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... the band which had that morning broken in upon the Wish-Ton-Wish was, with but few exceptions, composed of the surviving warriors of his own powerful nation. But, while his look was displeased, faculties that were schooled so highly, could not easily be mistaken, in what passed, even in the most cursory manner, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... you had better take a cursory glance at Mr. Watson," suggested Ruger. "At the present time he is reposing in the shade of an acacia-bush, just back of the late lamented William Foster's rural habitation. Good-morning, gentlemen; ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... cursory view of the conditions of society in its simplest form, and among the most savage peoples, and of the mythical beliefs which prevailed under such conditions, it clearly appears how myth, dating from the first ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... theory of the visible Church and her fellowship, not only hostile to the Church of England and fraught with absurdity, but propounded under the alluring guise of Christian charity; a charity which has won for him the applause of the professors of modern liberalism, because, on a cursory glance, it appears to embrace all sects and denominations of Christians. It is proper, therefore, to set the matter in a true light, by showing that this liberality of sentiment is more specious than real; ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... a compliment to be retained on Rumpety's jury. As often as, in his cursory examination, he came upon an ignorant or brutish face, a complacent smile played about the thin lips, and he said, "That man 'll do. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... be here unnecessarily alarmed. On that terrible slave question, over which wiser brains have puzzled, till they became lost in a labyrinth of self-contradiction, I purpose to speak only a few cursory words. It is beyond dispute that a vast extent of the richest land in the South can only be kept in cultivation by the Africans, who can thrive and fatten where the white man withers helplessly. No one that has realized ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... she disengaged herself from her party and came quickly forward. He saw her cheeks flush and her eyes brighten pleasantly as they rested on his companion; but he noticed also that after her first cursory glance ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... restriction, Teufelsdrockh, has nevertheless contrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least, the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being indispensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in the most cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by omnivorous learning, and utmost patience and fairness: at the same time, in its results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the Compilers of some Library of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even Useless Knowledge ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... well as to divert from the exiles the sympathies of Europe, King James issued a proclamation bearing date the 5th of November, 1608, giving to the world the English version of the flight of the Earls. The whole of Ulster was then surveyed in a cursory manner by a staff over which presided Sir William Parsons as Surveyor-General. The surveys being completed early in 1609, a royal commission was issued to Chichester, Lambert, St. John, Ridgeway, Moore, Davis, and Parsons, with the Archbishop ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... merely state the question, you must solve it; I can leave you only some cursory ideas, which I am satisfied are just, and upon which you may meditate at your leisure. Only for fools or the weak does materialism become a debasing dogma; assuredly, in its code there are none of those precepts of ordinary morals which our fathers entitled virtue; but I do find there a grand word ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... begin, that one paragraph after another can be discarded without being read in full. In the same spirit newspapers might be studied by the older children, to determine from the headings what articles need not be read at all, what ones in a cursory manner, and what ones carefully, if any. Similar study of some magazines might be in place. It is a duty of the school thus to accustom pupils to proper methods of reading ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... eighteen Shaker societies would involve a great deal of unnecessary repetition. In their buildings, their customs, their worship, their religious faith, their extreme cleanliness, their costume, and in many other particulars, they are all nearly alike; and the Shaker of Kentucky does not to the cursory view differ from his brother of Maine. But I have thought it necessary, to a complete view of the order, to present some particulars of each society, as to its location, numbers, the quantity of land it owns, its industries, and present and past prosperity, as also peculiarities ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... that he was shown the engravings in the first volume of Stevens's Central America, in which they are so faithfully depicted. He recognized many of them as old acquaintances, and still more as new ones, which had escaped his more cursory inspection; and in all he could trace curious details which, on the spot, he regretted the want of time to examine. He, moreover, knew the surly Don Gregorio, by whom Mr. Stevens had been treated so inhospitably, and several ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... feet wide in the main part, but it branched off, on one side, in two narrower portions. The medium height seemed also about forty feet. The roof was hung with stalactites in a very curious way, resembling, upon a cursory view, the Gothic arches and ornaments of an old church." According to one of the matabooles present, the entire family of a certain chief had, in former times, been condemned to death for conspiring against a rival ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... all, sir?" inquired the butler, manifestly surprised by the cursory glance which the detective had given around the suite ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... is advantageous and psychologically correct to touch occasionally, in passing, upon points which will be more thoroughly taught later. It excites the interest of the pupil. Thus the customary technical terms are sometimes made use of beforehand, and a needful, cursory explanation given of them.) That is right; you can tell them pretty well already; now we will repeat once more the names of the keys, and then we will stop for to-day. Just see how many things you have ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... and religion; yet the virtuosi of this and preceding ages have been forced to acknowledge, that their tastes were elegant, sublime, and well-formed, with respect to works of sculpture, statuary, and architecture. As a proof of this, in behalf of the ancients, 'tis only requisite we should take a cursory view of those noble and magnificent productions of art, commonly called THE ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... jewelled fingers through genuflexions to the Balcony. Port has this in it: that it compels obeisance, master of us; as opposed to brother and sister wines wooing us with a coy flush in the gold of them to a cursory tope or harlequin leap shimmering up the veins with a sly wink at us through eyelets. Hussy vintages swim to a cosset. We go to ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... when I wrote these letters I had no thought whatever of writing a book. If I had thought of doing so, I might have mentioned more about the customs, ornaments and weapons of the natives and have written about several other subjects in greater detail. As it is, a cursory glance will show that this book has not the slightest pretence of being "scientific." Far from its being so, I have simply related a few of the more interesting incidents, such as would give a general ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... know—so many specimens of this class, that in selecting the few heads our limits enable us to take from a great number, we have been induced to give the very friendly young gentleman the preference over many others, to whose claims upon a more cursory view of the question we had felt disposed to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Brindisi until December 11th. Thence to Egypt was but a brief voyage, and the one day's rest (!) at Alexandria was devoted, as usual, by Lady Brassey to visits—so minute in their careful examination into existing conditions as to be more an inspection than the cursory call of a passing traveller—to the Soldiers and Sailors' Institute, and also to the Military Hospital at Ramleh. Arrangements had next to be made for the disposal of stores sent out by the Princess of Wales' branch of the National Aid Society; and all this constituted what may fairly be ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... masterfulness, showing in their every word and gesture, in every line of their clean-cut, strong-featured faces. On this particular morning they were not looking their best, and the reason, as well as the explanation of their late rising might possibly be found in the disorder which a cursory glance around the room revealed. Dress coats, white ties, patent leather pumps and other paraphernalia of evening wear were scattered here and there, just as each article had been thrown down when they had returned ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... placket-hole and sagging waist-band, sketched in No. 45, is an all too familiar sight that advertises the fact that too few women take even a cursory look at their backs. Fathers and brothers who wish to protect their womankind from adverse criticism frequently give impromptu lectures upon this very subject, as this slovenly arrangement of skirt and basque is not only seen in Grand Street, Second Avenue, and equally unfashionable quarters, but ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... features we have come to consider typically American. Eyebrows that curved far down along the temples, and eyelashes of a darkness in contrast to the prevailing note of his complexion combined to lend him a rather brooding, soft, and melancholy air which a very cursory second examination showed to be fictitious. His eyes, like the woodsman's, were steady, but inquiring. His jaw was square and settled, his mouth straight. One would be likely to sum him up as a man whose actions would be little influenced by glamour or even by the sentiments. And yet, equally, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... identity shall be proved and your rights respected. I intend to throw myself into this case, heart and soul. Money, Justice, Law, Morality, are all concerned—One moment, my dear sir! If you must really go back to London, oblige me at any rate, with your address, and just state in a cursory way, whether you were christened or not at Dibbledean church. I want nothing more to begin with—absolutely nothing more, on my word of honor as a ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... rapid technical evolution of agriculture and the equally rapid changes in the ownership of land in a country like the United States have encouraged our Socialists to reexamine the whole question. I cannot enter into a discussion, even the most cursory, of agricultural evolution in this country, but a few indications from the census of 1910 will show the ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... discovering anything which would lead to a positive decision on one side or the other seemed hopeless. To a cursory glance, the descriptions given by Littrow seemed to cover the ground so completely that no future student could turn his doubt into certainty. But when one looks leisurely at an interesting object, day after day, he continually sees more and more. Thus it ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... room with a low, stealthy tread, and looked me over in a cursory way and yet with the ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... apparatus, means, machinery, and dependences of that system—a revolution begun, carried through, and perfected within the period of my own personal experience—merits a word or two of illustration in the most cursory memoirs that profess any attention at all to the shifting scenery and moving forces of the age, whether manifested in great effects or in little. And these particular effects, though little, when regarded in their separate details, are not little in their final ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and cursory outline of the theory according to which Cushite immigrations preceded the arrival of the Semites in the land of Shumir and Accad. Those who uphold it give several reasons for their opinion, such as that ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... gratifying himself with a cursory view of the works of art, and of the curiosities, Mr. Hope, of Amsterdam, the father of the gentlemen who have since become so well known in London for their taste in the arts, and their superb collections of pictures and marbles, arrived in Rome. Mr. West being introduced ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... I shall be forced for the present to pass over the argument mainly relied on by abolitionists of every grade, to prove the sinfulness of American slavery; or at least, I can give it but a cursory notice. I understand that a celebrated D.D., has published a work, in which, he labors hard to prove the sinfulness of American slavery from its evils. It was the design of the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, to prove the sinfulness of slavery from ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... it now—the deferential minuteness with which one public office writes to another, conscious that the letter will travel on her Majesty's service three doors down the passage—sinks by comparison into cursory brevity. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... and redemption thereof." This bill took the usual course, was referred to the committee on finance, was reported favorably with a number of amendments, and was fully debated in the Senate. On the 9th of February, 1863, a cursory debate occurred between Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, and myself, which indicated a very strong opposition to the passage of the banking bill. Various amendments were proposed and some adopted. I became satisfied that if a strong effort was not made the bill would either be defeated or postponed. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... when Lady Clonbrony came to London, never took the least notice of her. At last, meeting at the house of a common friend, Mrs. Dareville could not avoid recognising her ladyship; but, even then, did it in the least civil manner and most cursory style possible. 'Ho! Lady Clonbrony!—didn't know you were in England!—When did you come?—How long shall you stay in town!—Hope, before you leave England, your Ladyship and Miss Nugent will give us a day?' A DAY!—Lady Clonbrony was so astonished by this impudence of ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... be a man, over it is to be a boy at school, if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar lad under his pedagogue, must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extemporizing licenser? whenas all the writer teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hide-bound humor which he calls his ...
— Taboo - A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of Saevius Nicanor, with - Prolegomena, Notes, and a Preliminary Memoir • James Branch Cabell
... United States has the highest form of civilized institutions that any nation has had. Let us take a cursory glance at the institutions in this country. It has common schools by the tens of thousands; colleges and universities of every grade by the hundred; millions of daily newspapers are flying from the press, and weekly papers and monthly ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... With one single exception, to be noticed shortly, there is not one of them whom we should now remember except for Friedrich's sake;—uniformly they are men whom it is now a weariness to hear of, except in a cursory manner. One man of shining parts he had, and one only; no man ever of really high and great mind. The latter sort are not so easy to get; rarely producible on the soil of this Earth! Nor is it certain how Friedrich might have managed with one of this sort, or he with Friedrich;—though ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... from the sea-side to the extremity of the new town, nearly a league, and new and wide streets are stretching out in every direction. But I was too tired with going about in the heat of the day to do more than take a cursory view of these things, and could not even persuade myself to look at the new fountain which is supplied by a ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... immediate future in which he figured most clearly. Her thoughts hovered round the pleasant summer to come with the distant excitement of a wedding to crown it. She never considered, or only in the most cursory way, the long years ahead, the daily companionship with the man she had chosen. She was honestly attached to Geoffry. She believed she was in love with him, whereas, as is far more often the case than ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... too far, were I to attempt to give anything more than the most cursory sketch of the animals of the Tertiary age; and, indeed, they are so well known, and have been so fully represented in text-books, that I fear some of my readers may think even now that I have dwelt too long upon them. Monkeys were unquestionably introduced upon earth before the close of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... This cursory review of the domestic condition of the Mormons would not be complete without some allusion to the Indians who infest the whole country. In the North, having their principal village at the foot of the Wind River Mountains, in the southeastern ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... comes the physical examination, a vigorous but not exacting course of sprouts designed to find out if the applicant is capable of violent exertion and to discover any minor weaknesses; an examination of eyes, ears, teeth, and nose; and, finally, a cursory scrutiny for functional disorders. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Blueblazes with him, Tom having charge of the other with Desmond, Pat Casey, and Peter the black, with Nick and Pipes. The sea was perfectly smooth, so that they were able to get alongside the wreck. A cursory examination left no doubt that she was the vessel of which they were in search. She was in a fearfully battered condition. Her after-cabin had been knocked to pieces, and the whole of her cargo washed out of her; still ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... gave a wonderful stimulus to inventive talent, directed mainly to useful practical results; and this, subsequently, was greatly encouraged by the system of patents, which secure to the originator a reasonable portion of the benefits of his skill. It is sufficient to refer in the most cursory manner to a few of these improvements; we appreciate at once how much they have done. The introduction of the saw-mill gave wooden floors to houses, banishing those of gypsum, tile, or stone; improvements cheapening ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... by the study of their skins, or bones, or other lifeless exuviae; that we are acquainted with none, or next to none, of their physiological peculiarities, beyond those which can be deduced from their structure, or are open to cursory observation; and that we cannot hope to learn more of any of those extinct forms of life which now constitute no inconsiderable proportion of the known Flora and Fauna of the world: it is obvious that the definitions ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... 'Golden Canon' replied, after a cursory glance in that direction. 'If you don't like it just ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... Only a cursory glance did he bestow upon these inanimate things, for his attention was immediately wrapped up in the lone figure sitting back of the big desk, the factor of the whole region, Alexander Gregory, the mysterious man whose past seemed to be connected in some way with that of their new Canadian ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... the vivid astonishment of my perception that grandfather awoke without his habitual spectacles upon his nose. I must have known that spectacles are as superfluous as uncomfortable and dangerous when one is sleeping, and I should not even with most cursory thinking have supposed that he would have worn his spectacles during the night. But as I was accustomed always to see my grandfather with spectacles, when he did not have them ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... property. we may be certain, that either pride or humility must arise from this conjunction of relations; if the foregoing system be solid and satisfactory. And whether it be so or not, we may soon satisfy ourselves by the most cursory view ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... A cursory view, when passing through your town on former occasions, had impressed me with the great advantages of your harbor, its easy entrance, its depth, and its extensive accommodation for shipping. But its advantages, and if facilities as they have been developed ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... a new book that was much admired, and asked Dr. Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON. 'I have looked into it.' 'What (said Elphinston,) have you not read it through?' Johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, 'No, Sir, do ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... fame for himself in the domain of philosophy, contributing to the New York World papers well charged with revolutionary ideas which were then causing consternation, so lucidly and attractively formulated that they interested the most cursory reader. Perhaps John Fiske ought always to have kept to philosophy. Mrs. Mary Hemenway, that princess among Ladies Bountiful, told me once the story of his change. He made to her a frank statement of his situation. He was conscious of power to do ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... solidified into a mountain. On the western bank, numerous handsome facades and porticos have indeed been hewn out; and mightily interesting they were to wander through, with their elaborate tablets and cursory inscriptions, their hieroglyphical scrolls, their sculptured gods and symbols, and all the luxury of their architectural ornaments. But the grandest impressions are to be sought for on the other side, whence the materials ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... cursory inspection of the defences, the Sheriff rode over to Pendennis and held consultation with the Governor. The Governor, who had fifty men in garrison, agreed that twenty would suffice for the job; so twenty were told off, under command of a sergeant, and that same afternoon marched with Sir James ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of it as practised by the Antediluvians [1]; without dilating on the several particulars concerning it afterwards amongst the Patriarchs, as found in the Bible [2], I shall turn myself immediately, and without further preamble, to a few cursory observations respecting the Greeks, Romans, Britons, and those other nations, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, with whom the people of this nation are more ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... only knew parabolas from a cursory acquaintance with them through an old Greek friend ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... himself across his wheel, gave a cursory glance at the landscape, took a running slide over the tracks with a swift pedal or two and slumped in a heap, lying motionless as the dead. He couldn't have done it more effectively if he had practised for a week. Pat caught his breath and stooped ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... A cursory reading of the narrative will convince any one that its purpose is not to enlarge men's views of nature, but to teach them something concerning nature's God. It says nothing about the forces of nature, ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... was not crowded. There were perhaps a hundred men in there, some of whom doubtless intended to spend the night. All of them, though they gave us a cursory glance, seemed disposed to mind their own business. It looked for a minute as if we were going to remain in there unquestioned. But the two spies who had come with us saw a chance to confirm or else disprove our bona fides, and while one ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... Ferdinand, ere he commenced operations, to visit his own dominions; a measure he did not regret, as it effectually concealed his ulterior plans from the Moors, who were also at that time too much disturbed by internal dissensions, to give more than a cursory glance on the movements and appearances of their ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... zest for his employer and friend; while in every free moment he read law, feeling that, as almost all his forbears had been lawyers, he might perhaps be destined for the bar. This acquaintance with the fundamental basis of law, cursory as it was, became like a gospel to Edward Bok. In later years, he was taught its value by repeated experience in his contact with corporate laws, contracts, property leases, and other matters; and he determined that, whatever the direction of activity taken by his sons, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... in that of unimpeachable honesty. 'Fair and square! The best man wins!' This lasted for some time, but was not proof against 'Swedes, Mr. James. Mangolds, Mr. James. Stewing pears, Mr. James.' He began to get in a panic. His bow was cursory. He pocketed the money furtively and read his name in a low, apologetic tone. But this would never do! He must pull himself ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... excellent land, and is considered one of the most practical and successful agriculturists of Essex. His fields were larger and fewer than I had noticed on my walk in a farm of equal size. This feature indicates the modern improvements in English farming more prominently to the cursory observer than any other that attracts his eye. It is a rigidly utilitarian innovation on the old system, that does not at all promise to improve the picturesque aspect of the country. To "reconstruct the map" of a county, by wire-fencing it into squares of 100 acres each, after grubbing ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... visit charitable institutions, imagining that the honour of their presence is to work miracles, and that everything will go on rightly when they have said, "Let it be so," or, "I must have it so." Madame de Fleury's visits were not of this dictatorial or cursory nature. Not minutes, but hours, she devoted to these children—she who could charm by the grace of her manners, and delight by the elegance of her conversation, the most polished circles and the best-informed ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... himself of the excellence of his disguise) catching a cursory glance of his shadow in a mirror, he crossed the garden, and stepping up to her side, ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is, strictly and simply, the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... detectives tell Norvallis they had found nothing. Anyway, if I don't miss my guess, they were so satisfied with something they're keeping up their sleeve that I don't believe they paid more than cursory attention to other details. Just gave everything a perfunctory once-over and let it ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... some such qualification caught him.' And then his biographer adds, what is so true, and especially of books, 'Continual use gives men a judgment of things comparatively, and they come to fix on what is most proper and easy, which no man upon cursory view would determine.' ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... are shamefully meagre, I was inclined to regard Rector Reed's sermon as a historical document of inestimable value. Being prone, however, to act upon the advice of St. Paul and "prove all things," I began a cursory investigation. Rector Reed neglected to give the source of his information, and to save me I could find but seven presidents, including Washington, who were Episcopalians, and now Col. Patrick Ford, of the Irish ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... be a Boss City hereaway on this end of the lake," said the captain of the little boat; and though he spoke with much labour of imprecation, both needless then and now, taking what might be termed a cursory view of the situation, he summed up the prospects of Duluth ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... curiosity at the new passenger, she seemed to take no more notice of him, and Key began to wonder if he had not mistaken her previous interrogating look. Nor was it his only disturbing query; he was conscious of the same disappointment now that he could examine her face more attentively, as in his first cursory glance. She was certainly handsome; if there was no longer the freshness of youth, there was still the indefinable charm of the woman of thirty, and with it the delicate curves of matured muliebrity and repose. There were lines, particularly around the mouth ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... the symptom which had immediately preceded death—viz., the paralysis of the muscles of articulation—I should have felt disposed to ascribe his end to sheer inanition; and a cursory examination brought to light nothing contradictory to that view. Not being prepared to proceed further in the matter at the moment I was about to rejoin Smith, whom I could hear rummaging about amongst the litter of the outer room, when I made a ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... has "come on" visibly since the war. He has drawn right away from "the field" to join those leaders—Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Bonnard, shall we say, with one or two more in close attendance—a cursory glance at whom, as they flash by, provokes this not unprofitable exclamation: "How different they are!" Apparently, amongst the chiefs, that famous movement no longer counts for much. Look at them; to an eye at all practised these ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... steam-engine is to create leisure for mankind. Do not believe them; it only creates a vacuum for eager thought to rush in. Even idleness is eager now—eager for amusement; prone to excursion trains, art museums, periodical literature and exciting novels; prone even to scientific theorizing and cursory peeps through microscopes. Old Leisure was quite a different personage; he only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from that "periodicity of sensations which we call post-time. He was a contemplative, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... cursory view of this system of things, upon which we have proceeded in our theory, and upon which the constitution of this world seems ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... coalesce with the patriotic aspiration. To give the fullest practical effect to the patriotic fervor that animates any modern nation, and so turn it to use in the most effective way, it is necessary to show that the demands of equity are involved in the case. Any cursory survey of modern historical events bearing on this point, among the civilised peoples, will bring out the fact that no concerted and sustained movement of the national spirit can be had without enlisting the community's moral convictions. The common man must be persuaded ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... most cursory eye it must surely strike, That VOTE and VETO look much alike. Yet rival ranters are straining throat, To VOTE the VETO—or VETO the VOTE! On a slight transposition thus hinges the quarrel 'Twixt the fierce fanatics of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various
... be pure and strong without God, theologically the Pelagian heresy, is sufficiently answered by a cursory view of what humanity has done and does do. Even where the Christian religion has been accepted the accomplishment is hardly ground for boasting. The plain fact is (and you may account for it how you like, ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... a rickety sampan across the harbour of Sourabaya involves numerous collisions with fruit-boats, canoes, and rafts, before reaching the steamer in the offing. Intervals of comparative safety permit cursory observation of the gorgeously-painted praus with upturned stern, curving bamboo masts, and striped sails, the outline of the gaudy boats accentuated by a black line, and producing the effect of huge shells tossing on the tide. ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... country on a misty day. We may have had many a peep of beautiful scenery and occasional glimpses of the sublime; but the medium of vision has been of variable quality, and somehow we come home with an uneasy suspicion that we have not seen as much as we might. It is obvious, however, even upon a cursory consideration of the matter, that this disappointing element in Coleridge's poetry is a necessary result of the circumstances of its production; for the period of his productive activity (at least after attaining manhood) was too short ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... white marble were all that remained to the world of "Rosa, wife of Frederic Chilton." But, while the mould was being heaped upon the coffin, he raised his eyes, and let them rove aimlessly over the crowd, neither avoiding nor courting observation—the cursory regard of a man who had no strong interest in any person or group there. They changed singularly in resting upon the family from Ridgeley. A stare of stupefaction gave place to living fires of angry suspicion and ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... importance in some transactions, even at the present period of the christian world. These discussions, however, we shall leave in the hands of their respective champions, in order to take, as we proceed, a cursory view of some of the diableries with which mankind, in imitation of this great master, has been infected, from the first ages ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... cursory inspection of each other's persons, I stretched her at full length upon the bed and getting upon her I made her herself insert my stiffly distended champion into her delicious pleasure-sheath, and ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... supper that night. Never could he sit at table again to eat of food. Gramper and Grammer were at first alarmed and there was talk of sending for a veterinary, the nearest to a professional man of medicine within miles and miles. But this talk died out after Gramper had made a cursory examination of the big yard, with especial attention to the lilac clump, where a pipe and other evidence was noticed. After that they not only became strangely reassured, but during their evening smoke on the little porch they often chuckled as if relishing in secret some rare ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... his letters to his brothers, (page 63,) Major-General Brock said that he had visited Detroit, the neighbourhood of which was a delightful country, far exceeding any thing he had seen on that continent, and a cursory description of it, as it appeared in ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... a cursory inspection of what their guides were pleased to denominate "Curiosities," our two heroes were on the eve of departure from the Abbey, when Bob begged that the guide would repeat the terms of admission to view ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... bitterly cold, while everyone was too intent on his own business to do more than bestow a cursory glance on passers-by, so that our little caravan, freed from importuning curiosity, made ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... ardent over a childish game; wild about philanthropic plans, and apparently forgetting them the instant a cold word had fallen on them; attempting everything, finishing nothing; dipping into every kind of book, and forsaking it after a cursory glance; ever busy, yet ever idle; full of desultory knowledge, ranging through all kinds of reading and natural history, and still more full of talk. This last was perhaps his most decided gift. To any one, of whatever degree, he would talk, he could hardly have been silent ten ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... under any sense, does not occur; although, had the possibility of so enormous a sin been admitted, it was not likely to escape the warning censure of the Divine Person who came to take away the sins of the world. Saint Paul, indeed, mentions the sin of witchcraft, in a cursory manner, as superior in guilt to that of ingratitude; and in the offences of the flesh it is ranked immediately after idolatry, which juxtaposition inclines us to believe that the witchcraft mentioned by the Apostle must have been ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott |
