"Perspicacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she heard her husband's retreating steps is quite indescribable. Then, with the deep perspicacity given only by utter villainy, or by fierce worldly selfishness, she knew that she might live in peace on the word and the contempt of this ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... not published my 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 ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... Julien. He felt humiliated at Claudet's perspicacity; but he had too much pride and selfrespect to let his preferred rival know of his unfortunate passion. He waited a moment to swallow something in his throat that seemed to be choking him, and then, trying in vain to ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... when he failed to find his bill-fold at the first sweep. The bottom dropped out of the market for confidence in the integrity of Mr. Iff and conceit in the perspicacity of Mr. Staff. He saw instantly how flimsy had been the tissue of falsehood wherewith the soi-disant Mr. Iff had sought to cloak his duplicity, how egregiously stupid had been his readiness to swallow that extraordinary ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... Herausgeber, in no wise! I here, by the unexampled favour you stand in with our Sage, send not a Biography only, but an Autobiography: at least the materials for such; wherefrom, if I misreckon not, your perspicacity will draw fullest insight: and so the whole Philosophy and Philosopher of Clothes will stand clear to the wondering eyes of England, nay thence, through America, through Hindostan, and the antipodal New Holland, finally conquer (einnehmen) great ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... art of the historian to such a bewildering degree. Its latest critic does not exaggerate when he says that our fathers and our grandfathers have poured forth and accumulated so vast a quantity of information concerning it "that the industry of a Ranke would be submerged by it and the perspicacity of a Gibbon would quail before it." This is manifestly true, and it is evident that an encyclopaedia would be required to discuss all the divisions of so tremendous a subject. If we look over too wide a horizon we lose our bearings altogether. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... from the Cafe de l'Echiquier, after treating the valet, he saw in the gate-way of the Lion d'Argent the lady and the young man in whom his perspicacity at once detected customers, for the lady with outstretched neck and anxious face was evidently looking for him. She was dressed in a black-silk gown that was dyed, a brown bonnet, an old French cashmere shawl, raw-silk stockings, and low shoes; and in her hand ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... said coldly, "will you be kind enough to carry my condolences to the ladies at court, and say that I recommend reading as an antidote for the poison which idleness produces. I've no doubt that they, with all the perspicacity of lonely and honest women, imagine that I maintain a harem as well as a bar-room. Kindly set them right about it. Neither my home nor my bar-room is open to ladies. If you don't mind we'll go on ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 have visited half-a-dozen Italian towns, and to ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... and became an art, he was filled with disquiet at the thought of the infinite variety of diseases and of their remedies, according to the constitution of the patient. Treatment changed with every new hypothesis; how many people, then, must the methods now abandoned have killed! The perspicacity of the physician became everything, the healer was only a happily endowed diviner, himself groping in the dark and effecting cures through his fortunate endowment. And this explained why he had given up his ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... process of inference and synthesis. Much of it, 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 ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... nature 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 ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... either a great deal better or worse together; but I think rather the latter; for our namesake, Philip de Co mines, observes, that he never knew any good come from l'abouchement des Rois. The King of Prussia will exert all his perspicacity to analyze his Imperial Majesty; and I would bet upon the one head of his black eagle, against the two heads of the Austrian eagle; though two heads are said, proverbially, to be better than one. I wish I had the direction of both the monarchs, and they should, together with some of their ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... indistinguishable and Miss Annabel departed much pleased with her own perspicacity. And she did help. She let it be known at the Ladies' Aid that she quite understood Esther and approved of her. After all, it was senseless to run away from trouble since trouble can run so much faster. And it was natural and right of Esther to feel that nowhere ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... am very likely to get drunk on chicory water! No, monseigneur; if I am drunk, it is with admiration of your highness's perspicacity when you try to conduct ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... her dully. 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, of the degree to which his own ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... bigoted reaction. But in the latter case they must be charged, not with moral blindness or depravity, but only with the lack of that clearness of sight which leads men and parties at the right moment, or even in anticipation of the right moment, to despair; and such perspicacity, to say the least, is a highly scientific quality, requiring perhaps, to make it respectable and safe, a more exact knowledge of historical sequences than we even now possess. Even now we determine these historical necessities by our knowledge of the result. It was a necessity, given all the conditions— ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... you've heard the gossip. My life long I've been a woman-liker,—liking means Loving and so on. There's a lengthy list By this time I shall have to answer for— So say the good folk: and they don't guess half— For the worst is, let once collecting-itch Possess you, and, with perspicacity, Keeps growing such a greediness that theft Follows at no long distance,—there's the fact! I knew that on my Leporello-list Might figure this, that, and the other name Of feminine desirability, But if I happened to desire ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... of 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 be imagined? Is it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... saw a face dressed in graces; smile, dimple, and rosy tint, rounded its contours and brightened its hues. I had been accustomed to nurse a flattering idea that my strong attachment to her proved some particular perspicacity in my nature; she was not handsome, she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet was she my life's treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment. To-night my eyes opened on the mistake I had made; I began to suspect that it was only my tastes which were unique, not my power ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... will carry the note you write?" asked Thuillier, believing that by thus examining every detail he was giving proofs of amazing perspicacity. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... constant fear, not for himself, but for the treasures that he had accumulated with such an earnest devotion and with so much perspicacity that the shrewdest merchant could not say that the Baron had ever erred in his taste or judgment. He loved them—his bibelots. He loved them intensely, like a miser; jealously, like a lover. Every day, at sunset, ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... not rank highly for wisdom in Mrs. Forrester's estimation; but for her perspicacity and intelligence she had more regard than she cared to admit. Echoes of Eleanor's distrusts and fears remained with her, and, though it was but a minor one, such an echo vibrated loudly on Monday afternoon when Betty Jardine appeared at ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... royal highness has studied my notes to great advantage; your amazing perspicacity overpowers me ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his own eyes, and not by those of former various Washington associations, his inborn soundness and perspicacity have the upper hand. He is impartial and just to both parties; he is not bound to have against the rebels feelings akin to mine, but he is well disposed, and wishes for the success of ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... of fire began ahead they would throw forward their long ears inquiringly and hug close to the 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 between different ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... 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 ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... learn the Imperial reason. The artist Lo Cheng follows in his Master's footsteps, he also never having seen the favored lady, and he and she reply to me that this is an Imperial secret. Declare to me therefore if your perspicacity and the feminine interest which every lady property takes in the other can unravel this mystery, for my liver is tormented ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... leaving us that false trail to Munich. It took me in to the extent that I dispatched an emissary to hunt you down in that delightful capital, but, for myself, I have a certain flair in these matters, and I thought you would sooner or later come to Bellevue. You will admit that I showed some perspicacity?" ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... 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 ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... much social perspicacity that I hoped you would see without my having to tell you. It's chiefly a question ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... that alone, scarcely master of himself, governed only by the inspirations of inexperience, never would he have the patient perspicacity ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... under the street-lamp; and it immediately occurred to him that, if the two women had really known each other, Mrs. Westmore would have no difficulty in obtaining the information she wanted; while, even if they met as strangers, the dark-eyed girl's perspicacity might still be trusted to come to their aid. It remained only to be seen how Mrs. Westmore would take his suggestion; but some instinct was already telling him that the highhanded method was the one ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... a vigilance of 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. Our author had both matter ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... answered Don 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 case ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... 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 ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... chuckled 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 ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... observer, as well as, to me at 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
... proclamations show much 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 ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... take a rest, it will be elsewhere, no matter where, on the soil, on a stone, on a tuft of lavender or thyme. Given these habits—and my observations in the Carpentras roads make them seem exceedingly probable—it is small wonder that the perspicacity of my young shepherds and myself should have come to naught. I was expecting the impossible: the Anthrax does not halt on the mason bee's nest to proceed with her laying in a methodical fashion; she ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... put in with a smutty finger, as the saying goes. He revolved the problem in his mind, and a moment later came upon the solution, so he told himself. An Irish mother, and an Italian father, so he decreed, metaphorically patting himself on the back the while for his perspicacity. ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... Post Office Staff have to display no little perspicacity in elucidating quaint addresses on letters going through the post. To Postman Wade must go the credit of having correctly surmised that the letter addressed simply "25th March, Clifton," to which allusion has already been made, was intended for Lady Day, the wife of the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... of discovery should the pursuing sheriff overtake her? Bewildered, Robert Fairchild turned back to the more apparent thing which faced him: the probable death of Harry—the man upon whom he had counted for the knowledge and the perspicacity to aid him in the struggle against Nature and against mystery—who now, according to the story of Squint Rodaine, lay dead in the black waters of the ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... 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 ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... 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 ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... 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 love him as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... 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 ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... 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 ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... perceived a queer sort of crispness in Morrison's manner from the outset of the interview; the same perspicacity would have detected something hard under the smooth surface of Despeaux's early politeness. Mr. Despeaux was not so elaborately polite when he retorted that he did not propose to play the spy on a guest while ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... setting the law at defiance was exactly similar to that adopted by the Irish, and it was persisted in for a period of ten years, or until they had secured a substantial victory. The history of the anti-rent agitation in New York also illustrates strikingly, as it seems to me, the perspicacity of a remark made, in substance, long ago by Mr. Disraeli, which, in my eyes at least, threw a great deal of light on the Irish problem, namely, that Ireland was suffering from suppressed revolution. As Mr. Dicey says, "The crises called revolutions ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... 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 ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... beautiful she was, that in spite of her faults I felt sorry for her. There was a terrible storm of anguish in her heart; her haughty, proud features were drawn and distorted with pain which she strove in vain to disguise. The young man had come to be her evil genius. I admired Gobseck, whose perspicacity had foreseen their future four years ago at the first bill which ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... nervous, alert, and piquant man, with gravity written on his forehead, perspicacity in his eye, and love around his lips, conquered me completely. I spoke to him of everything except his journeys; but the traveler showed himself full of unmistakable humanity. He seemed to me the cosmopolitan spirit personified. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... as yet he spoke no word. His head was tilted slightly backward, and his smile might have seemed almost inane in its width and in the impression of permanency which it conveyed, were it not for the intellectuality of the brow, the force of the fine aquiline nose, and the watchful perspicacity ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... 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 ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakespeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakespeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poetic creation, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... territory between the Bowery and East River and Rivington Street and the Statue of Liberty, in the year 1649, from an Indian chief for a quart of passementerie and a pair of Turkey-red portieres designed for a Harlem flat. I have always admired that Indian's perspicacity and good taste. All this is merely to convince you that the Von der Ruyslings were exactly the kind of poor aristocrats that turn down their noses at people who have money. Oh, well, I don't mean that; I mean people who have ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... 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
... say good-bye," 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 in trouble was ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... modern physician is not concerned with his patient's body only, but also with his soul. He must be a psychologist as well, and the success of his diagnosis depends upon his skill to unravel the intricate interrelations between both. That Schnitzler is such a physician admits of no doubt. His perspicacity as diagnostician lends subtlety to his analysis and portrayal of characters. While his professional bias may in a manner limit the range of his vision, his professional knowledge and experience are strong assets ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... to hand you over to Cayuse—good riddance to the whole country," answered Trimmer, with rare perspicacity of judgment. "You bet you're ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... COMPARATIVE SAGACITY, or Perspicacity, as Gall called it, was a better term than Comparison, which was introduced by Spurzheim. Direct perception of truth is its leading character. Illustration by comparison belongs to the breadth of the forehead, to the Ideal and Inventive region, and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... follows: "It is singular, in my estimation, how a gentleman with a mind as clear as Mr. Trumbull's, with a perspicacity that is a little surprising, could have fallen into the error of supposing that there is any inconsistency between the doctrine contained in the speech to which he has adverted and the one which I have maintained to-day. What I said then I say now, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... pretty pickle. Did she tell the plain truth, state the pedestrian facts—and this she would have been capable of doing with some address; for she had looked through her hosts with a perspicacity uncommon in a girl of her age; had once again put to good use those 'sharp, unkind eyes' which Mother deplored. She had seen an overworked, underfed man, who nagged like any woman, and made slaves of two weak, ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... that with your—insincerities 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, and I told ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... to the credit of the perspicacity of the memorialists that they discern the real nature of the Controverted Question of the age. They are awake to the unquestionable fact that, if Scripture has been discovered "not to be worthy of unquestioning belief," faith "in the supernatural itself" is, so far, undermined. ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... to have caught the universal feeling of western people regarding the matter of "quakes," he chuckled, in contemplation of his own perspicacity, and calmly resumed his recumbent attitude, and ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... openly to leave her in any doubt, or she had divined what they did not tell her, through their conversation. On seeing her thus, with her bitter mouth, her bright eyes, so visibly a prey to the fever of suppressed loathing, Dorsenne again was impressed by the thought of her perfect perspicacity. It was probable that she had applied the same force of thought to her mother's conduct. It seemed to him that on raising, as she was doing, the wick of the silver lamp beneath the large teakettle, that she was glancing sidewise at the terrace, where the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... untroubled contemplation, it would, I am confident, have ceased long ago to be matter of controversy; but the dust of prejudice and passion, which so distempers the intellectual vision of theologians and politicians, is seen to make, with ruthless impartiality, no exception of the perspicacity of philologists. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... sorrow found surcease in an 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 ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... This was 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
... one instant; the next he knew his ground, and pronounced all well. With the true perspicacity des ames elites, he at once saw how this at first sight untoward event might be turned to excellent account. He saw how it might be so handled as to secure the accomplishment of his second task—namely, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... and Lady Alicia, with a boldness that surprised herself, and a perspicacity that would have surprised her friends, asked, "How could they—I mean, were ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... outrage"—"if Jethro Bass is elected Selectman, Coniston will never be able to hold up her head among her sister towns for very shame." (Momentary blank, for somebody has got on the stove again, a scuffle going on there.) "I see it all now," says the Squire—(marvel of perspicacity!) "Jethro Bass has debased and debauched this town—" (blank again, and the squire points a finger of rage and scorn at the unmoved offender in the chair) "he has bought and intimidated men to do his bidding. He has sinned against heaven, and against the spirit of that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 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 Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... 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 ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... strain of some obstinate, inconclusive discussion for fear, maybe, of it ending in a serious quarrel. And so they had agreed that I should be fetched downstairs to create a diversion. I cannot say I felt annoyed. I didn't care. My perspicacity did not please me either. I wished they had left me alone—but nothing mattered. They must have been in their superiority accustomed to make use of people, without compunction. From necessity, too. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... reached it, and a gully where the surplus water was pouring into the valley below. "Fower feet o' water round her, but can't get any higher. So ye see she's all right for a month o' sich weather." Inwardly admiring the perspicacity of his companion, Jeff was about to open the coach door ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... you need find any difficulty in his having been brought up as a Wesleyan," she said, with a profound conviction that she had put her finger on the matter, and with some consciousness of her own perspicacity. "His father has been dead some time, and though his mother is still alive, you would not have to live with her. I do not think, dear, she would at all wish you to become a Methodist. As for our Mr Westray, your Mr Westray, I should ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... interpret the sudden look he gave her, but her perspicacity warned her that she was on the wrong tack with this ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... unexpectedly 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 with the ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... Czech politicians always clearly saw what the Germans were aiming at. Dr. Kramar, for instance, foresaw the present situation with remarkable perspicacity. In the Revue de Paris for February, 1899, he wrote on "The Future of Austria," declaring that her subject nationalities should be on guard lest she should become a vassal of Germany and a bridge for German ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... course of this first interview the magistrate saw to the depths of Dinah's soul. This perspicacity in a man so much in love was a superhuman effort. He saw that Didine meant to be the journalist's guardian spirit and lead him into a nobler road; she had seen that the difficulties of his practical life were due to some moral defects. Between two beings united by love—in one so genuine, and ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... his luxurious mahogany-panelled room. Everything in the house was solid and prosperous, as befitted a family who had had few reverses and sufficient perspicacity to marry a rich heiress now and then at ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... a train which some months ago I should indeed very little have expected. But such are the energies of virtue! How changed at present do all surrounding objects seem! To me they were never dark; but they were not always pleasant. They are now all cheerfulness and perspicacity. We have the most charming walks and the most delightful conversations, Louisa; and on subjects so expansive, so sublime—! Often do I say—'Why is my friend not with us? Why does she not come and bear her part in discussion? She whose mind is so penetrating and whose thoughts are so grand?' ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... could not force the narrow entrance to her mind. Such a possibility had never been even considered in the pictures of the future with which her imagination busied itself. But what would the future be? The road along which she was walking forked before her eyes, and her usual perspicacity was at fault. She knew not in which of those two diverging paths the ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... Heretical Hypocrite, in whom the conceit of his own perspicacity, by which he seems to himself to have observed certain errors in a few Church dogmas, has disturbed the balance of his mind, so that, excited vehemently by a sacred fury, he fights frenzied against civil authority, in the belief that he so pays ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... and withal unable to decide whether the sun revolved about the 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
... at the left-hand side of the fireplace. He seemed to know by an instinct usually possessed by charwomen and other domesticated persons of experience where the firewood was kept. Lisa gave a little exclamation of surprise at his impertinence and his perspicacity. He took the firewood, unknotted his handkerchief, and threw his offering into the cupboard. Then he turned and perceived for the first time that Desiree had a bright ribbon at her waist and on her shoulders; that a thin chain of gold was round ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... aimed-at and established thing, is one which we find only in very early religions, such as that of the most primitive Jews. It is this natural religion (primitive still, in spite of the fact that poets and men of science whose good-will exceeds their perspicacity keep publishing it in new editions tuned to our contemporary ears) that, as I said a while ago, has suffered definitive bankruptcy in the opinion of a circle of persons, among whom I must count myself, and who are growing ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... had he 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
... 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 the ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... perspicacity of the man, choked silently. In her world there had always been a sort of vague, unexpressed feeling that the "lower classes" ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... of the multitude. For, after all, the multitude is ready enough to help, in a casual, parenthetic way, in the furtherance of a design; and a little depth, serving to flatter that vanity which taketh delight in a sense of superior perspicacity, only adds to the zest. There are plenty of people ready to pull on a rope or shove at a wheel, but there are more eager to do so if they are offered ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... daily fonder and fonder of politics and business, and is so wonderfully fit for both—such perspicacity and such courage—and I grow daily to dislike them both more and more. We women are not made for governing—and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations; but there are times which force one to take interest in them mal gre ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... 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[obs3]. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus[obs3]. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Mythical]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... sickness which manifested itself among the troops, had, however, greatly tended to weaken the military resources of the sovereign; the Cardinal de Retz and De Vic, the Keeper of the Seals, had both fallen victims to disease; while numbers of the nobility had been killed; and De Rohan, with his usual perspicacity, decided that the moment had now arrived in which, could he ever hope to do so, he might be enabled to effect the desired treaty. Louis, who had become weary of the overweening pretensions and haughty dictation of Conde, secretly encouraged him to persist in ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... 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 distrusted this ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... horse and started for Widewood. He had to stop and shake hands with Parson Tombs over his front palings, and make an honest effort to feel annoyed by the old man's laughter-laden compliments on his energy, enterprise, and perspicacity. At the Halliday cottage he saw Fannie clipping roses from the porch trellis for Martha Salter, who stood ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... 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 it, serious things ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... not endowed with great perspicacity, did not observe the expression which his words had given to the physiognomy of the stranger. The latter rose from the front of the window, upon the sill of which he had leaned with his elbow, and knitted his brow like ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a quarter for your hat," said the Greek scholar, "and another for your perspicacity. I suppose I shall find my hat on the road, but I cannot wait for that. The sun ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... Francis of Assisi. But if Francis's judgment of men was so imperfect as to permit him to appoint an ambitious intriguer of the stamp of Brother Elias his deputy, we have no right to be sanguine about the perspicacity of Mr. Booth in a ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... no man; least of all to themselves. It is the inflammablest immeasurable Fire-work, generating, consuming itself. With what phases, to what extent, with what results it will burn off, Philosophy and Perspicacity conjecture in vain. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... see—I see it plainly enough—that Mr. Digby is going to marry Althea.' He actually didn't add, 'If she'll have him.' Helen wondered how far his perspicacity went; had he seen what Gerald had seen, and what she had not ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... With cruel perspicacity, he already foresaw that he would be guilty of cowardly conduct in yielding to this sudden weakness, and ashamed of himself he disengaged himself from her hysterical embrace, while Marianne squatted on his bed, throwing back her hair from her face, still smiling as she looked ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... business perspicacity, that," said Salter, as he marched up and down, thinking of a particular case of this order. "There's something admirable in the practical way they make for what they want. They want to amalgamate with English people, not for their own sake, but because their women like it, and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... said the Archbishop, a frown on his brow. "I trust the tidings you bring offer some slight compensation for the delay." Then was Heinrich indeed glad that fate, rather than his own perspicacity, had led his horse to the heights ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the usual categories. One didn't want to judge her. One was thankful for the haze she made about herself and her motives. That Jack understood her was, Mary felt sure, the result of some peculiar perspicacity of Jack's, for she didn't believe that Mrs. Upton had ever explained or exculpated herself to Jack, either. It even dawned on her that his perspicacity perhaps consisted mainly in the sense of trust that she herself was experiencing. ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... means of influencing the 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
... woman!" cried Merrihew, astonished at his perspicacity. "I knew it. Nothing else would so demoralize your nerve. Shall we drink a ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... of ability, humour, perspicacity, with wide knowledge, lucidity of expression, firm intellectual grip, genuine admirations, who really live among the things of the mind—whose writings are almost wholly distressing to me, and affect me exactly as the cry of an itinerant vendor in a quiet and picturesque town affects ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... family intentions, in this letter. Gerald 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 ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... propensity to get exceedingly worked up upon a subject of very little general interest, she would say, "The great point is, not to start her off, and not to give her a chance to start herself off. A little perspicacity will soon tell you what subject to nip in the bud, or when to talk as hard and fast as ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... just possibly set Piney on to worry him about Miss Gossamer; and the last, that Piney, divining that a man could hardly reach Bruce's age without some pages of romance behind him, was forever, out of his own perspicacity, trying to make Bruce re-read those pages, so that this new page, that had been turned under the hand of Sally ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... 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 ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... said 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
... 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, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various |
