"Acute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which are sometimes incompatible with those of a prince, were exercised by Julian, not only as a duty, but as an amusement; and although he might have trusted the integrity and discernment of his Praetorian praefects, he often placed himself by their side on the seat of judgment. The acute penetration of his mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the chicanery of the advocates, who labored to disguise the truths of facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He sometimes forgot the gravity of his station, asked indiscreet ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... heard you yelp with acute pain (it's that poor left ear) the while, with incredible self-command, you preserve a rigid immobility for fear of overturning the little two-legged creature. She has never seen your resigned smile when the little two-legged ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... be." I was about to add that Goodrich was a fool to permit any one to go to such a man as Scarborough with such a proposition; but I bethought me of Burbank's acute moral sensitiveness and how it would be rasped by the implication of his opponent's moral superiority. "We're past the last danger, James. That's all. Sleep sound. ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... events that not only helped to hush matters up, but gave the world a plausible reason why the ceremony did not come off as soon as the groom was convalescent from what was reported in the papers to be an attack of acute indigestion, easily accounted for by the round of banquets and entertainments which ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... the horizontal round bars, E and F, under an acute (more or less) angle, d, to the side frame of a rock drill carriage, or to the alignment of the tunnel, substantially as and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... Bragg had here an opportunity to be shut up in Chattanooga, as Pemberton had been in Vicksburg; but, a more acute strategist, he knew the value of an army in the field to be greater than ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... Review for May, 1811, in its critique on her Letters to Walpole:—"This lady seems to have united the lightness of the French character with the solidity of the English. She was easy and volatile, yet judicious and acute; sometimes profound and sometimes superficial. She had a wit playful, abundant, and well-toned; an admirable conception of the ridiculous, and great skill in exposing it; a turn for satire, which she indulged, not always in the best-natured manner, yet with irresistible ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... other profession; they are more complicated, more hidden in their causes, and the mysterious union and secret influence of the faculties of the soul over those of the body, are visible, yet still incomprehensible; they frequently produce a perturbation in the faculties, a state of acute irritability, and many sorrows and infirmities, which are not likely to create much sympathy from those around the author, who, at a glance, could have discovered where the pugilist or the racer became meagre or monstrous: the intellectual malady ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... De Quincey. Some stupid writer for the London "Athenaeum," for instance, dared to compliment the poor "opium-chewer" after the following style:—"He possessed taste, but he lacked creative energy; and his subtle and highly refined intellect was ingenious and acute rather than powerful." This reminds me of a criticism once passed upon Shakspeare by a mere pedagogue, to the effect that the great poet had considerable genius, but very ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and with no particularly acute observation of anything beyond the woman's window, which now monopolised his keenest interest in Doom, Count Victor leaped out of the boat as soon as it reached the rock, and entered the castle by the door ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... open to her faithful friends, who had also been the faithful servants of the emperor; and the Dukes of Bassano, of Friaul, of Ragusa, of the Moskwa, and their wives, as well as the gallant Charles de Labedoyere, and the acute Count Renault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, still continued to meet in the parlors of ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... in the Council weighed nothing with her. She felt certain that the lady was no other than Caroline de St. Castin. Angelique was acute enough to perceive that Bigot's bold assertion that he knew nothing of her bound him in a chain of obligation never to confess afterwards aught to the contrary. She eagerly persuaded herself that he would not regret to hear that ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... appearing in company with the Francophile poet D'Annunzio, who was to give the address? It would be a hard matter to explain to Berlin, to whose nostrils the poet was anathema. Or did it mean literally that the negotiations with reluctant Austria had reached that acute point which might not permit the absence of authority from Rome even for twenty-four hours? The drifting, if it were drifting, was ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... for him when he was seeking his present engagement. But Mr Burke did not like the look of him. He was prejudiced, however, against all foreigners, especially Greeks and Egyptians, so that his dislike did not go for much. But certainly an acute physiognomist would have said that ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... that wonderful piece of psychological anatomy, he would have learned that the emotions and passions are all complex states, arising from the close association of ideas of pleasure or pain with other ideas; and, indeed, without going to Spinoza, his own acute discussion of the passions leads to the same result,[21] and is wholly inconsistent with his classification of those mental states among the primary uncompounded materials ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... find nothing sacred in all this, nothing but what may arise from a natural indisposition of body. And in order to place this my opinion in the stronger light, it may not be improper to give a short discourse on madness; not indeed on that species, which comes on in an acute fever, and goes off with it, which is called a phrenzy, and is always of short duration; but that other sort, which is rivetted in the body, ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... out the length of his beard—"I do not suppose that he has been—boys, you know, are so acute. He fancies he can make her of service, and he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... weight and lustre your good opinion and friendship must give me in that circle, I had certainly looked upon myself as a person of no small consequence. I dare not say one word how much I was charmed with the Major's friendly welcome, elegant manner, and acute remark, lest I should be thought to overbalance my orientalisms of applause over-against the finest quey[191] in Ayrshire, which he made me a present of to help and adorn my farm-stock. As it was on hallow-day, I am determined annually, as that day returns, to decorate her horns with ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... by Article 17 of the present Protocol, nor will they take any measure of military, naval, air, industrial or economic mobilisation, nor, in general, any action of a nature likely to extend the dispute or render it more acute. ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... An acute melancholy seized him. Absently, he sat down at the piano. The prejudices of literary Mr Prosser had slipped from his mind. Softly at first, then gathering volume as the spirit of the song gripped him, he began to ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... which was formed by two gable ends, notched, and having their windows adorned with heavy architectural ornaments. They joined each other at right angles; and a half circular tower, which contained the entrance and the staircase, occupied the point of junction, and rounded the acute angle. One of other two sides of the little court, in which there was just sufficient room to turn a carriage, was occupied by some low buildings answering the purpose of offices; the other, by a parapet surrounded by a highly-ornamented iron railing, twined ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... was as the lifting of a dead weight which had crushed her heart within her. She had been numbed, paralyzed. Actual suffering had not been hers, she had experienced a suspension of feeling which had resulted from the shock. But that suspension was far more dreadful than the most acute suffering. Her whole soul had asked her senses, "What is it?" and the waiting for the answer had been to her in the nature ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... Rose was a person of good height, originally slender, but gathering an appreciable plumpness as the years went on, and with good taste in dress when she chose to exert it, which on the present occasion she did. She possessed acute perceptions and a decided method of action. But whether or not the relation of her perceptions to her actions was always influenced by good judgment was a question with her neighbors. It never was, however, a question ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... Sabbath evening Bible class in the Little Church. Straight Rory had been educated for a teacher in Scotland, and was something of a scholar. He loved school examinations, where he was the terror of pupils and teachers alike. His acute mind reveled in the metaphysics of theology, which made him the dread of all candidates who appeared before the session desiring "to come forward." It was to many an impressive sight to see Straight Rory rise in the precentor's ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... mother urged. "And it is not only his appearance, Debbie—they say he is the cleverest lawyer in Melbourne. He is so learned, so acute! He has a practice already that many a barrister, well known and of twice his ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... original national material to serve as inspiration, as the AEneas Saga had once served, led the best men of the time to muse on Nature, and describe scenery and travels. Nothing in classic Roman poetry attests such an acute grasp of Nature's little secret charms as the small poem about the sunny banks of the Moselle, vine-clad and crowned by villas, and reflected in the crystal water below. It seemed as if the Roman, with the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... the fact that the Colonel's party had strayed into that part by accident, it would have been passed unseen, as it was by the boys and Dinass, for the entrance was so like the rock on either side, and it turned off at such an acute angle, that it might have been passed a hundred times without its existence ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... is black or white; the idea of black or white seems alternately to fill their minds. So it was with these Fuegians, and hence it was generally impossible to find out, by cross questioning, whether one had rightly understood anything which they had asserted. Their sight was remarkably acute; it is well known that sailors, from long practice, can make out a distant object much better than a landsman; but both York and Jemmy were much superior to any sailor on board: several times they have declared what some distant object has been, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... sea in a straight line, but as it passes along the coast the progress of the line nearest the shore is retarded while the centre part continues at the same velocity, so that on plan the wave assumes a convex shape and the branch waves reaching the shore form an acute ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... but forgot them until they were forced upon her attention the next time they met. But as her friend continued to receive her bubbling announcements with stiff indifference, Flossy, in her perplexity, began to bend her acute mental faculties more searchingly on her idol. A fixed point of view will keep a shrine sacred forever, but let a worshipper's perspective be altered, and it is astonishing how different the features of divinity will appear. Flossy had worshipped with the eyes of faith. Now that her adoration ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... schoolroom were the streets or the riverside. And it is curious that he, who amongst strangers of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often tactless, was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally as suspicious as they are acute. About himself and his own comfort he never thought, and if he was working would eat, when it was necessary and he remembered to do so, food which he had ready in a drawer of his table. But as he had carefully watched ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... climbing. Shoots slender; internodes long, angular, usually glabrous, sometimes pubescent; diaphragms thick; tendrils intermittent, long, usually bifid. Leaves with short, broad stipules; leaf-blade medium to large, cordate, entire or indistinctly three-lobed; petiolar sinus deep, usually narrow, acute; margin with coarse angular teeth; point of leaf acuminate; upper surface light green, glossy, glabrous; glabrous or sparingly pubescent below. Clusters medium to large, loose, with long peduncle. Berries numerous and small, black, ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... through and completed before a rumour of its progress came to the ear of the interested heir. Charles was in Holland sulking and indignant. He had expected good results from his tender devotion during his father's acute illness, a devotion shared by Isabella of Portugal who hastened to her husband's bedside from her convent seclusion when Philip was in need of her ministrations. But, in his convalescence, Philip renewed his friendship for the Croys whom Charles continued to ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... crisis had originated in numerous stoppages of banks in the United States, where premature schemes of railway extension had involved countless investors in ruin; in consequence, the pressure on firms and financial houses became even more acute than in 1847; see ante, vol. ii., 14th October, 1847. The bank rate now rose to 10 per cent. as against 9 per cent. in that year, and the bank reserve of bullion ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... He stopped in his stride for half a second. So she had begun pestering him already! It is wonderful how acute any fool can be in ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... he had contrived in good time to squeeze himself into parliament, by means which no one could ever comprehend, and then set up to be a perfect man of business. The world took him at his word, for he was bold, acute, and voluble; with no thought, but a good deal of desultory information; and though destitute of all imagination and noble sentiment, was blessed with a vigorous, mendacious fancy, fruitful in small expedients, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... question that we ought to get to the snow line as soon as possible, we decided to dispense with the services of so well-informed a "guide," and make such way as we could alone. The altitude of the rim of the canyon was 16,000 feet; the mules showed signs of acute distress from mountain sickness. The arrieros began to complain loudly, but did what they could to relieve the mules by punching holes in their ears; the theory being that bloodletting is a good thing for soroche. As soon as the timid arrieros ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... old extension of the chapter-house south wall are traces of the dormitory and infirmary which formerly stood there. The Early English doorway with Purbeck marble shafts seems to have led to this dormitory. To the south of this is the deanery or prior's hall, the acute external arches, which date from the reign of Henry III., forming a vestibule with a southern aspect, while above are some narrow lancet-windows. Although the original portion of this hall dates from the fifteenth century, it was considerably ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant
... is the most simple and least complicated method of determining the various relations of the sides and angles of the acute and obtuse-angled triangles, without the aid of trigonometry, construction, or, in fact, by any method ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... form a series of treads and risers, the former being about two yards wide and the latter of unequal heights. The highest of the stone pyramids of Dahshur makes at its lower part an angle of 54 deg. 41' with the horizon, but at half its height the angle becomes suddenly more acute and is reduced to 42 deg. 59'. It reminds one of a mastaba with a sort of huge attic on the top. Each of these monuments had its enclosing wall, its chapel and its college of priests, who performed there for ages sacred rites in honour of the deceased prince, while its property in mortmain ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... one, even the most knowing; no student of costumes, no reader of faces, no discerner of character, no acute observer of manners and times—in glancing over the motley company would have thought for one instant that, in all this atmosphere of real unrealism, the two old gentlemen who had just entered leaning on Oliver's arm—one in a brown coat with ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Deschars, a low, fat, red-faced man, formerly a notary, while you are in love with Madame de Fischtaminel! Then Caroline, the Caroline whose simplicity caused you such agony, Caroline who has become familiar with society, Caroline becomes acute and witty: you have two ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... greeted the captain's anecdote had scarce subsided when the tough sides of the good Prince Rupert gave a gentle creak, and the angle at which the active steward perambulated the cabin became absurdly acute. ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... were hardly to be expected. Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze blows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not, therefore, very surprising that the acute and forcible observations of a traveller they knew would be listened to, should be received testily. The extraordinary features of the business were, first, the excess of the rage into which they lashed themselves; and secondly, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... his want of discipline supplied by subsequent desultory application. He seems to have been born with a rare sense of literary proportion and form; into this, as into a mould, were run his apparently lazy and really acute observations of life. That he thoroughly mastered such literature as he fancied there is abundant evidence; that his style was influenced by the purest English models is also apparent. But there remains a large margin for wonder how, with his want of training, he could have elaborated ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... time, the acute reader will have noticed, the acknowledgment that the fact that Richardson—even not knowing it and intending to do something else—did hit off perfectly and consummately the ideal of such a "prevailing party" (to quote ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... is marked by all the febrile symptoms presented by small-pox, with this difference, that, in the case of chicken-pox, each symptom is particularly slight. The heat of body is much less acute, and the principal symptoms are difficulty of breathing, headache, coated tongue, and nausea, which sometimes amounts to vomiting. After a term of general irritability, heat, and restlessness, about the fourth day, or between the third and fourth, an eruption makes its appearance over ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... roots of the universe. The highest compliment that can ever be paid to the humour of Dickens is paid when some lady says, with the sudden sincerity of her sex, that it is "too silly." The phrase is really a perfectly sound and acute criticism. Humour does consist in being too silly, in passing the borderland, in breaking through the floor of sense and falling into some starry abyss of nonsense far below our ordinary human life. This "too silly" quality ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... Poland and Turkey. The first to emigrate had been the Comte d'Artois and his friends, who had conspired against Necker and the new Constitution. They fled, because their lives were in danger. Others followed, after the rising of the peasants and the spoliation of August. As things grew more acute, and the settlement of feudal claims was carried out with unsparing hostility, the movement spread to the inferior noblesse. After the breach with the clergy and the secularisation of Church property, the prelates went into ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... known that Malone had many of the Dulwich documents in his possession for years. Mr. Warner's theory is that Malone lent the volume to Lord Charlemont, and that it was never returned. The objection that naturally suggests itself is, "How came so acute a scholar as Malone to fail to draw attention to a Collection of such considerable interest?" And I confess that I am not able to offer any ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... understanding of such cases I will relate a case which I found in a thesis on pavor nocturnus by Debacker, 1881. A thirteen-year-old boy of delicate health began to become anxious and dreamy; his sleep became restless, and about once a week it was interrupted by an acute attack of anxiety with hallucinations. The memory of these dreams was invariably very distinct. Thus, he related that the devil shouted at him: "Now we have you, now we have you," and this was followed ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... haversack, strapped around your shoulders, will also be a convenience. In it you can stow your bird manual, and a luncheon in case you expect to spend the whole day in the open, for a hungry rambler is not likely to be an acute observer. A notebook and a lead pencil, carried in handy pockets, should not be forgotten. Donning an old suit of clothes, you can roam where you will, threading your way through brier and bush, wading the bog or the shallow stream, dropping upon your knees, even flinging yourself upon ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Did you ever, my most acute professor of vivisection, employ your trenchant blade in ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... "Acute nervous dyspepsia, complicated by a series of sittings under the rose, might eat away the most brazen self-confidence. That's as certain as that I wear whiskers and you don't. Shall we do an addition sum? Shall we add Chichester's discovery ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... events,* or, in some cases, inspired them suddenly and spoke by their mouth: their utterances, taken down and commented on by their assistants, were regarded as infallible oracles. But the number of mortal men possessing adequate powers, and gifted with sufficiently acute senses to bear without danger the near presence of a god, was necessarily limited; communications were, therefore, more often established by means of various objects, whose grosser substance lessened for human intelligence and flesh and blood the dangers ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... one of the most acute officials of his class. "Then, in face of this, her letter seems to be more than curious. For aught we know the tragedy at Neneford may have been wilful murder; and we have now the suicide ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... parson, a fat vicar and canon, a man who, if he was not conformed to the world at large, was a mere reflection of the little world to which he belonged. His son Richard was a quick-sighted youth, clear and vigorous in intellect, not deep but acute. He was high church, because he had lived among the low church party. He was a Tory, because his surroundings were mostly Liberal. He was inclined to be profane, because his father's friends bored him ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... GDP growth averaged a strong 5% in 1989-1997, but Hong Kong suffered two recessions in the past 6 years because of the Asian financial crisis in 1998 and the global downturn of 2001-2002. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak also battered Hong Kong's economy, but a boom in tourism from the mainland because of China's easing of travel restrictions, a return of consumer confidence, and a solid rise in exports resulted in the resumption of ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... employed in new fortifications or new public buildings; dazzling the citizens by a splendour that seemed less the ostentation of an individual than the prosperity of a state. But the aristocracy still remained their enemies, and it was against them, not against the people, that they directed their acute sagacities and unsparing energies. Every more politic tyrant was a Louis the Eleventh, weakening the nobles, creating a middle class. He effected his former object by violent and unscrupulous means. He swept away by death or banishment all who opposed ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he had once found in the mere spectacle of the exterior world—the play of light and shade, the changing visions of the sky, the charm of the earth. His own thoughts were now the sole realities, and the dulness which suddenly came over his vision for outward things seemed to render it the more acute and concentrated for the things of the mind. As distant hills and tree tops show most distinctly before a storm, so every possibility which can arise from a conflict of duties stood out with a decisive clearness for his consideration. He had married in haste a child-bride. There was ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... your interesting letter. From the serene elevation of my old age I look down with amazement at your youth, vigour, and indomitable energy. With respect to Hooker and the axis of the earth, I suspect he is too much overworked to consider now any subject properly. His mind is so acute and critical that I always expect to hear a torrent of objections to anything proposed; but he is so candid that he often comes round in a year or two. I have never thought on the causes of the Glacial period, for I feel that the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... animosities. The very next day after Peregrine's arrival, some sharp repartees passed between them in presence of the ladies, before whom each endeavoured to assert his own superiority. In these contests our hero never failed of obtaining the victory, because his genius was more acute, and his talents better cultivated, than those of his antagonist, who therefore took umbrage at his success, became jealous of his reputation, and began to treat him with marks of scorn ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... flashed into life again. As Tom Cairy would have said, "Vraiment, ma petite cousine a une grande ame—etouffee" (For Cairy always made his acute observations in the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... much." He was conveyed home where the meeting with his family was very affecting, and he swooned in the arms of his physician. He was placed upon a sofa in the dining-room from which he never moved. His sufferings were so acute that a minute examination of his injuries could not be made. For two or three days he lingered and then died, July 2d. An examination made after death revealed the fact that the fifth rib on the left ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... teeth. Trimalchio was the only one who was much impressed by these tricks, remarking that it was a thankless calling and adding that in all the world there were just two things which could give him acute pleasure, rope-dancers and horn blowers; all other entertainments were nothing but nonsense. "I bought a company of comedians," he went on, "but I preferred for them to put on Atellane farces, and I ordered my flute-player to play Latin ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... you like but that, mia bella. The least light on my eyes gives me the most acute pain—pain that irritates my nerves for hours afterward. Be satisfied with me as I am for the present, though I promise you your wish shall ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Catarrh (Acute Coryza, Acute Rhinitis, "Cold in the Head", "Snuffles").—Acute nasal catarrh may accompany measles, diphtheria, influenza, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... the clatter of pastimes and the creaks and groans of labour, this region discovers acute sensibility to sound. Silence in its rarest phases soothes the Isle, reproaching disturbances, though never so temperate. All the endemic sounds are primitive and therefore seldom harsh. Even the mysterious fall of a tree in the jungle—not an unusual occurrence ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... greener and deeper the vegetation of this beautiful region. The Admiral was ill with the gout, and suffering such pain from his eyes that he was sometimes blinded by it; but the excitement of the strange phenomena surrounding him kept him up, and his powers of observation, always acute, suffered no diminution. There were no inhabitants to be seen as they sailed along the coast, but monkeys climbed and chattered in the trees by the shore, and oysters were found clinging to the branches ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... independent of mechanical intensity. These are acoustic waves. Finally, there will doubtless be created optical waves, whose velocity will exceed that of the acoustic ones. That is to say, if a person fell into water from a great height, and all his senses were sufficiently acute, he would first perceive a luminous sensation when the first optical wave reached him, then he would perceive the sound produced, and later still he would feel, through a slight tremor, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... Glabrous; or the young shoots and foliage slightly silky; or sometimes pubescent, or hirsute, with procumbent ascending, or erect stems of one to three feet. Leaflets varying from oblong or almost linear, and one-quarter inch to half-inch long, to lanceolate, or linear-acute, and above one inch long. Flowers: large, fragrant, violet, or blue; pod sessile, above one ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... in Calcutta, I think one would require to have an acute sense of humour and no sense of smell. Am I flippant? I don't mean to be, because I feel I can't sufficiently admire the men and women who are bearing the heat and burden of the day. And now that sounds patronizing, and Heaven knows I don't ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... problem of what gifts to send to our brave men at the Front becomes more acute. For of course they must all have presents, no matter what decision is come to as to the manner of spending the dear old ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... classes who have maintained the purity of their blood, are the finest, physically, to be found in the Himaliya. They are stout, well-built, and pleasing in countenance, resembling Europeans, except in having a darker complexion. They are more acute and intelligent than the Sikhs and than the Dogras or Hindus of Jummoo, their present superiors politically. They are industrious, manufacturing besides shawls other stuffs and much fancy-work in wood. The beauty of the women is as much remarked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... better than perfection; something rare, far-fetched, and exquisite. New modes of pleasure were devised. In that period of luxury and dissipation, when the rage for new inventions was grown epidemic, Seneca arose. His talents were of a peculiar sort, acute, refined and polished; but polished to a degree that made him prefer affectation and wit to truth and nature. The predominance of his genius was great, and, by consequence, he gave the mortal stab to all true eloquence [a]. When I say this, let ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... keenly acute conscience about evil, and about compromise with evil; and yet with it a sanity of judgment on particular questions arising, and a gentle consideration for others who see otherwise, or think they do. Evil grows in subtlety and in aggressiveness ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... infirmity, disappointed hopes, and a long series of humiliations destroyed the happiness which should have belonged to his rare union of noble gifts,—his tall, commanding figure, his awe-inspiring countenance, his acute wit, and magnificent intellect. Naturally proud and sensitive to an abnormal degree, he was obliged to suffer the most galling slights. From his earliest years he hated dependence, and yet, until middle life he was forced to be a dependent. His education was furnished by the charity ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... sceptical, non-committal policy of Senor Mateo was sorely tried. Arriving at the posada one night, Ezekiel became aware that his host was engaged in some mysterious conference with a visitor who had entered through the ordinary public room. The view which the acute Ezekiel managed to get of the stranger, however, was productive of no further discovery than that he bore a faint and disreputable resemblance to Blandford, and was handsome after a conscious, reckless ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... out, as he had wiped out the little garrison at Navidad. A friendly cacique, Guacanagari, who had been the ally of the Admiral from the first, gave him information of this plot, and the danger was seen by Colon's acute mind to be desperate indeed. He had only a small force, torn by jealousy and private quarrels, and a defensive fight at this stage of his enterprise would almost surely be a losing one. The territory of Caonaba included the most mountainous and inaccessible part of ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... criticisms; some critics are influenced by having gone so far as to look at meritorious pictures in an endeavor to analyze and appreciate them intelligently; but Charlie labors under no such restraints. Once he went into the Louvre, but it was to get out of the rain. Except for an acute sense of smell, he could not detect an oil painting from a water color, even if he should try; and except for an abnormal self-confidence he would hesitate in the first step of criticism—a careful ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... poles of hyperaesthesia and anaeesthesia; in other words, the senses may be extraordinarily exalted, as in somnambulism, or, as in lethargy, they may be extinct, except sometimes hearing. In somnambulism the field of vision and acuteness of sight are about doubled, hearing is made very acute, and smell is so intensely developed that a subject can find by scent the fragment of a card, previously given him to feel, and then torn up and hidden. The memory in somnambulism is similarly exalted. When awakened the subject does ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... was too acute not to detect the difference in tone between his playing at this time and the power of expression he had once possessed, and in her shadowy corner she suffered sympathetically when beneath his work-worn fingers the strings cried out discordantly. The wrist, once so strong and ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Their stock of food also proved inadequate; and as their constitutions became more debilitated their suffering from cold increased. Afflicted with catarrhal affections, manacled by the fetters of dreadfully acute rheumatism, some contrived for a while to get over the shortening day's march and drag along some others. But the sign of an impaired circulation soon began to show itself in the liability of all to be dreadfully frost-bitten. The hardiest ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... water, and use tea-spoonful doses as above directed. The length of time between the doses should be, in Dysentery and Diarrhoea, regulated by the frequency of the discharges, giving a dose as often as the evacuations occur. In acute and violent diseases, the doses should be repeated oftener than in milder cases—about once an hour as a general rule is often enough, though in some cases they should be given in half an hour or oftener. In mild cases, once in ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... for the Derby, Docker?" asked Jimmy Ferguson, proffering his daily paper with an air of acute cheerfulness. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... the formulation of a legal rule for the interpretation and construction of a written instrument—the statement compels assent. As a statement of historical and political fact, however, it would not be accepted so readily. An acute critic of our institutions has said that the Constitution "has changed in the spirit with which men regard it, and therefore in its own spirit."[1] Men realize that the words of the Constitution, like the words of Holy Writ, have not always meant the same thing to ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... his extreme acute sensibility, was touched at the other's emotion and simple testimony of sorrow under defeat. He was about to say something friendly to Mr. Washington, had not his mother, to whom the Colonel had ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by the consciousness that he had an acute headache. His mouth tasted, as Herman used to say after a big night, as if an army had camped in it. Coffee and a ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... France. A common name for them used by the British themselves was that of the Neutral French. In time of peace the Acadians could be left to themselves. When, however, war broke out between Britain and France the question of loyalty became acute. Such war there was in 1744. Without doubt, some Acadians then helped the French—but it was, as they protested, only under compulsion and, as far as they could, they seem to have refused to aid either side. The British ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... One can not compromise with conscience; that says itself. But I have come to believe latterly that one's conscience may be morbidly acute, or even diseased. I'll admit I've been ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... down on a chair, and cover my face with my hands. My attitude is the same as it was ten minutes ago, but oh, how different are my feelings! What bitter repentance, what acute self-contempt, invade my soul! As I so sit, I feel ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Nature. And in this respect he was very near to the Animals. Self-consciousness in the animals, in a germinal form is there, no doubt, but EMBEDDED, so to speak, in the general world consciousness. It is on this account that the animals have such a marvellously acute perception and instinct, being embedded in Nature. And primitive Man had the same. Also we must, as I have said before, allow that man in that stage must have had the same sort of grace and perfection of form and movement as we ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... be glancing at the oratorical lectures of the modern Rhetor Sheridan, whose plans he delighted incessantly to ridicule. See Boswell. Many acute remarks occur in Hume's Essay ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... time, the pain of thirst was less intensely felt. Perhaps the cold damp air of night had the effect of relieving it; but it is more likely that fatigue and long endurance had rendered the sense less acute. Whatever may have been the cause, I suffered less, and felt myself yielding to sleep. There was no sound to keep me awake: perfect stillness reigned around; even the usual howling bark of the prairie-wolf did not reach my ear. The place seemed too lonely for this almost ubiquitous ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... GDP equal to that of the four largest West European countries. The economy depends heavily on exports, particularly in consumer electronics and information technology products. It was hard hit from 2001-03 by the global recession, by the slump in the technology sector, and by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, which curbed tourism and consumer spending. Fiscal stimulus, low interest rates, a surge in exports, and internal flexibility led to vigorous growth in 2004-07 with real GDP growth averaging 7% annually. The ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... she was a very stupid girl, and all the stupider that she thought herself rather clever. She fancied that she was very acute in reading character, and she trusted a great deal to instinct, and first impressions, and all that sort of rubbish by which women excuse themselves from taking the trouble to use their reason. Well, once upon a time, this ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... self-remonstrance. He was under strain, that was all—he had thought he had heard a footstep out there in the alleyway. He laid his automatic on the floor within instant reach, and turned again to the safe—acute and sensitive as his hearing was, it would haw taken good ears indeed to have distinguished a step at that distance on the other side ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... pussyfooting always did give me an acute pain. I'm for direct action, word and deed, first, last, and all the time. I repeat, you have exactly as much chance of killing Richard Seaton as a ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... Sitting down as a level member of the dairyman's household seemed at the outset an undignified proceeding. The ideas, the modes, the surroundings, appeared retrogressive and unmeaning. But with living on there, day after day, the acute sojourner became conscious of a new aspect in the spectacle. Without any objective change whatever, variety had taken the place of monotonousness. His host and his host's household, his men and his maids, as they became intimately known to Clare, began to ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... he ever hope that Kate Seton would do more than lend her strong, pitying affection for his support? How could she ever look to him for support and guidance? His sense of proportion was far too acute to permit so grievous ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... were, know and feel how other women are regarded by men, and how also men are regarded by other women, is equally strong, and equally incomprehensible. A glance, a word, a motion, suffices: by some such acute exercise of her feminine senses the signora was aware that Mr Arabin loved Eleanor Bold; and therefore, by a further exercise of her peculiar feminine propensities, it was quite natural for her to entrap ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... man slightly below her in social position, but with firmness and decision of character and genuine skill in—what? Ironmongery? No, literature. All through the book I found myself wondering whether a mind so finely tempered as Katharine's, a perception so acute, was really fitted for anything so commonplace as, after all, love is. And I longed for the authoress, who explained every mood so amazingly well, to explain ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... in July and August, are of a pale pink or rose color: the calyx, or flower-cup, is bell-shaped, obscurely pentangular, villous, slightly viscid, and presenting at the margin five acute, erect segments. The corolla is twice the length of the calyx, viscid, tubular below, swelling above into an oblong cup, and expanding at the lip into five somewhat plaited, pointed segments; the seed vessel is an oblong or ovate capsule, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... were left about; sand was scattered everywhere, books were torn and dog's-eared as the result of these lessons. She was told in harsh terms that she would have to earn her own living, and not be a burden to others. As she listened to these cruel remarks Pierrette's throat contracted violently with acute pain, her heart throbbed. She was forced to restrain her tears, or she was scolded for weeping and told it was an insult to the kindness of her magnanimous cousins. Rogron had found the life that suited him. He scolded Pierrette as he used to scold his ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... statement that was good for a headline, or coined an epigram, or lost his temper, or spluttered into print. But on a certain occasion, before retiring from the Commission, Sir Henry put on record a number of things that the people of this country read with acute and sustained interest. This was the report of the Smith-Drayton-Acworth Commission for the purpose of finding out whether the Canadian Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific could ever manage to pay their own debts, including interest on multi-millions borrowed from abroad, or whether, debts and ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... my pencil to correct the passages reflected on with the reflections, by the crosses you may observe, just glancing over the writing as I did so. Well! and, where that erasure is, I found a line purporting to be extracted from your 'Duchess,' with sundry acute criticisms and objections quite undeniably strong, following after it; only, to my amazement, as I looked and looked, the line so acutely objected to and purporting, as I say, to, be taken from the 'Duchess,' was by no means ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Kentucky at the same time. [Footnote: Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, xi., No. 2, pp. 160-165, Letters of Levi Allen, Ethan Allen, and others, from 1787 to 1790.] In each territory there was acute friction with a neighboring State. In each there was a small knot of men who wished the community to keep out of the new American nation, and to enter into some sort of alliance with a European nation, England in one case, Spain in the other. In each there was a considerable ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... feelings were not very acute, finding the persuasions of her brother were seconded by her own fatigue, consented to follow his advice, and desired him to begin ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... frequently: he appeared to be about fifty; he was neither fat nor thin; he had an acute, intelligent look, dressed very simply, but in good taste; he wore very fine diamonds in his rings, watch, and snuff-box. He came, one day, to visit Madame de Pompadour, at a time when the Court was in full splendour, with knee and shoe-buckles of diamonds so fine and brilliant that Madame said ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... however, and indeed had endangered what I desired should be considered as a secret; for I afterwards learned that a highly-respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of my father, and an acute critic, [James Chalmers, Esq., Solicitor at Law, London, who (died during the publication of the present edition of these Novels. Aug. 1831.)] had said, upon the appearance of the work, that he was now convinced who was the author ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... Waves of acute pain were pricking into Jessie's legs from the pink toes to the calves. She was massaging them to restore circulation and had to set her teeth ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... gift that I have; simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... at the close of 1592, and which is known in our history as 'The Spanish Blanks,' brought to an acute crisis the suspicion and discontent of the country, and especially of the ministers. A Papist of the name of Kerr was about to embark on his ship, which was lying off Fairlie Roads on the Ayrshire coast, when he was arrested by a posse of Glasgow students and local ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... imputes to him a number of wicked actions, in which he had really no share, and which he frequently indeed had endeavoured to prevent. The Emperor employed him on all occasions; because he found him possessed of a bold and clear judgment, an acute understanding, and great skill in perceiving the consequences of a thing, and acting with spirit. Unfavourable suspicions have been thrown on the motives, that induced Napoleon, to entrust to him the administrations of the police: but he was called to this important office solely ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon |
