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Brief

verb
1.
Give essential information to someone.



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"Brief" Quotes from Famous Books



... pleasures, is it not natural that I should incline to fall at the feet of a man who would love me sincerely and forever? And yet, the world would condemn me. But twenty years of suffering might well excuse a few brief years which may still remain to me of youth given to a sacred and real love. This will not happen. I am not so rash as to sacrifice my hopes of heaven. I have borne the burden and heat of the day, I shall finish my course and ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... to dismiss this brief sketch of French balloonists of this period without paying some due tribute to M. Depuis Delcourt, equally well known in the literary and scientific world, and regarded in his own country as a father among aeronauts. Born in 1802, his recollection ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... valued; and the impression, when he finally rose and moved toward the door, of having been accepted as a better guarantee than he had had any reason to hope for. On the threshold his glance crossed that of the young man in an exchange of intelligence as full as it was rapid; and this brief scene left Anna so oddly enlightened that she felt no surprise when her companion, pushing an arm-chair forward, sociably asked her if she wouldn't have a cigarette. Her polite refusal provoked the remark that he would, if she'd no objection; and while he groped for matches ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... him, swerved suddenly aside and plunged his spear into the body of Michael. On the moment Thom had one arm passed around her husband's neck, and twisting half about, with voice and gesture was splitting the mass of charging warriors. A score of men hurled past on either side, and Fairfax, for a brief instant's space, stood looking upon her and her bronze beauty, thrilling, exulting, stirred to unknown deeps, visioning strange things, dreaming, immortally dreaming. Snatches and scraps of old-world philosophies and ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... brief and fragmentary outline of methods and possibilities of Old Testament study is not an impossible dream. In colleges and in a few Bible schools it is already being tried with the gratifying results that might be anticipated. To put it at once into force in most of our Sunday-schools ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... life, and here amid the opulence one could forget the near presence of the squalid alley. So it had become a habit of mine always to begin my day with a walk uptown, as a gentle tonic for my body and to give my mind a brief but more cheerful outlook than through the smutted office windows. I never tired of the life which I saw about me. And it was about me and I not of it, for though I might pause at a tailor's to examine his fabrics, it was always through his plate-glass window; beyond the ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... and a sharp retort rose to his lips. But, after a brief silence, he answered his wife with a restraint that spoke volumes to the girl ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... mention in brief some instances in confirmation of their complaint. There are several depositions. That of Charles Browne and ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... anger. She saw his lips move as if about to utter words of protest. Instead, however, he quickly turned, left them, and walking along the bank for a short distance reached a fordable place in the brook. He plunged into the water and after a brief struggle reached the opposite bank and disappeared among ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... Harris and at breakfast he appeared in a joking mood. While he smoked, he glanced at the Tribune and again examined Searles's letter of introduction from Messrs. Guerney & Barring. At nine o'clock promptly, Mr. Searles came and Colonel Harris exhibited to him a brief statement of the business of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co., extending over the last ten years, and showing ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... piece out a very satisfactory account of the nature and history of the traditional fable by looking up in any good encyclopedia the brief articles under the following heads: Folklore, Fable, Parable, Apologue, AEsop, Demetrius of Phalerum, Babrias, Phaedrus, Avian, Romulus, Maximus Planudes, Jataka, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... most general numbers—more than brief, round statements—I shall not attempt. I shall not do more than state upon such grounds as I can discover proportions in the terms of single units—as, to say that one nation stood to another in its immediate armed men as eight to five, or as two to twenty. ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... Alexander and the decline of the French cause in the South cut short his work in the autumn of 1503. Della Rovere, Cardinal Vincula, whose title came from the Church of St. Peter in Chains, the inflexible enemy of the Borgias, was now Julius II; and after a brief interval he was strong enough to drive Caesar out of the country; while the Venetians, entering the Romagna under ill omens for the Republic, occupied the remnant of ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... had evident reference to the perverse action of the Southern rebels, and were so entirely in harmony with the feeling of the House that at different stages of the brief address the Republican side of the chamber broke forth into loud applause. As soon as the election of Speaker and of the subordinate officers of the House was completed, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, recognized as the leader of the majority, offered a resolution ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... few days the diphtheria epidemic in the hamlet had reached terrible proportions. There had been one death, others were expected, and soon Robert in his brief hours at home could find no relief in anything, so heavy was the oppression of the day's memories. At first Catherine for the child's sake kept away; but the little Mary was weaned, had a good Scotch ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... old California theatre were Lawrence Barrett and John McCullough. The foremost actors were drawn to the city, including Charles Kean and Edwin Forrest. The Bush street theatre was conducted for fifteen years by M. B. Leavitt. It is difficult to be brief with the list of famous names. David Belasco, born in San Francisco, was stage manager of the Baldwin before he made theatrical history in New York. David Warfield made his first professional appearance at the old Wigwam. William A. Brady began his theatrical career ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood

... hung in the air. The words stuck in the silence like insects wriggling upon a pin. Then the voice was gone, and the silence was complete and heavy. The carrier hum ceased. With a spine-tingling brief blaze of high-frequency sound, Hoskins' ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn

... what home I fancied that distant island in her grey northern sea had for me, heaven knows! Here one rubbed shoulders, perchance, with some ruddy-faced, careless fellow in dark blue clothes, who, but a short couple of months ago, walked London's streets, and would be there again in the incredibly brief space of six weeks or so. Dyspepsia itself knows no more fell and spirit-racking anguish than nostalgia brings; and at times I have fancied the very air—bland, warm, and kindly seeming—that circulates about the famous quay must be pervaded ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... of the superior of the establishment, filled with the usual expressions of delight at her daughter's progress, a brief postscript was attached, with a second from the hand of a gentleman in employment there as an Assistant, both of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... many weeks, she busied herself with the child and with the house. It was as if she were trying, passionately, to make up for some brief ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... 1866, when war broke out between Prussia and Austria, this grand old man of eighty-one volunteered for active service, and begged to be attached to the headquarters' staff. His request was granted, and he went gallantly through the brief campaign, but was bitterly disappointed because he was not able to be present at the battle of Koniggraetz, owing to the indisposition of the king, upon ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... no detached outsider conceives. The awful importance of the ruin of a life is overlooked. Men are only allowed to be happy or miserable in classes. In Gopsum Street a man murders his mistress. The important fact is that for the man the act is eternal, and that for the brief space he has to live, he is already dead. He is already in a different world from ours. He has crossed the frontier. The important fact is that something is done which can not be undone—a possibility which none of us realize until we face ...
— Eeldrop and Appleplex • T.S. Eliot

... When a circuit is suddenly opened or closed a current of very brief duration, in the first case in the same direction, in the other case in the opposite direction, is produced, which exceeds the ordinary current in intensity. A high potential difference is produced for an instant only. These ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... "This in brief, then, is the situation. A group of Americans own vast oil fields in Mexico. They have enormous difficulty policing and controlling the fields. The Mexican method of concession making is exceedingly expensive and uncertain. They wish the United ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... his own will. And at last he grows to recognise that fact of supreme importance, that "Life" has nothing to do with body and with this material plane; that Life is his conscious existence, unbroken, unbreakable, and that the brief interludes in that Life, during which he sojourns on Earth, are but a minute fraction of his conscious existence, and a fraction, moreover, during which he is less alive, because of the heavy coverings which weigh ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant

... will turn your future into such strange furrows; remember, the life of the theatre is a hard life, a homeless life; that it is a wandering up and down the earth; a life filled full with partings, with sweet, lost friendships; that its triumphs are brilliant but brief. If you do truly love acting, simply and solely for the sake of acting, then all will be well with you, and you will be content; but verily you will be ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... "Very brief are the words spoken before Phedre rushes into the room to commence tremblingly and nervously, with struggles which rend and tear and convulse the system, the secret of her shameful love. As her passion mastered what remained of modesty or ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... a short distance away and presently Jacques stopped. All three of the boys stood still and listened intently for some moments. Not a sound came to their ears and in a brief time the advance ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay

... West. The flash of terrible white teeth showed in the moonlight as the monster gnawed at the base of the tree a few times and with a crash its leafy length lay upon the ground. Contemplating for a brief space the ruin it had wrought, the monster emitted another of its appalling screams and was off once more ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... 4. Give a brief account of Dryden's life. What are his chief poetical works? For what new object did he use poetry? Is satire a poetical subject? Why is a poetical satire more effective than a satire in prose? What was Dryden's contribution to English prose? What ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... To be brief, 'twas not till the fourth afternoon (by reason of baffling head winds) that we stepped out of the Godsend's boat upon a small beach of shingle, whence, between a rift in the black cliffs, wound up the road that was to ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... which the agitation passed before it reached this disastrous point need only a brief review. Naturally enough, owing to the bi-racial conditions, friction had arisen earlier in Lower than in Upper Canada, yet the first recognition of the flagrant defects of the Constitution was not made till 1828, when a Committee of the British House of Commons published a Report which, though ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... the honour to inform your excellency, that I arrived at this port to-day, and circumstances rendering it necessary that Mr. Evans should proceed to Newcastle, I embrace the opportunity to make to your excellency a brief report of the route pursued by the western ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... accounts, or between the credit of different historians. There is not a document, or scrap of account, either contemporary with the commencement of Christianity, or extant within many ages afar that commencement, which assigns a history substantially different from ours. The remote, brief, and incidental notices of the affair which are found in heathen writers, so far as they do go, go along with us. They bear testimony to these facts—that the institution originated from Jesus; that the Founder was put to death, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... Brief as was my survey of this astounding apparition, the interval was long enough for Raffles to recover his composure; his hands were in his pockets, and a smile upon his face, when my ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... But the Resident Engineer's brief spurt of energy had already notably relaxed, when, one sunny day near the end of March, a man not a member of the train crew nor a regular passenger came in on the afternoon train. As he emerged from under a coal car, one of the switchmen stared at him blankly, swore a few lurid ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... With all these events so far as they were known at the seat of Government before the termination of your last session you are already acquainted, and it is therefore only needful in this place to lay before you a brief summary of what has ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... feelings, and that a thousand other ills might happen when the little love affair was no longer under her careful management. But all ending well, was well; and not even the Bellevue cats were more petted by the old ladies than we two were in our brief and ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Very simply, in brief sentences, with short intervals to permit of more accurate recollection, good old Sammy opened to us vistas of unending fields of ice whereupon men slew the harp-seals, and pictured to us the manner in which the toll of death sometimes turns against the slayers. He also ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... of the Persian Siamek, the Bithynian Hylas, and the Egyptian Maneros, Son of Menes or the Eternal. The elegy called Maneros was sung at Egyptian banquets, and an effigy enclosed within a diminutive Sarcophagus was handed round to remind the guests of their brief tenure of existence. The beautiful Memnon, also, perished in his prime; and Enoch, whose early death was lamented at Iconium, lived 365 years, the number of days of the solar year; a brief space when compared with the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... said of Talleyrand that he needed no sleep, as his pulse ceased to beat after a certain number of strokes, for a brief space, and then resumed pulsation. During that pause, his physical and mental powers had time for recuperation. Be that as it may, it is certain that to some persons whose minds and feelings are put to ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... had looked in on Mike's people for a brief space, and, at the request of Mike's mother, took the early express to Wrykyn in order to pay a visit ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... absurdities of the medieval mind as a fillip for the imagination of the man in the street. Even spiritualism apes the technique of the physicist. The credulity of reporters alone concerning developments in surgery, for example, is incredible. There is enough rot published daily for a brief to be made out ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... from his position, leaning forward as he was, there was a heavy jar at his wrist, the line tightened with quite a snap, and as the fish darted downward the midshipman was jerked from where he stood, and the next moment plunged head first with a heavy splash into the sea, showing his legs for a brief space, and then, in a shadowy way that emulated the fishes' glide, he went downward into the sunlit depths, leaving his two companions staring aghast at the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... opposite virtue to talkativeness, always listening to and having on our lips the encomiums passed upon reserve, and remembering the decorum sanctity and mysterious power of silence, and ever bearing in mind that terse and brief speakers, who put the maximum of matter into the minimum of words, are more admired and esteemed and thought wiser[590] than unbridled windbags. And so Plato[591] praises, and compares to clever javelin-men, such as speak tersely, compressedly, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... had time and inclination to talk to her, Pearl's young heart swam in a crimson sea of delight, but if by any chance he hurried by, his mind filled with other things, she suffered for a brief season all the pangs of unrequited affection, and looked anxiously in the glass many times to see if her face showed signs of ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... the subsequent darkness by advising us to "beware of our pockets." When Colonel Fay asked for quietude he was rudely requested "not to talk through his nose." It was not to be wondered at that the seance was very brief, and the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... make a full and minute statement, sir; but this cough again warns me to be very brief. In a word, then, I had not gone far, before I saw a German woman—a neat, elderly person—sitting on the stoop of her house. An impulse moved me to leave the child with her. I accosted her, but she answered me in German, saying that she could not speak English. Hardly knowing what I ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... close of the public service nearly all "remain for class meeting." The speaking is clear, direct, and candid; the singing spontaneous, brief, and spirited. When the class meeting closes, hand-shaking and shouts close the scene, and most of the people return ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er

... the lid of your desk, where you pretend to be very busy with your papers, you steal the reading of some brief passage of "Lazy Lawrence," or of the "Hungarian Brothers," and muse about it for hours afterward to the great detriment of your ciphering; or, deeply lost in the story of the "Scottish Chiefs," you fall to comparing such villains as Menteith ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... we were preparing to start, I happened to enter into conversation with an aged moollah, the solitary cicerone of the Doa[u]b, who gave us a brief but very extraordinary account of a cavern about seven miles off; our curiosity was so much excited by the marvellous details we heard, that we determined to delay our departure for the purpose of ascertaining how much of his story was due to ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... brief resume shows the various steps through which the French formal garden passed. In the moyen-age the garden was a thing quite apart from the dwelling, and was but a diminutive dooryard sort of a garden. The garden of the Renaissance ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... duty was plain; we could not go on with the case. I have consulted Sir Frederic. He felt—he felt that he must throw up his brief, and he will do that the moment the Court sits. Now I want to talk to you about what ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... die young"—truly it would seem so, as we read the old tales of men and of women beloved of the gods. To those men who were deemed worthy of being companions of the gods, seemingly no good fortune came. Yet, after all, if even in a brief span of life they had tasted god-given happiness, was their fate one to be pitied? Rather let us keep our tears for those who, in a colourless grey world, have seen the dull days go past laden with trifling duties, unnecessary cares and ever-narrowing ideals, and have ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... Now be brief, And I will try to listen, And share the minute, that remains, betwixt The care I owe my ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... words could form, of feeling the most perfect pleasure in her society, and that he should not; without the extremest reluctance, find himself obliged to abandon the happiness she offered him to any other person in the company: to recompence this complaisance, as she called it, she gave him a brief detail of the characters of as many as she knew thro' their habits; and in doing this discovered a sweet impartiality and love of truth, which was no small addition to her other charms. She blamed the baroness ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... perfectly new to them all, and when, at last, they had been walking for a couple of hours, and with one consent sat down to rest and partake of the lunch provided for the occasion, it was felt that, though they could not see it, they must be near to the sea on that side; so after a brief halt it was decided to push on along the side of the opening for another half-hour, and try whether they could reach ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... had kept the same place by his daughter's side. Each hour as it passed found him still absorbed in his long vigil of hope; his life seemed suspended in its onward course by the one influence that now enthralled it. At the brief intervals when his bodily weariness overpowered him on his melancholy watch, it was observed by those around him that, even in his short dreaming clumbers, his face remained ever turned in the same direction, towards the head ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... respectability, and for this crime she pays the penalty of unsated heart-hunger. Instead of the fruits of Eden distilling their sweet juices into her blood, the apples of Gomorrah turn perpetually to ashes in her mouth. Often weariness and despair drive her to the brief intoxication of the anodyne of adultery, a further crime which is only the ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... the perils of an unconscious drifting apart, such as has destroyed many a friendship and wrecked many a married life, as Clough has depicted it in "Qua Cursum Ventus"? If you would know the life-long sorrow of the blind man at your side, would enter into his life and for a brief moment share his captivity, read Milton's interpretation of that sorrow in Samson's Lament. If you would find some message to cheer the blind man in his darkness and illumine his captivity, read the same poet's ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... years, never lifting their eyes to look over into pastures forbidden. Perhaps if Hittie had been left with the money, after the yoke had been sundered, she would have kicked up her heels in a few final capers of consolation, in order to prove to herself, by brief experience, how much better consistent sainthood was as a ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... who have suffered a brief pain, Are dead; but thou, Antiochus, shalt suffer The punishment of pride. I offer up My body and my life, beseeching God That he would speedily be merciful Unto our nation, and that thou by plagues Mysterious and by torments mayest ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... no sign; and at last I began to go over my brief interview with the Colonel, and to wonder whether he would turn now upon the two scouts and charge them with having deceived themselves, for according to their report the enemy ought to have been upon us long before. I had got to this ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... Hollanders were expecting the enemy at the ford of, the Yssel, being more easy to pass; they were taken by surprise; the king's cuirassier regiment dashed into the river, and crossed it partly by fording and partly by swimming; the resistance was brief; meanwhile the Duke of Longueville was killed, and the Prince of Conde was wounded for the first time in his life. "I was present at the passage, which was bold, vigorous, full of brilliancy, and glorious for the nation," writes ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... he had gone straight to Harbor Light and into a little inner office where he was guarded from all intruders by the assistant who sat in the anteroom. Not even a telephone could sound its insistent note in this place where the doctor gained, in a reclining chair, his few brief moments of rest, or where he worked out the intricacies of perplexing problems. Now and then he saw a patient there, but rarely. Usually he shut his door against all distracting influences, and gave his attention to the things which ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... brief respite while they were gathering their ammunition, Numa had settled himself to feed; but scarce had he arranged himself and his kill when a sharp piece of rock hurled by the practiced hand of the ape-man struck him upon ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Wordsworth, Keats, Ruskin, Dickens, and Tennyson. Wordsworth's treatment of childhood, for instance, now requires an amount of space that would a short time ago have seemed disproportionate. Later Victorian writers, like Meredith, Hardy, Swinburne, and Kipling, can no longer be accorded the usual brief perfunctory treatment. Increased modern interest in contemporary life is also demanding some account of the literature already produced by the twentieth century. An entire chapter is devoted to showing how this new literature reveals the thought ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... now finds itself for a moment among very famous events and personages, and hanging on to the skirts of history. When the eagles of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican upstart, were flying from Provence, where they had perched after a brief sojourn in Elba, and from steeple to steeple until they reached the towers of Notre Dame, I wonder whether the Imperial birds had any eye for a little corner of the parish of Bloomsbury, London, which you might have thought so quiet, that even the whirring and flapping of those mighty wings ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wrote a telegram, brutally brief, as telegrams must be. "Died yesterday. Funeral Friday, two o'clock. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... turned, brained one of his foes with a sweep of his heavy axe, and, followed by Cuthbert, dashed to the assistance of the king. The weight of his horse and armour cleft through the crowd, and in a brief space he penetrated to the side of King Richard, who was borne upon by a host of foes. Just as they reached them a Bedouin who had been struck from his horse crawled beneath the noble charger of King Richard, and drove his scimitar deep into its bowels. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... of epistaxis in which the blood welled up through the lacrimal ducts and suffused into the eye so that it was constantly necessary to wipe the lower eyelid, and the discharge ceased only when the nose stopped bleeding. A brief editorial note on epistaxis through the eyes, referring to a case in the Medical News of November 30, 1895, provoked further reports from numerous correspondents. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... After a brief siege the city was taken, and Domitius and his army were made prisoners. Everybody gave them up for lost, expecting that Cesar would wreak terrible vengeance upon them. Instead of this, he received the troops at once into his own service and let ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... visions of express trains in which she and Ted were whirled on for ever through strange landscapes; visions of Parisian life as she pictured it—a series of exquisite idyls, the long days of quivering sunlight under blue skies, the brief languid nights dying into dawn, coffee and rolls brought to you before you get up, strawberries eaten with claret instead of cream because cream makes you ill in hot climates, the Paris of fiction and the Paris of commonplace ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... them, the most respectable of the two, stated in brief, business like terms, that "he had been the family lawyer of the Bencroft's for many years, and that previous to his recent demise, Nicholas Bencroft had laid information with him, against one Vivian Standish, for swindling him out of a considerable sum of money, and that he ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... the complete story of Miss McLeod and her dog Sholto," he mused, when I had finished speaking. For a brief second I thought he was about to laugh at the apparent absurdity of the yarn, but before I had time to answer ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... royal head illuminated against the surrounding blackness. The effect is indescribably weird and impressive. The body has only twice been removed from the tomb since its burial, the second time when it was for a brief space taken up into the sunlight to be photographed by Mr.. Carter, in January, 1902. The temporary removal was carefully carried out, the body of his Majesty being borne up through the passages of the tomb on the shoulders of the Italian electric light workmen, preceded and followed by impassive ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... who remained, but their confusion was soon ended, for Rose, with a look which they had never seen upon her face before, dismissed them with the brief command, "Break ranks the review is over," ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... drawing-room conclude on the very deep relations subsisting between mother and son. Steps were heard moving at length, but they moved and stopped; there was lingering, and slow progress; and words were spoken, broken questions from Mrs. Dallas and brief responses in a stronger voice that was low-pitched and pleasant. The figures appeared in the doorway at last, but even there lingered still. The mother and son were looking into one another's faces and speaking those absorbed little utterances of first meeting which are insignificant ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... multiplication and division, which are in truth creation and destruction, are prerogatives of deity. But nothing multiplied by nothing is one. M. Demonville obtained an introduction to William the Fourth, who desired the opinion of the Royal Society upon his system: the {293} answer was very brief. The King was quite right; so was the Society: the fault lay with those who advised His Majesty on a matter they knew nothing about. The writings of M. Demonville in my possession are as follows.[634] The dates—which were only on covers torn off ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... fantastic Oriental costume, with hair dressed in towers or pyramids, or dressed like that of the statues of goddesses, low on the head, and adorned with flowers. Many men and women did Acte call by name, adding to their names histories, brief and sometimes terrible, which pierced Lygia with fear, amazement, and wonder. For her this was a strange world, whose beauty intoxicated her eyes, but whose contrasts her girlish understanding could not grasp. In those twilights of the sky, in those rows of ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... I was asked whether I had seen Darwin's reply. Iread it at once in the November number of the "Contemporary Review;" and, as it will take some time before I can hope to finish my book on "Language as the true barrier between Man and Beast," Idetermined, in the meantime, to publish a brief rejoinder to the defense of Mr. Darwin's philosophy, so ably and chivalrously ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... nor fitting here, that a General argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing, if not above labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... like a sun-lit prism and awoke an ardent longing that it might be so. Ah, to escape the limits of this petty life! How mean and small it seemed. Man at his best, his grandest, but to live out a brief day, and then go out into the uncertain darkness forever! If God had ordained a way into His own infinite realm, surely it was worth ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... life is not worth so much anxiety nor so much hope Laughing in every wrinkle of his face Learn to live without desire Life as a whole is too vast and too remote Life is made up of just such trifles Life is not a great thing Love was only a brief intoxication Made life give all it could yield Miserable beings who contribute to the grandeur of the past None but fools resisted the current Not everything is known, but everything is said One would think that the wind would put them out: the stars Picturesquely ugly Recesses ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger

... best nurses in London for dear Fred. But the diamonds are gone! I am a poor man, a very poor man, Miss Gentle, and I cannot afford a good nurse. At the same time, I cannot bear to think of Fred being, even for a brief period, at the mercy of cheap nurses, who, like other wares, are bad when cheap—although, of course, there may be a few good ones even among the cheap. What I cannot buy, therefore, I must beg; and I have come to you, as one with a gentle ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... beloved by his tenantry. At the lecture I gave at Lochbuie, he was unable, owing to illness, to take the chair. His absence was a terrible grief to the people, and the piper of the family, in a brief speech, alluded in a most touching way to the sorrow felt ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... had risen high in the heavens, when the breaching guns suddenly ceased, and each soldier felt he had but a brief moment in which to brace himself for the coming conflict. Nicholson gave the signal. The 60th Rifles with a loud cheer dashed to the front in skirmishing order, while at the same moment the heads of the first and second columns appeared from the Kudsiabagh and ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... categories or classes; those who are not worth reading at all; those who are worth reading once, but once only; and those who are worth reading again and again and for ever.' This remark was made to Swinburne, who quotes it in his all too brief Recollections of Professor Jowett. Swinburne says that the starting-point of their discussion was the Biglow Papers, which 'famous and admirable work of American humour' Jowett placed in the second class. Swinburne himself thought that the Biglow ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... men, from this necessity. Dependent as woman is during all the earlier and all the later years of her life, and subjected as she is to the control, and too often, alas! to the caprice and injustice of man, there is a period—brief, it is true—when she is herself in power; and such characters as Anne Maria like to exercise their authority, while they feel that they possess it, with a pretty high hand. Charles seems to have felt the necessity of submitting to the inconvenience of Anne Maria's capricious delays, ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... thee, ponderous as thou art!" Black with the fury in his heart, The bully rose, and toward the young And fearless champion wildly flung His tomahawk, which, lightly dodged, Swung through the hissing air and lodged Deep in the nearest cottonwood. Brief were the moments while they stood And glared into each other's eyes. Then forward leaped, with fearful cries, And joined in combat, hand to hand. With whirlwind sweep their knives outflashed, And lightning ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... bunched. Off to the left rises a barren ridge, that might have been the spine of some old reptile of the mezozoic age; and in the center a Plutonic ampitheater—the council-chamber of the gods—is swept by shadows from the passing clouds, or glorified for a brief moment ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... that comes after excitement of any kind is very trying to bear. The dull flow of monotonous life, following the departure of the Scotch baronet, told severely on Kate. The feverish excitement of that brief second engagement had sustained her, and kindled a brighter fire in her blue eyes, and a hot glow on her pale cheeks. But in the stagnant quiet that succeeded, the light grew dim, the roses faded, and the old lassitude and weariness returned. ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... close the brief account of this glorious stand of the British troops without putting on record my deep appreciation of the valuable services rendered by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. I say without hesitation that the saving of the left wing of the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... more precious than the rain; and that though of the good and evil it shall one day be said alike, that the place that knew them knows them no more, there is an infinite separation between those whose brief presence had there been a blessing, like the mist of Eden that went up from the earth to water the garden, and those whose place knew them only as a drifting and changeful shade, of whom the heavenly sentence is, that they are "wells without water; ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... commenced. A psalm of the old and homely version was sung, with true feeling, if not with a perfect regard to musical effect and harmony. The brief but fervent prayer was offered, and the good man had just announced the text for his sermon, when a sudden tramp of feet, and a confused murmur of human voices, fell on the ears ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... companions, remained full of faith in the future of the mine, and of something turning up which would make it possible to work it; in fact, he had actually gone so far as to obtain for himself a grant of the mining rights from the British Government. It was for this purpose that, giving a brief outline of the situation, he had written to Sir William some time before to ask him for the sum necessary to obtain the concession. Sir William had advanced it to him. It was when, two years before, the boy of nineteen was leaving home for the first time that he had half jestingly asked Sir William ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... lounging stroll along the stone wharves, diverting our gaze for a moment from the grotesque assortment of old houses that, before now, had looked down on so many naval engagements, and innocently to ask a brief question of a nautical gentleman, picturesquely attired in a blue shirt and a scarlet beret, for the quays immediately to swarm with jerseys and red caps. Each beret was the owner of a boat; and each jersey had a voice louder than his ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... pleasantly amazed to find his child much calmer than himself—and quite delighted with the experience. In St. Martin's Church, the Archdeacon was celebrating communion. Shells struck the roof of the church. The Archdeacon stopped the service for a brief ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... treating a paralyzed hand or arm, let the current be run from the upper part of the spine, and frequently also from the opposite hand. With the negative electrode, treat all over the paralyzed parts. Yet it is well, in these cases, often to reverse the direction of the current for a brief period at the close of the sittings, say one to two minutes, for the purpose of rousing the nervous susceptibility, and to prevent exhaustion from too continuously running off the ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark

... great point, vivacity, and wit, and soon became famous; they thus prepared the way for his almanac,—originally entitled "Richard Saunders," and selling for five-pence. The sayings of "Poor Richard" in this little publication combined more wisdom and good sense in a brief compass than any other book published in America during the eighteenth century. It reached the firesides of almost every hamlet in the colonies. The New England divines thought them deficient in spirituality, rather worldly in their form, and useful only in helping people to get on in their daily ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... expression,—that he has been barking at Moses all the morning and has nearly put him out of temper:—and without any doubt, I can assert to you that there is not any other such piece of animal painting in the world,—so brief, intense, vivid, and absolutely balanced in truth: as tenderly drawn as if it had been a saint, yet as humorously ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... her as not to perceive the entrance of a tall, grizzled old man in a steel cap, evidently the commander of the garrison. There was the brief welcome of danger's hour—the briefer, because Captain Falconnet was extremely deaf, and, taking it for granted that the new-comers were gentlemen of the Duke's, proceeded to appoint them their posts without further question. Berenger had intended to pursue ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the hill, musingly platting the long grass together, but she heeded not the work of her fingers. Her face was bright with joy, her heart full of happiness. Dear child! in one brief hour she had learned the blessedness of that birthright which is for all God's sons and daughters, if they will but claim it. I mean the privilege of doing good, of ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... rocks. Kate, prairie-reared, could not "escape the inevitable thrill," but she showed, and perhaps felt, no fear. She let the matter rest with him—this man with great shoulders and firm hands, who knew the primitive art of "waiting on himself." Their brief speech sufficed them for a time, and now they sat silent, well content. The old, tormenting question as to his relations with Honora did not intrude itself. It was swept out of sight like flotsam in the plenteous stream of ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... Rose, though your instinctive reason is like a broad white fabric which circumstances have not yet soiled, your character already has ugly streaks in it; the voice of the multitude spoke through your lovely mouth and, for a brief second, it became disfigured in my eyes! Alas, if I wore a queer head-dress and a veil down my back and a chaplet hanging by my side and said to you, "My child, I wish to save your soul," would you not think my insistence ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... withheld from the other half of the human family. The Churches of the world seem at length prepared to debate within themselves whether they should venture to follow our example, and give to woman a place worthy of her gifts in their various plans of campaign. Perhaps the brief story of this life may help some of ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... loss of time; relays of croupiers are laid on, who unobtrusively slip into the places of their fellows when the hours arrive for relieving guard; the game is never stopped for more than a couple of minutes at a time, viz., when the cards run out and have to be re-shuffled. This brief interruption is commonly considered to portend a break in the particular vein which the game may have happened to assume during the deal—say a run upon black or red, an alternation of coups (in threes or fours) upon either ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... you, my dear sir, would not avow yourself particeps criminis in so unjust and vile a crusade against the peace and honour of my family were you acquainted with the facts, I have taken the liberty of writing you this brief and incomplete resume of the outrages perpetrated upon me and mine, and must refer you for disgraceful details to my agent, Mr. Peleg Peterson of Whitefield, —— Co., ——. Hoping that you will not add to the injury you have already inflicted, by further complicity ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... During this brief colloquy the young brave had stepped within the deep shadow of the tent, his rifle ready cocked. As the girl ceased speaking, the head of an old warrior was protruded from the ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... brought his brief Administration to an end, Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the last time. His physical energy was no longer what it once had been, and the heaviest of all bereavements, which befell him in 1899, made the burden ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... grassy nook your spirit cheer With old Falernian vintages, Where poplar pale, and pine-tree high Their hospitable shadows spread Entwined, and panting waters try To hurry down their zigzag bed. Bring wine and scents, and roses' bloom, Too brief, alas! to that sweet place, While life, and fortune, and the loom Of the Three Sisters yield you grace. Soon must you leave the woods you buy, Your villa, wash'd by Tiber's flow, Leave,—and your treasures, heap'd so high, ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... to the examination of two questions: (1) whether that clause precluded that kind of regulation of certain types of business, and (2) the nature of the restraint, if any, which this clause imposes on State control of rates in the case of businesses as to which such control exists. For a brief interval following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court appears to have underestimated the significance of this clause as a substantive restraint on the power of States to fix rates ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... entrance, too, into the large and very simple session-room of the council. The walls as well as the arched ceiling were white, though wainscoted to a certain height; and the whole was without a trace of painting, or any kind of carved work; only, high up on the middle wall, might be read this brief inscription:— ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... day onwards for over a century no Emperor ventured out from behind the frowning Walls of the Forbidden City save for brief annual ceremonies such as the Worship of Heaven on the occasion of the Winter Solstice, and during the two "flights"— first, in 1860 when Peking was occupied by an Anglo-French expedition and the Court incontinently sought sanctuary in the mountain ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... Professor's bedroom, since Captain Orme declared that he could not talk business in the presence of a body, however ancient, we resumed our discussion. First of all, at Higgs's suggestion I drew up a brief memorandum of agreement which set out the objects of the expedition, and provided for the equal division amongst us of any profit that might accrue; in the event of the death of one or more of us, the survivors or survivor to take their or ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... and confinement of the counting-house, and longed to take his seat again at his old desk at India-House. In brief, Lamb felt that he should be happier and better, if he had something to do. And partly to amuse himself, and partly to assist a friend, he employed himself for a few months in a pleasant and congenial task. "I am going through a course of reading at the Museum," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... the loss of their inestimable lives. Since the abovetimes Animal Magnetism and Mesmerism have followed in the wake of what has been; and now, just as despair, already poised upon its outstretched sable wings, was hovering for a brief moment previous to making its final swoop upon the External Doctrine, Peter—our Peter—Peter Laurie—the great, the glorious, the aldermanic Laurie—makes despair, like the Indian Juggler who swallowed himself, become the victim of its own ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various

... choice Epicurus Flatterer in your old age or in your sickness He felt a pleasure and delight in so noble an action He judged other men by himself I cannot well refuse to play with my dog I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them rather I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason Incline the history to their own fancy It (my books) may know many things that are gone from me Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment Learn the theory from those who best know ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... needs but a very brief examination of society to prove the truth of Christ's contention; very little experience of life to discover that the utmost corruption of the human heart lies in lovelessness. The spiteful and rancorous ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson

... Sir Herbert Croft. This strange book deserves a brief description as it is the source of almost ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... the pipe from between his teeth, had straightened up. Her deep voice, the slight swinging of her body to the rhythm she had unconsciously given to her lines, the strange glow in her eyes ... Holliwell wondered why these things, this brief, sing-song recitation, had given a light thrill to the surface of his skin, had sent a tingling to his fingertips. He was the first person to wonder at that effect of Joan's cadenced music. "The valley of the shadow—" she had ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... his brief intervals of prosperity, at a meet of the Ditchington Stag-hounds that I first met JOHNNIE. He was beautifully got up. His top-hat shone scarcely less brilliantly than his rosy cheeks, his collar was of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various

... brief excursions back along the corridor that first day of the quarantine. But Jane Brown was extremely professional and very busy. There was an air of discipline over the ward. Let a man but so much as turn over in bed and show an inch of blanket, and she pounced on the ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... grammarians, Father Carochi alone has left us actual specimens of the ancient poetic dialect, and his observations are regretably brief. They occur in his chapter on the composition of nouns and read ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd 'Epigrams', in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten 'Masques' and 'Entertainments'. In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... law makes no provision for any report from the Department of State, a brief history of the transactions of that important Department, together with other matters which it may hereafter be deemed essential to commend to the attention of the Congress, may furnish the occasion for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... vesper-sparrow that ran before him as he crossed the meadow, or sang for hours, as he fished the stream, its unvarying, but scarcely monotonous little strain; the cedar-bird, with its smooth brown coast of Quaker simplicity, and speech as brief and simple as Quaker yea or nay; the winter-wren sending out his strange, lovely, liquid warble from the high, rocky side of Cannon Mountain; the bluebird of the early spring, so welcome to the winter-weary dwellers in that land of ice and show, ...
— Fishin' Jimmy • Annie Trumbull Slosson

... bigness inferior to those, and how many that were subterraneous and invisible; the curiosity of those that enjoyed the fresh air; and the groves for the most delightful prospect, for the avoiding the heat, and covering of their bodies. And, to say all in brief, Solomon made the whole building entirely of white stone, and cedar wood, and gold, and silver. He also adorned the roofs and walls with stones set in gold, and beautified them thereby in the same manner as he had beautified the temple of God with the like stones. He also made himself a throne ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus



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



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