"Clear-sighted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of authority, the persuasive influence of kindness, affected powerfully a man just risen from a bed of sickness. Lieut. D'Hubert's hand, which grasped the knob of a stick, trembled slightly. But his northern temperament, sentimental yet cautious and clear-sighted, too, in its idealistic way, checked his impulse to make a clean breast of the whole deadly absurdity. According to the precept of transcendental wisdom, he turned his tongue seven times in his mouth before he spoke. He made then only a speech ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... of Muhammad himself. The storm raised by Abulfazl's motion was, therefore, terrible. There was not a doctor or lawyer present who did not recognise that the motion attacked the vital principle of Islam, whilst the more clear-sighted and dispassionate recognised that the assertions made in their previous discussions had broken through 'the strong embankments of the clearest law and the ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... probably it would be to an Italian too; but in England there are many women that have a purely imaginative idealism, a romanticism fed on ridiculous novels, and they fall into traps like these, which seem clumsy and grotesque to you here in the South, where people are more clear-sighted and realistic." ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... no such distinctions in his own mind; but he had seen and suffered enough to bring out all his faculties, and to make him comprehend the higher as well as the lower part of our nature. Sancho is too amusing and sagacious to be contemptible; the Don too noble and clear-sighted towards absolute truth, to be ridiculous. And we are pleased to see manifested in this way, how the lower must follow and serve the higher, despite its jeering mistrust and the stubborn realities which break up the ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... fervor in this florid sentiment. But as she was honest and clear-sighted, she could not accept a statement which seemed so plainly in contradiction with his common teachings, without bringing his flattering assertion to ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ruin of the monarchy. This fall of the monarchy was far from being preceded by any exterior symptoms of decline. The interior were not visible to every eye; and a thousand accidents might have prevented the operation of what the most clear-sighted were not able to discern, nor the most provident to divine. A very little time before its dreadful catastrophe there was a kind of exterior splendour in the situation of the Crown, which usually adds to government strength and authority at home. The Crown seemed ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... pretty, womanly ways. I hereby vow and declare that I will stick to my colours, and set an example to those old things who ought to know better. Lady Mary must be twenty-five if she is a day. I don't expect she will ever be married now. With the clear-sighted gaze of youth, I can see that she is hiding a broken heart beneath the mask of mirth. Life is frightfully exciting when you have the gift of penetrating ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "impracticable." During the six years they held their own claims in abeyance to those of the slaves of the South, and labored to inspire the people with enthusiasm for the great measures of the Republican party, they were highly honored as "wise, loyal, and clear-sighted." But when the slaves were emancipated, and these women asked that they should be recognized in the reconstruction as citizens of the Republic, equal before the law, all these transcendent virtues vanished like dew before the morning sun. And thus it ever is: so long ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... in being told, that the mood in which we are now viewing things strongly will not be our mood at some other time. It implies that our present feelings are blinding us, and that some more clear-sighted spectator is able to distinguish our future better than we do ourselves. The most shallow person dislikes to be told that any one can gauge his depth. Mr Bradshaw was not soothed by this last remark of Mr Benson's. He stooped down to take up his hat and be gone. Mr Benson saw ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... dice. How many men now exist on the face of the earth? Yet, if all these were brought together, and if, in addition to this, we could call up all the men that ever lived, it may be doubted, whether any two would be found so much alike, that a clear-sighted and acute observer might not surely distinguish the one from the other. Leibnitz informs us, that no two leaves of a tree exist in the most spacious garden, that, upon examination, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... best Frenchman that the King had brought into his circle, a man of honor, with fine feelings, fine education, and really devoted to the King; but he was neither a great character nor an especially strong man. For years the King had admired in him a scholar—which he was not—a wise, clear-sighted, assured philosopher with pleasing wit and fresh humor; he had in short set up an extremely pleasing, fanciful image of him. Now, in daily intercourse, Frederick found himself mistaken. A lack of robustness on the part of the Frenchman, causing him to dwell with hypochondriac exaggeration ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... not very clear-sighted, they permitted themselves to be dazzled by modernity and promises of light and liberty, and forswore the ideal of the re-nationalization of Israel, so placing themselves outside the fellowship bond that united, by a common hope, the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... such as to leave a deep impression on Norman's mind. Sixty years ago, old Mr. Wilmot had been what he now was himself—an enthusiastic and distinguished Balliol man, and he had kept up a warm, clear-sighted interest in Oxford throughout his long life. His anecdotes, his recollections, and comments on present opinions had been listened to with great eagerness, and Norman had felt it an infinite honour to give ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... because he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of disease in bed after living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code and a sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit that foresaw everything but his own fall; a capricious politician who risked men by handfuls out of economy, and who spared three heads—those of Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich, diplomatists whose death would have ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... to be sure, is in the mind of the Saint, but a long remorse for this great sin, which he earnestly analyses. Nor is he so penitent but that he is clear-sighted, and finds the spring of his mis- doing in the Sense of Humour! "It was a delight and laughter which tickled us, even at the very hart, to find that we were upon the point of deceiving them who feared no such thing from us, and who, if they had known it, would earnestly have procured ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... beings, darting hither and thither, scarcely even halting except to turn back. And yet though there are so many of them, and as far as we know they have no organs of sight, they never run up against each other, but glide past more cleverly than any clear-sighted fish. These creatures are mostly to be found among decaying seaweed, and though they are so tiny, you can still see distinctly the clear space contracting ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... insight as he has. You need not fear. Like the angel in the Revelation, he will call you up to heaven, hale you to the abyss and show you things to come. And, though you may not believe it, it is the man's intense and simple piety that makes him so clear-sighted and practical; he lives so close to God that God's works and methods, so perplexing to you and me, are plain ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the first a specific enthusiasm for such unity were few, though Washington was among them, and his influence counted for much. But what counted for much more was the pressure of necessity. It was soon obvious to all clear-sighted men that unless some authoritative centre of union were created the revolutionary experiment would have been saved from suppression by arms only to collapse in mere anarchic confusion. The Continental Congress, the only existing ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... don't take care to destroy that machine, it will very soon destroy your trade." He saw at a single glance of the press, the downfal of priestly dominion in the general diffusion of knowledge that would be occasioned by it, and had the rest of the clergy been equally clear-sighted, it is probable the dark ages of superstition and ignorance had still continued, or at least had ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... subordinate part. In the great convulsions that were shaking the state men of a different sort were required; men who possessed the first requisite for the statesman, the one thing that Cicero lacked, firmness. Had Cicero been as firm as he was clear-sighted, he might have headed the statesmanship of Rome. But while he saw the drift of affairs he had not courage to act upon his insight; he allowed himself to be made the tool, now of Pompey, now of Caesar, till both were tired of him. "I wish," ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... conscientious, too honourable, too manly, I am sure, to attach unworthy motives to an honest change of opinions, even though it implies a doubt of those he holds himself. Mr Haredale is too just, too generous, too clear-sighted in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... was not of good laws, but of men strong enough and courageous enough to administer them. He would see: if the good to be accomplished were great enough to over-balance the evil ... it was a temptation to compromise—a sharp temptation; and he found himself longing for Patricia, for her clear-sighted comment which, he felt sure, would go straight to the heart of ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... clear-sighted enough to see that the world needs from them not the same but different contributions to the upreach and onward march of the race from those elements in which man has excelled. If society-at-large is to become truly a family of ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... virtually carried Catholic emancipation, for it reduced Ireland to a state in which it was impossible long to resist it. Clear-sighted men had no difficulty in perceiving that the policy of Peel had failed to avert it, though it had succeeded in making impossible the securities which Grattan and the wisest men of his generation ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... spirits— insomuch that there was scarcely one among the grown-up people who had not seen some of these fabulous creatures, or who had not seen some other people who had either seen them themselves or had seen individuals who said they had seen them! There were also many "clear-sighted" or "fore-sighted" old men and women, who not only saw goblins and supernatural appearances occasionally, and, as it were, accidentally, like ordinary folk, but who also had the gift—so it is said—of seeing such things when they pleased—enjoyed, as it ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... Durer blush. He did not say a word in answer. The little man, who was very clear-sighted, said—"This young fellow is ashamed to own that he belongs to a poor shepherd in the village hard by. Bad heart—strong head—detestable nature! This boy will never make anything but a diplomatist." Then, after a moment's reflection, he said to ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... world, is too easily confused with the mood in which we simply refuse to attend to it. He finds lonely meditation so inspiring that he is too indifferent to the troubles of less self-sufficing or clear-sighted human beings. The ambiguity makes itself felt in the sphere of morality. The ethical doctrine that virtue consists in conformity to nature becomes ambiguous with him, as with all its advocates, when we ask for a precise definition of nature. How are ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... concessions on a large scale. The Earl of Salisbury in his proposal formally invited the Parliament to adduce the grievances which it had, and promised in the King's name to redress all such so far as lay in his power. It is affirmed that his clear-sighted and vigorous speech made a favourable impression. Parliament in turn acceded to the proposal, and alleged its most important grievances. They affected both ecclesiastical and financial interests: among the latter class that which ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... accident? And therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed. Nay, we see [the] weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often refer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician. And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme folly when they made AEsculapius and Circe, brother and sister, both children of the sun, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... his mission was not actually official, it was semi-official at all events; and we were obliged to await his return. To give some colour to our delay, M. de Nion sent a fresh summons to Sidi Bousselam, pasha of Larrache, a clear-sighted and intelligent man, whom the Sultan had deputed to negotiate with us. A fresh extension of time was granted. I took advantage of it to get our consuls withdrawn, and went myself to Tangier to see to the sudden removal of our consul-general ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... appreciation; they are never carried to excess, satirized or burlesqued, but may be regarded as purposely adopted, as a result of admiration and presumably as a suggestion to the possible workings of sprightliness and grace on the heaviness of narrative prose at that time. Timme, as a clear-sighted contemporary, certainly confined the danger of Sterne's literary influence entirely to the sentimental side, and saw no occasion to censure an importation of Sterne's whimsies. Pank's ode on the ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... illustrious rivals of the Rhine Province, been the object of minute enquiries and copious and innumerable reports. But the incidents which I have just mentioned and which are vouched for by such men as Professor Mackenzie and M. Duchatel, the learned and clear-sighted vice-president of the Societe Universelle d'Etudes Psychiques,[1] who went to Mannheim for the express purpose of studying them, appear to be no more controvertible than the Elbenfeld occurrences, of ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... if you know just the sort of woman you are marrying, Jim? Jemima is very intelligent, and like many intelligent people she is a little—ruthless. Honorable, clear-sighted; but hard. She is more her father's child than mine. I do not always understand her, but—I do know that she is ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... of his revelation and message with his very life blood would but serve to give it its greatest power and endurance. Heroically he met the fate that he perceived was conspiring to end his career, to wreck his teachings and his influence. He went forth to die clear-sighted and unafraid. ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... reaction and disillusionment which some prophets have discerned as the first harvest of Home Rule, because she is already disillusioned. Looking into the future we see no hope for rhetoricians; what we do see is a strong, shrewd, indomitable people, at once clear-sighted and idealistic, going about its business "in the light of day in the domain of reality." No signs or wonders blaze out a trail for them. The past sags on their shoulders and in their veins, a grievous burden ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... reading their thoughts became almost like personal intercourse with them, and was a new happiness to her. Studying daily a subject of such vast complications, her mind perceptibly grew, and from year to year she was able to grasp new and higher truths. She gained the hatred of a few clear-sighted opponents, but most persons only ridiculed her, contemptuously wondering why she should pursue this course when her interest lay so clearly the other way. But she was now far beyond the reach of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... critical position; to extricate myself I must be calm and clear-sighted; it has come to this, either I can never speak to her again, or she ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... guest into a little cabinet where there was a sofa-bed, and they parted for the night. The new life upon which Philip Morton entered was so odd, so grotesque, and so amusing, that at his age it was, perhaps, natural that he should not be clear-sighted as to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... ever remain incomprehensible that a monarch so clear-sighted, himself the daily witness of my demeanour, one well acquainted with mankind, and conscious I wanted neither money, honour, nor hope of future preferment; I say it is incomprehensible that he should really suppose me guilty. I take God to witness, and all those who knew ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... as if, in his sympathy for his Belgian provinces, the emperor had been more clear-sighted than his subjects, for we know that he entertained, in 1527, the idea of forming the Low Countries into a separate kingdom. If this project had been realized, Belgian independence might have been maintained. But the very prosperity of the Low Countries made such realization impossible. ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... burning colour from spreading to the very tips of her ears; so certain did she feel that she was insulting him by her researches, and that he perceived them. She felt absolutely ashamed to see him the next day, and even in her dreams was revolving speeches that might prove that though cautious and clear-sighted, she ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... remonstrance in the Graaf Reinet speech is apparent enough. The despatch is dated June 23rd, 1897; the speech was delivered on March 3rd, 1898. What had happened in this interval of nine months to produce so marked a change in the mind of the genial, clear-sighted Englishman, who, as Mr. Asquith said, took with him to South Africa "as sympathetic an imagination" as any man of his acquaintance? Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. Whether the diagnosis of his Graaf Reinet speech was right ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... mood Amherst's sense of humour would have preserved him from such a view of his father-in-law's advice; but just then it fell like a spark on his smouldering prejudices. He was clear-sighted enough to recognize the obstacles to legal retaliation; but this only made him the more resolved to assert his will in his own house. He no longer paused to consider the possible effect of such a course on his already ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... opportunities of which I spoke just now, and which sudden chance frequently brings about." While affecting to be deeply engaged in examining the ladder, the mind of Dantes was, in fact, busily occupied by the idea that a person so intelligent, ingenious, and clear-sighted as the abbe might probably be able to solve the dark mystery of his own misfortunes, where ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... reputation, and every thing that can serve to conduct him to virtue; but superstition destroys all these things, and erects itself into a tyranny over the understandings of men: this is the reason why atheism never disturbs the government, but renders man more clear-sighted, as seeing nothing beyond the bounds of this life." The same author adds, "that the times in which men have turned towards atheism, have been the most tranquil; whereas superstition has always inflamed their minds, and carried them on to the greatest disorders; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... very course of action, namely, that he assisted the enemies of Florence to extricate themselves from their dilemmas. Such criticism fails entirely to understand both the aim and the scope of his policy. He desired to keep Italy for the Italians. His clear-sighted sagacity saw nothing but danger in the plans of Ludovico of Milan to invite the French King into Italy, or in those of Venice to encourage the Duke of Lorraine to press his claims upon Milan. The intervention of either France or Spain in Italy was, in his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... gone before, and she will exclaim joyously: Oh, there is Johnny standing at the foot of my bed; my but hasn't he grown! The living relatives may feel shocked and uneasy, thinking the mother suffering from hallucinations, while in reality she is more clear-sighted than they; she perceives those who have passed beyond the veil who have come to greet and help her to make herself at home in the new world ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... was very serious. It was perceived from the first by those clear-sighted promoters of the reform of the Faculties, MM. A. Dumont, L. Liard, E. Lavisse. M. Lavisse wrote in 1884: "To maintain that the Faculties have for their chief object the preparation for examinations is to substitute drill for scientific culture: this is the serious grievance which able men ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... done as a poet, as a preacher, as a reformer, and as a lecturer, I must say that I think he was made for a lawyer. Vigorous and acute, clear-sighted, self-possessed, and logical to a fault, if he had not married so early, or if a respectable inheritance had fallen to him, after he had learned to do without help or patronage, as Dr. Samuel Johnson did, while undergoing Lord Chesterfield, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... all members of the old Faith were as much idolaters as Israelites who sacrificed their children to a foreign God, while to extirpate idolaters was the duty of a Christian prince. Lethington, as he soon showed, was as clear-sighted in regard to Knox's logical methods as any man of to- day, but he "concluded, saying, I see perfectly that our shifts will serve nothing before God, seeing that they stand us in so small stead before man." But either Lethington conformed and went to Mass, or Mary of Guise ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... handsome woman I might meet, to follow her to her door, watch her, write to her, throw myself on her mercy, and conquer her by sheer force of passion. My poor uncle, a heart consumed by charity, a child of seventy years, as clear-sighted as God, as guileless as a man of genius, no doubt read the tumult of my soul; for when he felt the tether by which he held me strained too tightly and ready to break, he would never fail to say, 'Here, Maurice, you too ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... that they were alone it seemed necessary to bring themselves still more near, and to surmount a barrier which had grown up since they had last spoken. It was difficult, frightening even, oddly embarrassing. At one moment he was clear-sighted, and, at ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... parts of the road and the neighboring village, all begging their charity in doleful strains, and telling dismal stories of their distress. Among these they found some upon crutches, who had danced very nimbly at the wedding, others stone-blind, who were perfectly clear-sighted at the feast. The Doctor distributed among them the money which he had received as his pay; but the Dean, who mortally hated these sturdy vagrants, rated them soundly; told them in what manner he had been present at the wedding, and was let into their roguery; and assured them, if they did ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... for philosophy was made apparent in every sentence; and M. Gosselin, who set great value upon the divinity of the schools, quietly endeavoured to counteract his teaching. But fanaticism does not always prevent people from being clear-sighted. M. Gottofrey noticed something peculiar about me, and he detected that which had escaped the paternal optimism of M. Gosselin. He stirred my conscience to its very depths, as I shall presently explain, and with an unrelenting ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... anxiety in the case of religious minds. He, who at one time could not comfort himself, at another was sent to comfort a brother, and, in comforting Baruch, he speaks in that nobler temper of resignation which takes the place of sanguine hope and harassing fear, and betokens calm and clear-sighted faith and inward peace. "Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel unto thee, O Baruch. Thou didst say, Woe is me now, for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest. . . Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... not think they even wanted to see on the other side. There were some few tolerably good and clear-sighted ones among them, you know: and these all agreed in pointing out how, by changing one or two of their old man-in-the-moon Bedlam arrangements, they could greatly better themselves: but they heard with listless ears: I don't know ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... one could hear it, and then began to discuss whether they should send any help. As was always the case, some were for, and others against, the plan, and there was much talking. Among the best speakers of the city was the orator De-mos'the-nes, a very clear-sighted man, who suspected Philip's designs. He therefore warmly advised the Athenians to do all they could to oppose the Macedonian king, so as to prevent his ever getting a foothold in Greece. Indeed, he spoke so eloquently and severely against Philip, and told the people so plainly that the king was ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... the moujik, grounds cut over and more or less recently cleared for cultivation. There is probably not a single district in Russia which has not to deplore the ravages of man or of fire, those two great enemies of Muscovite sylviculture. This is so true, that clear-sighted men already foresee a crisis which will become terrible, unless the discovery of great deposits of some new combustible, as pit-coal or anthracite, shall diminish its evils." [Footnote: Clave, Etudes sur l'Economie Forestiere, p. 261. Clave adds (p. 262): "The ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... clear-sighted and honest enough to see the truth about youth and age, and makes no bones about it. She doesn't pretend that there's any particular beauty in old age. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... would rather have stifled this monk's voice in his cowl, took pains to send for him and bring him to S. Mark's, the convent upon which his father had lavished so much wealth. He hoped to add luster to his capital by the preaching of the most eloquent friar in Italy. Clear-sighted as he was, he could not discern the flame of liberty which burned in Savonarola's soul. Savonarola, the democratic party leader, was a force in politics as incalculable beforehand as Ferrucci the hero. On August ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... Voltairean ideas was a circumstance independent of the state of the surrounding atmosphere, and was what in the phraseology of prescientific times might well have been called providential. If Voltaire had seen all that he saw, and yet been indolent; or if he had been as clear-sighted and as active as he was, and yet had only lived fifty years, instead of eighty-four, Voltairism would never have struck root. As it was, with his genius, his industry, his longevity, and the conditions of the time being what they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... easy. Allow me to tender to you the same explanations which satisfied one whom philosophy itself has made as open to truth as he is clear-sighted to imposture." ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have wholly become Hortense; but for poor Kitty it didn't do at all. Yes, she was a well folded English umbrella, only the umbrella had for its handle the head of a bulldog or the leg of a ballet-dancer. And these were the Replacers whom Beverly's clear-sighted eyes saw swarming round the temple of his civilization, pushing down the aisles, climbing over the backs of the benches, walking over each other's bodies, and seizing those front seats which his family had sat in since New York ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the brave enemy rallied, but the officers fell on all sides, the ranks were everywhere broken; at last they retired, without disorder, without enfeeblement, preserving, even in defeat, the honor of a vigorous resistance. The battle was gained at the moment when the most clear-sighted had considered it lost. Marshal Saxe had still strength left to make his way to the king. "I have lived long enough, sir," he said, "now that I have seen your Majesty victorious. You now know on what the fortune ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... considerate; and Flora, I am sure, is much obliged to you," said Dr. Campbell, smiling, "for being so clear-sighted to the dangers of female vanity. You would not then, with a safe conscience, trust the completion of her education to her mother, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... that galaxy or milky way of poetry of which the lamented Keats was the harbinger; and let us take this occasion to sing our palinode on the subject of 'Endymion.' We certainly did not[O] discover in that poem the same degree of merit that its more clear-sighted and prophetic admirers did. We did not foresee the unbounded popularity which has carried it through we know not how many editions; which has placed it on every table; and, what is still more unequivocal, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... hung beside him; yet his soul's intuition pierces to the very heart of the mystery and expresses itself in a prayer that combines at once a perfect love, an exquisite humility, an entire confidence, a resolute hope, a clear-sighted faith, and an unutterable patience; his soul blossoms all in a moment: Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom. He saw the glory behind the shame, the Eternal Throne behind the Cross, and the future behind the present; and ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... country is a peasantry speaking a patois that is often of varying inflections, but is always full of racy poetry, illiterate and yet possessed of a vast oral literature, sharing brains with other classes more equally than education, humorous, nimble-witted; clear-sighted, astute, cynical, not too virtuous, and having a lofty, contempt for the wiseacres of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Court of Ava in the vain hope that he would be able to negotiate the retrocession of the province of Tenasserim, as "the Directors of the East India Company looked upon this territory as of no value to them." For a quarter of a century peace was preserved, for there ruled at Ava a prince "who was too clear-sighted to attempt again to measure arms with the British troops." Anon he was succeeded by a new king—the Pagan Prince—"who cared for nothing but mains of cocks, games, and other infantile amusements," and who, after the manner of Oriental despots, inaugurated his reign by ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... These pretensions, if urged in a less agreeable manner, would have been intolerable; they were not universally tolerated as it was: but the gifts and graces of the critic made them—so far—inoffensive, even rather fascinating, to all save the least accommodating or the most clear-sighted, and to some even ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... child, was not only in need of counsel and guidance, but had no one else of her own sex to whom she could so naturally look for information or advice. They were, as she explained to Mercy, her only society; and, though she was too clear-sighted not to see their faults, and not at times to be aware that she was suffering from their perverseness, she, like other people, was often compelled to tolerate what she could not mend, and to shut her eyes to disagreeable ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... his easel. These tastes, as they strengthened, caused his father, though a liberal and cultivated man, severe disappointment. At times he was even disposed to place a compulsory check upon his son's artist proclivities; but the soft, persuasive voice of the gentle, refined, clear-sighted mother interposed. She had made the most loving study of her child's character, and had faith in his fitness for the vocation he desired to adopt. She pleaded that his obvious gift might be tested, and proved spurious or genuine, before it was trampled under foot as unworthy of recognition; and ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... resentment that it was this very quality of inopportuneness that was perhaps the most sanative and divine property of retribution; the eternal justice fell upon us, he said, at the very moment when we were least able to bear it, or thought ourselves so; but now in his own case the clear-sighted prophet cried out and revolted in his heart. It was Saturday morning, when every minute was precious to him for his sermon, and it would take him fully an hour to write that letter; it must be done with ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... my breast. How I loved her! how I have suffered through her—enough to be our united portions of future pain—suffer you no more, therefore. You are too young, tender and credulous to try a fall with that creature. She must have divined long ago that you were enamored of her. She is not too clear-sighted in all things, but she sees such effects by intuition. It is very probable that she has returned to this house on your account, so suddenly. I could guess that she was on the eve of flight, but not that she would return. She always needs fresh sensations ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... was so conscious of the defects of these people as when he loved them, when he wanted to love them absolutely without reservation; it was a sort of unconscious loyalty, and an inexorable demand for truth, which, in spite of himself, made him more clear-sighted, and more exacting, with what was dearest to him. And it was not long before he began to be irritated by the oddities of the family. They made no attempt to conceal them. Contrary to the usual habit they displayed every intolerable quality they possessed, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... to what he was, Gerard was a man of genius, who had in many ways few superiors. Few men, even in France, have so highly deserved the reputation of un homme d'esprit. He was as spirituel as Talleyrand himself, and almost as clear-sighted and profound. Add to this that nothing could surpass the impression made by Gerard at first sight. He was strikingly like the first Napoleon, but handsomer; with the same purity of outline, the same dazzlingly lustrous eyes, full of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Almighty God and the holy King Olaf, who have restored me!" Dreadfully mishandled as he had been, yet so quickly was he restored from his misfortune that he scarcely thought he had been wounded or sick. His tongue was entire; both his eyes were in their places, and were clear-sighted; his broken legs and every other wound were healed, or were free from pain; and, in short, he had got perfect health. But as a proof that his eyes had been punched out, there remained a white scar on each eyelid, in order that this dear king's excellence might ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... exceedingly menacing. This was a deceptive day. The marks in the Dauphin's face extended all over the body. They were regarded as the marks of measles. Hope arose thereon, but the doctors and the most clear-sighted of the court could not forget that these same marks had shown themselves on the body of the Dauphine, a fact unknown out of her chamber ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... whatever cause Rizzio owed his power (and to even the most clear-sighted historians this point has always remained obscure), be it that he ruled as lover, be it that he advised as minister, his counsels as long as he lived were always given for the greater glory of the queen. Sprung from so low, he at least wished to show himself worthy, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... might have espoused one infinitely your superior in rank and wealth in Madrid, since his arrival here, he had no heart to give, and still remained true to you! Know that by his daring bravery, his manliness, his modest bearing, and above all, his clear-sighted and brilliant mental capacity he has challenged our own high admiration; but you, alas! must turn in scorn your proud lip upon him! Think not we have these facts from him, or that he has reflected in the least upon you; he is far too delicate ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... man's self-devised attempts to explain the reality answering to his religious and moral cravings. Revelation is but a divine interpretation of the same; as though one with dim vision were to supplement his defect by the testimony of another more clear-sighted. ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... some good might be accomplished; and three months before the opening of our story a new reign had begun without any apparent opposition; for the liberalism of the Left had welcomed Charles X. with as much enthusiasm as the Right. Even clear-sighted and suspicious persons were misled. The moment seemed propitious for Rabourdin. What could better conduce to the stability of the government than to propose and carry through a reform whose beneficial results ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... of the preceding novels, but soon becomes in fact the dullest and most wearisome of the three. During a portion of this novel he seems to have taken for his model of narrative the "Wilhelm Meister" of Goethe; but the calm domestic manner which is tolerable in the clear-sighted man, who we know can rise nobly from it when he pleases, accords ill enough with the bewildered, most displeasing, and half intelligible story which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the balance."—John Stuart Mill, "Principles of Political Economy." Mill strove diligently to "reform" the bourgeois world, and to "bring it to reason." Of course, in vain. And so it came about that he, like all clear-sighted men, became a Socialist. He dared not, however, admit the fact in his life time, but ordered that, after his death, his auto-biography be published, containing his Socialist confession of faith. It happened to him as with Darwin, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... are clear-sighted indeed, Miss Nevil. If you have seen any wit in what he has just said you must certainly have put it ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they found it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion: but he is too clear-sighted to be unjust. He is simple as he is forcible, and as ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... agree with you," said Ursula. "I think your cousin is too clear-sighted not to see the merits of Benedick." "He is the one man in ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... if he had answered each of them in particular. They frequently took notice of this prodigy; and were so much amazed at it, that they looked on one another like men distracted, and regarded the Father with admiration, as not knowing what to think or say. But as clear-sighted and able as they were, for the most part, they could not conceive that it was above the power of nature. They ascribed it to I know not what secret kind of science, which they imagined him only to possess. For which reason, Father Cozmo de Torrez, being returned from ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... horrors, it was with the rage and terror of a bird which belongs to the free air. Shelley, Matthew Arnold held, was not quite sane. Sanity is a capacity for becoming accustomed to the monstrous. Not time nor grey hairs could bring that kind of sanity to Shelley's clear-sighted madness. If he must be compared to an angel, Mr. Wells has drawn him for us. He was the angel whom a country clergyman shot in mistake for a buzzard, in that graceful satire, The Wonderful Visit. Brought to earth by this mischance, he saw our follies and our crimes ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... ignorant of the Middle Ages as the British workman, except perhaps the British business man who employs him. Yet all who know even a little of the Middle Ages can see that the modern Trade Union is a groping for the ancient Guild. It is true that those who look to the Trade Union, and even those clear-sighted enough to call it the Guild, are often without the faintest tinge of mediaeval mysticism, or even of mediaeval morality. But this fact is itself the most striking and even staggering tribute to mediaeval morality. It has all the clinching logic of coincidence. If large numbers of ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... a touch of flunkeyism in this? Not so; it is the clear-sighted scientific Greek, that ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... sighed, but made no answer—indeed, what was there to be said to such a clear-sighted person? At last they reached a vast meadow, gay with all sorts of flowers; a deep river surrounded it, and many little brooks murmured softly under the shady trees, where it was always cool and fresh. A little way off stood a splendid palace, the walls of which were of transparent ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... D'Avaux was far too clear-sighted not to have discerned the real object of the naval and military preparations, and he warned both Louis XIV and James II. James, however, was obdurate and took no heed, while Louis played his enemy's game by declaring war on the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... new subjects most lacked. He knew neither doubts nor vain hesitations; he was an optimist, always sure of success: not with the certitude of the blind who walk confidently to the river, but with the assurance of clear-sighted people, who leave the goddess Fortune so little to do, it were a miracle if she did less for them. His lucid and persistent will is never at fault. In the most critical moment of the battle a fatal report is circulated that the duke has been killed; ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... but he had gone a little farther than a man altogether brave, and honourable, and clearsighted would have ventured, and he knew that some would suffer with him. He might have made arrangements to go a little farther still if he had been courageous, clear-sighted, and dishonest, and might have held his head up for another matter too, perhaps. But he had lacked the nerve for that, and had never consciously been a rogue. He felt even now a pride of honesty. He had been unfortunate, and his ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... These twenty-four years spent in shaping and culturing, but to what end? Could he call him back from his pleasure now, and have him take up this struggle grown too heavy to fight single-handed? and would he be manful, brave, clear-sighted, and unrepining? No. He felt the change would be too great. The soul so used to ease and luxury, fine linen and soft couches, delicate appetites, indolent habits, intellectual pursuits and graces, to be put in rough harness of business at once, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... felt almost convinced; and yet, fond as he was of his friend, fond as he was, too, of the girl with whom he had worked during these weeks of spring, Barry was clear-sighted enough to feel assured that such a marriage would not make ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... establishing a Catholic despotism, and who trusted that their system would be restored by a reconciliation of James with the Tory Parliament they expected to be returned. Halifax however, though he had long acted with the Tories, was too clear-sighted for hopes such as these. He had taken no part in the invitation or revolt, but now that the revolution was successful he pressed upon William the impossibility of carrying out a new system of government with such a sovereign as James. The Whigs, who ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... this? It can't be! My good creature, you're oddly deceived, I imagine. What is the man's name? I can understand that she has lost her will and distinct sight; but you are clear-sighted, and can estimate. What ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... headquarters, and had to face, as he supposed, an opposition. Stannard was the only man who really knew very much about him as a cavalry officer, and Stannard's opinion was what brought it all about. They had served for some months at the same post, and both the major and his clear-sighted wife had taken a fancy to the young officer, whose first appearance in "citified garb and a pince-nez" gave little promise of future usefulness in the field. Pelham and Stannard knew that it had to be Billings or a second lieutenant, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... friend, I will take oath: Spoke leisurely, as might a man Praying for no thing other than He thinks Heaven's justice;—She was blind, I said, and yet a noble mind Most truly loved her; one whose fond Clear-sighted vision looked beyond The bounds of her infirmity, And saw the woman, perfectly Modeled, and wrought out pure and true And lovable. She quailed, and drew Her hands away, but closer still I caught them. "Rack me as you will!" She cried ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... admit that a being's whole life should be voluntarily subjected to chance? Not one of us would consent to such a degradation, if women in general were not absolutely ignorant! And that is why many, too clear-sighted to submit to a ridiculous law and lacking the courage to infringe it, die without having known the flavour and the goodness of life. Oh, what injustice! Is youth not short enough as it is? Is the circle in ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... and Citizens:—We move forward to new issues and new responsibilities. Grave dangers are now upon us. God grant that they may not need to be met and settled in the rude shock of war. The time for wisdom, for clear-sighted patriotism is—now. Labor and capital, the foundations of law and order; the complex civilization of a nation which now talks by lightning, and is hurled by steam over plains and mountains, and which, ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... step in progress, which their world was to take, to make this their aim, and to expend their energy in promoting it. World-historical men—the heroes of an epoch—must, therefore, be recognized as its clear-sighted ones; their deeds, their words are the best of that time. Great men have formed purposes to satisfy themselves, not others. Whatever prudent designs and counsels they might have learned from others would be the more limited and inconsistent features in their career; for it was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... was deep, but not swift. On the further side they clomb up a hill somewhat steep; at the crown they drew rein to give their horses breath, and Ralph turned in his saddle and looked down on to the valley, and as aforesaid he was clear-sighted and far-sighted; now he said: "Fellow-farer, I see the riding of folk down below there, and meseems they be spurring toward the water; and they have weapons: there! dost thou not see ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... continuing, "Providence could not be more powerful, love more ingenious, motherhood more clear-sighted than your friends have been for us. I bless the chance that has brought you here to-day; for Monsieur Joseph has disappeared forever; he has evaded all the traps I set to discover his true name and residence. Here, read his last letter. But perhaps ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... development? Does he not miss much from the lack of the world's hearty give-and-take? He gets criticism, but not of a just or all-round kind. Small things may be pecked at, trifles may be made mountains of by the disgruntled, but where does he get a clear-sighted, whole-hearted estimate of himself and his work? Who tells him of his real virtues, his real faults? Among all his friends, who is there, man or woman, who is brave enough ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... nothing very thrilling in the prospect of carrying supplies to America, and Jones at that time hoped fervently to get hold of the Serapis and other ships and make another warlike cruise against the coast of England. So Landais sailed away with the Alliance, but to his own ruin, as the clear-sighted Jones had predicted in a remarkable letter written a short time before the ship sailed to a mutinous officer on the Alliance. On the voyage Landais's eccentricity caused his friend Lee to put him under arrest, and on the arrival in America, a court ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... the good Baillie, walking in London to and from church, was in the deepest despondency. Never, "since William Wallace's days," he wrote, had Scotland been in such a plight; and "What means the Lord, so far against the expectation of the most clear-sighted, to humble us so low?" But he adds a piece of news, "On Tuesday was eight days" (i.e. Aug. 27), in consequence of letters from Scotland, David Leslie, the Major-general of Leven's Scottish army in England, had gone in haste from Nottingham towards Carlisle and Scotland, taking with him 4,000 ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... old ally France, and the popular cry went up for a union of France and the United States against England. Happily, the statesmen of the time—Washington, Hamilton, and Jay—were too firm of purpose, and too clear-sighted, to be led away by popular clamor; and they wisely kept the United States Government in a position of neutrality between the two nations. Deep and loud were the murmurs of the people at this action. Could true-hearted Americans desert their friends ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Bartley. They talked a long time, and in becoming better acquainted with each other's views, as they called them, they became better friends. Bartley began to respect Witherby's business ideas, and Witherby in recognizing all the admirable qualities of this clear-sighted and level-headed young man began to feel that he had secretly liked him from the first, and had only waited a suitable occasion to unmask his affection. It was arranged that Bartley should come on as Witherby's assistant, and should do whatever he was asked to do in the management of ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... supremacy of England on which the very existence of the English State depends. The significance of Sir Walter Raleigh consists in the clairvoyance with which he perceived and the energy with which he combated this monstrous assumption. Other noble Englishmen of his time, and before his time, had been clear-sighted and had struck hard against the evil tyranny of Spanish dynastic militarism, but no other man before or since was so luminously identified with resistance. He struts upon the stage of battle with the limelight full upon him. The classic writing of ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... me count," said Raoul, fixing a penetrating look upon him, "what has happened to render you so clear-sighted?" ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to let the family out of his clutches easily, or to consent to be silent and "frustrate the ends of justice" for anything else than an important equivalent. Mr Wentworth had much ado to restrain his temper while the wily attorney talked about his conscience; for the Curate was clear-sighted enough to perceive at the first glance that Mr Waters had no real intention of proceeding to extremities. The lawyer would not pledge himself to anything, notwithstanding all Mr Wentworth's arguments. "Wodehouse himself was of the opinion that the law should take its course," he said; ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... tentative delineation, of that "piercing and overpowering tenderness which glorifies the poet of Pompilia." Festus, Michal's husband, the friend and adviser of Paracelsus, is a man of simple nature and thoughtful mind, cautious yet not cold, clear-sighted rather than far-seeing, yet not without enthusiasm; perhaps a little narrow and commonplace, as the prudent are apt to be. He, like Michal, has no influence on the external action of the poem. Aprile, the Italian poet whom Paracelsus encounters in the second scene, is an integral ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... Oriana regarded her adopted brother, and personal jealousy made him more clear-sighted as to the possibility of her affection ripening into love than her father had as yet become; and gladly would the rival of the unsuspecting Henrich have blackened him in the eyes of the Chieftain, and caused him to be banished from the lodge, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... she remembered his words in the shop in Brunford. Perhaps because he had roused some personal antipathy. Anyhow, in her heart of hearts was the longing to see him beaten. And yet she was afraid. She did not like the idea of spending so much time at Howden Clough. She was too clear-sighted to be blind to Wilson's intentions, and she felt sure as to what his ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... clear-sighted, can cover over the evidence of the "afflicted circle" with the mantle of self-delusion. Self-delusion does not conceal pins, stick them into its own body, and charge the accused person with doing it, knowing that the ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... for Germany in Europe by the work of Bismarck. "When Germany had won a mighty position on a level with the older Great Powers," says Prince Buelow, "the path of international politics lay open to her ... In the Emperor William II. the nation found a clear-sighted, strong-willed guide who led them ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... quietly and quickly; has a full, clear, dark eye; has a youthful clerical countenance; has given way a little to facial sadness; is sharp and serious; has a healthy biliary duct, and has carried dark hair on his head ever since we knew him; is clear-sighted, shy unless spoken to, and cautious; is free and generous in expression if trotted out a little; is no bigot; dislikes fierce judgments and creed-reviling; likes visiting folk who are well off; wouldn't ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... fancy-balls; between two political faiths, between Louis XVIII., who saw only the present, and Charles X., who looked too far into the future; it was moreover bound to accept the will of the king, though the king was deceiving and tricking it. This unfortunate youth, blind and yet clear-sighted, was counted as nothing by old men jealously keeping the reins of the State in their feeble hands, while the monarchy could have been saved by their retirement and the accession of this Young France, which the old ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... not only that a passing traveller failed to stop and scrutinise the evidence, but that a quarter of a century should have elapsed before even the neighbouring professors of the University of Liege came forth to vindicate the truthfulness of their indefatigable and clear-sighted countryman. ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... alone opposed the bill in the House, and with clear-sighted sense (though the stock had risen from 130 to 300 in one day) denounced "the dangerous practice of stock-jobbing, and the general infatuation, which must," he said, "end in general ruin." Rumours of free trade with Spain pushed the shares up to 400, and the bill passed the Commons ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... convinced, and replied, "that she should consider it Cecil's secret, and say nothing about it." Whereupon the damsel ran merrily off, humming the air, "I told them they needn't come wooing to me." But, arrived in her own room, her evanescent high spirits vanished, and a bitter and clear-sighted mood succeeded. "Bertie," she thought, "your evil influence is over us all. Mamma, till now the truest of step-mothers, is only thinking of ensuring you my fortune. I disoblige papa, send away a true love, hate ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... inconsistency of which he was totally unconscious. Though Chateaubriand was perpetually analyzing himself and his emotions, no man had less self-knowledge. He was too much absorbed by his "self-study, self-wonder, and self-worship," as one of his critics styles his egotism, to be clear-sighted. He had generous impulses, but no uniform generosity of heart; and while glorying in the few ostentatious sacrifices he made to pet ideas, he had no perception of the nature of self-sacrifice. Much, therefore, as he was gratified at the devotion of a woman of Madame Recamier's position ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... too thorough a gentleman to annoy her by alluding to their political difference of opinion, except occasionally, when his temper got the better of him, which, to do him justice, was seldom. But Clarissa's very love for him rendered her too clear-sighted not to perceive the state of his mind, and the unspoken agitation which she suffered on this score had been partly the cause of her homesickness and longing for her sister's companionship. He had been both kind ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... which a woman figured as defendant. Patterson had rare and exquisite gifts which made him many friends and kept him for half a century prominent in political affairs. Though of undoubted intellectual power, clear-sighted, and positive, he rarely answered other men's arguments, and never with warmth or heat. But he had, however, read and mastered the law, and his voice was helpful in conferring upon the people a system which broke the yoke ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... clear-sighted among those who surrounded her attributed the change which rendered Veronique increasingly charming to her friends to the secret delight which all women, even the most religious, feel when they see themselves courted; and to the ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... abomination in the eyes of the conscientious oyster-getter, but with Hamed they helped to fill the "beg." Vain old Arab! He deceived no one—in the end not even himself, for none of his fakes passed the final inspection of clear-sighted "Dorphy," with whom the moralities of the firm rested, but who in Hamed's eyes was a ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... or in grave suspicion. In respect to very many questions a wise man's mind rests long in a state neither of belief nor unbelief. But your intellectually short-sighted people are apt to be preternaturally clear-sighted, and to find their way very plain to positive conclusions upon one side or the other of ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... could not be avoided. They were, however, on no account to enter a town, by night or by day, if they could help it. No one, indeed, could have arranged a more perfect plan than Miss Rosalie had done. There's nothing like the wits of an honest clear-sighted woman when people are in trouble, to ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... phenomena. Such are the accusations brought by the regretted Mannhardt against the school to which he originally belonged, and which was popular and all-powerful even in the maturity of his own more clear-sighted genius. Proofs of the correctness of his criticism will be offered abundantly in the course of this work. It will become evident that, great as are the acquisitions of Philology, her least certain discoveries have been too hastily applied in alien "matter," ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... she is! Her nose is sharper than ever. Poor dear, she is plain!" reflected Dreda, candid and clear-sighted. ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... clear-sighted and courageous "Old Commoner"—followed up Spalding, and struck very close to the root and animus of the Democratic opposition, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... to speak. I shall endeavour to extract, from the midst of insult and contempt and maledictions, those admonitions which may tend to correct whatever imperfections such censurers may discover in this my first serious appeal to the Public. If certain Critics were as clear-sighted as they are malignant, how great would be the benefit to be derived from their virulent writings! As it is, I fear I shall be malicious enough to be amused with their paltry tricks and lame invectives. Should the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... English contemporaries Barrow was considered a mathematician second only to Newton. Continental writers do not place him so high, and their judgment is probably the more correct one. He was undoubtedly a clear-sighted and able mathematician, who handled admirably the severe geometrical method, and who in his Method of Tangents approximated to the course of reasoning by which Newton was afterwards led to the doctrine of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... and discerning few what he really is at his best—their greatest earthly friend and benefactor. All I have seen of American schoolboys impresses me that the feeling which dictates their bearing toward their teachers is born of a clear-sighted and intuitive appreciation of superior knowledge, worth or experience, and not of conventional observance or necessity. It is generally said abroad that American children are unruly, forward and irreverent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... like most women, was more clear-sighted than her husband, and called out, "If monsieur desires solitude, he will find ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... sympathy, it becomes positively odious—one of the worst imposture and blights to which a youthful imagination could be subjected. It is chiefly against the incubus of this celestial monster that Mr. Moore dared to lift up his eyes; and many a less courageous or less clear-sighted person was thankful to him for it. But a man with such a mission requires a certain narrowness and concentration of mind; he has to be intolerant and to pound a good deal on the same notes. We need not wonder if Mr. ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... as a blank, but by means of the most favouring circumstances, she had taken Francis Hogarth's heart into her possession, at least for time, and this was her one prize in the strange lottery of love. No other attachment she was likely to inspire, as she felt herself, but her lover was not so clear-sighted. Dr. Vivian Phillips had a great respect for her, and enjoyed her society now and then as a pleasant change from the more insipid company of his sisters or their female acquaintances, but to spend a life with her would ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... sentimental note in the corresponding German scenes of Knaus and Huebner, and, longo intervallo, Meyerheim and Meyer von Bremen. Not a breath of the broad humor of Teniers and Van Ostade in these masters; scarcely a hint of the robust animality and clownish jollity with which the clear-sighted Dutchmen endowed their rural revellers. Though pictorial art has not, outside of Russia (where the great and unrivalled Riepin paints the peasant with the brush as remorselessly as Tolstoi and Dostoyefski ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the peace of the country. Lord Charlemont accepted the office of president, specially with the hope that he and his friends might be able to influence the convention in favour of proceedings at once temperate and firm. The very sincerity of his desire to attain a reform rendered him clear-sighted as to the means to be pursued; and while he wished that the people should be allowed every degree of liberty consistent with safety, no man was less inclined to democracy, or could feel more horror at the idea of involving his country in ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... America; nowhere is speculative intellect so colored with the hues of practical interest without limiting its own flight; nowhere are labor and executive power so receptive of pure intellectual suggestion. The union of what is deepest and most recondite in thought with clear-sighted sagacity has been well hit by Lowell in his description of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... 9th June the league demanded a royal decree, forbidding the practice of all religion but the Roman Catholic, on pain of death. In vain had the clear-sighted Bishop of Acqs uttered his eloquent warnings. Despite such timely counsels, which he was capable at once of appreciating and of neglecting, Henry followed slavishly the advice of those whom he knew in his heart to be his foes, and authorised the great conspiracy against ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... altogether miserable deceivers, yet at any rate such contemptible men that they practised usury in shameful fashion with all that was most holy and venerable in the world. It will be seen presently how Wacht, who in all other relations of life was an intelligent and clear-sighted man, resembled in this particular the coarsest-minded amongst the lowest of the people. The further prejudice that he would not admit there was any piety or virtue amongst the adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, and that he ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... authority on such matters,[1] we moderns are, by the nature of our education and prejudices, completely incapacitated for sympathizing with either the persecutors or their victims. We are at a loss to understand how clear-sighted and upright men, like Sir Matthew Hale, could consent to become parties to a relentless persecution to the death of poor helpless beings whose chief crime, in most cases, was, that they had suffered starvation both in body and in mind. We cannot understand ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... ever since she could remember. He was certainly not handsome—though he was less stout and much better looking than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently seven years for him to discover that he cared for her—a fact which had been ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... I was not dealing with a booby, but with a sensible clear-sighted man, and so studied to express myself in a way which would not for an instant give him the impression that I was promising to marry him because—what I don't know and it doesn't matter ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Church for a week after the Crucifixion, except on the hypothesis that the men who composed it were witnesses of His Resurrection, and saw Him floating upwards and received into the Shechinah cloud and lost to their sight. Peter's change, witnessed by the words of my text—these bold and clear-sighted words—seems to me to be a perfect monstrosity, and incapable of explication, unless he saw the risen Lord, beheld the ascended Christ, was touched with the fiery Spirit descending on Pentecost, and so 'out of weakness was made strong,' and from a babe sprang to the stature of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... no very clear-sighted prophet to prophesy that you will have to let your wheels run down for a ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall |
