"Clear-sighted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forth. Superiority requires an occasion. The common man is helpless in an emergency: assailed by contradictory suggestions, or confused by his incapacity, he cannot see his way. The hour of emergency finds a hero calm and strong, and strong because calm and clear-sighted; he sees what can be done, and does it. This is often a thing of great simplicity, so that we marvel others did not see it. Now it has been done, and proved successful, many underrate its value, thinking that they also would ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... most clear-sighted citizen) had made the statement that Hilary Vane—away down in the bottom of his heart—was secretly proud of his son, the professor would probably have lost his place on the school board, the water board, and the library committee. The way the worldly-wise professor discovered ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... by the force of her own genius, and continual application. She was not only happy in a fine imagination, a great memory, an excellent understanding, and an exact judgment, but had all these crowned by virtue and piety: she was too learned to be vain, too wise to be conceited, too knowing and too clear-sighted to irreligious. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... secure this bargain; and as the soldiers are come into the town, who are fond of these articles, I think it cannot fail to answer; so go, and Heaven speed you." And Cola went, but with very different intentions from those imagined by his friend—Cola being now clear-sighted, and Juccio truly blind. The next day Cola called on his friend with very downcast and melancholy looks, and when Juccio bade him good day, he said, "I wish from my soul it were a good, or even a middling, day for me." "Why, what is the matter?" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... perished in the flames, while the rest of the army looked on with the utmost indifference. Bohemund, animated himself by a worldly spirit, did not know the true character of the Crusaders, nor understand the religious madness which had brought them in such shoals from Europe. A priest, more clear-sighted, devised a scheme which restored all their confidence, and inspired them with a courage so wonderful as to make the poor sixty thousand emaciated, sick, and starving zealots put to flight the well-fed and six times as numerous legions of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... many who didn't. Henry James, for instance, wrote a review of "Drum Taps" in the Nation, November 16, 1865. In the lusty heyday and assurance of twenty-two years, he laid the birch on smartly. It is just a little saddening to find that even so clear-sighted an observer as Henry James could not see through the chaotic form of Whitman to the great vision and throbbing music that seem so plain to us to-day. Whitman himself, writing about "Drum Taps" before its publication, said, "Its passion has the indispensable merit that though to the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... "Then you are clear-sighted indeed, Miss Nevil. If you have seen any wit in what he has just said you must certainly have put ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... Gordon always worked; not, it is true, with any real measure of success, for he had rather got out of the habit of grinding at the classics, but at any rate with energy. And during these hours he began to perceive vaguely what a clear-sighted, unprejudiced mind the Chief had. To the boy in the Fourth and Fifth forms any headmaster must appear not so much a living person as the emblem of authority, the final dispenser of justice, the hard, analytical sifter of evidence, "coldly ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... revenue, he was laying large and comprehensive plans for a system of oppression, which should yield the revenue,—and for Arsenals and Forts—and a standing Army, and a rule of terror which should hold the nation in subjection while these things were preparing. He was clear-sighted enough to see that "absolutism" was not to be accomplished by a system of reasoning. He would not urge it as a dogma, ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... Britain. The people saw their old oppressor and enemy engaged in war with their 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 in such a manner? Never! And so, whatever ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Rebekah was more clear-sighted. She knew her sons as they really were, and therefore her love for Jacob was exceeding great. The oftener she heard his voice, the deeper grew her affection for him.[33] Abraham agreed with her. He also loved his grandson Jacob, for he knew that in him his name and his seed would be called. And ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... continued to deceive itself into believing that a great stretch of mere water rendered the country immune from taking its honest part in its own war. "Oh, my God," he had said in his heart, as all clear-sighted Americans had been saying, "has commercialism eaten into our very vitals? Has the good red blood of the early pioneers turned to water? Are we without the nerve any longer to read the writing on the wall?" And the only times that his national pride had been able to raise ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the taste for your pathos, and your melodrama, and plots constructed after your favourite fashion ("Great Expectations" and the "Tale of Two Cities" are exceptions) may go by and never be regretted. Were people simpler, or only less clear-sighted, as far as your pathos is concerned, a generation ago? Jeffrey, the hard- headed shallow critic, who declared that Wordsworth "would never do," cried, "wept like anything," over your Little Nell. One still laughs as ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... 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
... as to the impression made by his son, could hardly suppose it likely that the boy would make a name for himself, and thereby confer distinction upon the family of which he was an irregular offshoot. A respectable diplomatic career, with an interval in the House of Commons, was the most that so clear-sighted a man could anticipate for the young Stanhope. Was it literary fame for himself? This, of course, assumes that subsequent publication was contemplated by the writer. The dodges and devices of authors are well-nigh infinite and quite beyond conjecture, ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... 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 and his family. If this had been attempted ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... 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
... justify; but the pulse was very extraordinary and exceedingly menacing. This was a deceptive day. The marks on the Dauphin's face extended over all 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 until ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... King Christian VIII. increased my annual stipend, so that with this and that which my writings bring in, I can live honorably and free from care. My king gave it to me out of the pure good-will of his own heart. King Christian is enlightened, clear-sighted, with a mind enlarged by science; the gracious sympathy, therefore, which he has felt in my fate is to ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... degree the qualities his 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; he instantly tears off his helmet and shows ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... is a conclusion which the more clear-sighted of the idealists have expressly recognized. That subtle and most entertaining thinker, for example, the late Professor Green of Oxford, has said that the self-conscious volition of man 'does not consist in a series of natural events, ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... Pear on the occasion of Willan Blaycke's second visit. Pierre had not shown himself at the inn for some weeks, and Victorine was uneasy about him. Spite of her plans about a much finer bird in the bush, she was by no means minded to lose the bird she had in hand. She was too clear-sighted a young lady not to perceive that it would be no bad thing to be ultimately Mistress Gaspard of the mill,—no bad thing if she could not do better, of which she was as yet far from sure. So she had inveigled her aunt into ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... all love of another founded upon the love of self?" he asked her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted mind a truth undreamed of. "When some day—please Heaven—I come to find favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but that you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness? Would ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... 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, familiarized it in every mouth. All this splendour of fame, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... hand, And held it for a moment, and Took up the other—held them both— As might a 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 out sharply—"Call ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... was a dignity in his manner, springing doubtless from the consciousness of a purpose that filled his life, a dignity which made him unapproachable. He had the expression of a thinker, meditation dwelt on the fine nobly carved brow. You could tell from the dark bright eyes, so clear-sighted and quick to observe, that their owner was wont to probe to the bottom of things. He gesticulated very little, his demeanor was grave. Lucien felt ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... watched Nella-Rose with new and far-seeing interest—not always with love and passion-blinded eyes. He felt that she could, with his devotion and training, develop into a rarely sweet and fine woman. He was not always a fool in his madness; at times he was wonderfully clear-sighted. He meant to return home, when once his health was restored, and take the Kendalls into his confidence; but the thought of Lynda gave him a bad moment now and then. He could not easily depose her from the most sacred memories of his life, but gradually he grew to believe ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... artistic matters, which, so far as I can learn, the President has not; but both are ambitious in the noblest sense; both are young men of deep beliefs and high aims; earnest, vigorous, straightforward, clear-sighted; good speakers, yet sturdy workers, and anxious for the prosperity, but above all things jealous for the honor of the people whose affairs they are called to administer. The President's accounts of difficulties in ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... against the bars, or learn to eat from his hand, to sing presently at his whistle. Had passion urged her, this hesitancy would have been impossible. Then she would either have seen none of these things, or, having seen them, she would have dared greatly. She was too cool, too clear-sighted, perhaps, for a heroine of romance. The single virtue that has fed vampire-like on the blood of the others, the abject attitude of the heart, the moral chicanery of sex—she would have none ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... the teepee village that Uncheedah intended to give a feast in honor of her grandchild's first sacrificial offering. This was mere speculation, however, for the clear-sighted old woman had determined to keep this part of the matter secret until the offering should be completed, believing that the "Great Mystery" should be met in ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... hopeful state of things is owing, in no slight degree, to the self-sacrificing exertions of a few faithful and clear-sighted men, foremost among whom was the late William Leggett; than whom no one has labored more perseveringly, or, in the end, more successfully, to bring the practice of American democracy into conformity ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... 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 ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... zest and power of rectitude. Christianity has liberated the world, not as a system of ethics, not as a philosophy of altruism, but by its revelation of the power of pure and unselfish love. Its vital principle is not its code, but its motive. Love, clear-sighted, loyal, personal, is its breath and immortality. Christ came, not to save himself, assuredly, but to save the world. His motive, his example, are every man's key to his own gifts and happiness. The ethical code he taught may no doubt be matched, here a piece and there a piece, out of other religions, ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... 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 splendor in the situation of the crown, which usually adds to government strength and authority at ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... which had hitherto found itself very comfortable in the world, despising Old Goggles, and reposing in the sense of unquestioned rights; but now this same pride met with nothing but bruises and crushings. Tom was too clear-sighted not to be aware that Mr. Stelling's standard of things was quite different, was certainly something higher in the eyes of the world than that of the people he had been living amongst, and that, brought in contact with it, he, Tom Tulliver, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... 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 ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... clear-sighted, discriminating, penetrative, shrewd, crafty, keen, perspicacious, subtile, cunning, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... affected deeply a man just risen from a bed of sickness. Lieutenant D'Hubert's hand, which grasped the knob of a stick, trembled slightly. But his northern temperament, sentimental but cautious and clear-sighted, too, in its idealistic way, predominated over 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 ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... will follow its own course, and that they will return to their drawing-room, expressly rebuilt for them, and freshly gilded, to begin over again the pleasant conversation which an accident, some tumult in the street, had interrupted.[2323] Clear-sighted in society, they are obtuse in politics. They examine everything by the artificial light of candles; they are disturbed and bewildered in the powerful light of open day. The eyelid has grown stiff through age. The organ so long bent on the petty ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a visit 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 venerable old man his arm, as to be shown by him his curious collection of books. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... this, 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 ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... criticism, but an exact one. And yet public opinion, less punctilious or more clear-sighted, would say that the signature was ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... can make it, and whose religious usages are as stiff as such thoroughbred old-school men can wish them." (L. 4, 30.) But while B. Kurtz and his compeers indulged in mockery and ridicule, the men of Missouri were clear-sighted, serious, and determined. The consequence was that a decade later the hearts of the General Synod's anti-confessionalists were filled with fear and consternation. Schmucker's chief object in writing the Definite Platform, as appears from this document ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... themselves totally obscure, are dragged forward to account for obscure Greek mythical 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
... them. Those who are exceptionally gifted as poets or thinkers—that is, those who are endowed with creative power—have much difficulty in adapting themselves to the technical drudgery of preparatory criticism: they are far from despising it; on the contrary, they hold it in honour, if they are clear-sighted; but they shrink from devoting themselves to it, for fear of using a razor, as is said, to cut stones. "I have no mind," wrote Leibnitz to Basnage, who had exhorted him to compile an immense Corpus of unpublished and printed documents relating to the ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... lie on the surface of any Elizabethan document. The most diligent explorers of these documents, in two centuries and a quarter, had not found it. No faintest suspicion of it had ever crossed the mind of the most recent, and clear-sighted, and able investigator of the Baconian remains. It was buried in the lowest depths of the lowest deeps of the deep Elizabethan Art; that Art which no plummet, till now, has ever sounded. It was locked with its utmost reach ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... may compromise in its excesses the tranquillity, the property, the lives of individuals, is obvious to the narrowest and most unthinking minds. But, on the contrary, none but attentive and clear-sighted men perceive the perils with which equality threatens us, and they commonly avoid pointing them out. They know that the calamities they apprehend are remote, and flatter themselves that they will only ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... not seem to justify, but the pulse was very extraordinary and 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... not neglect any of his tasks. Like the least of our parish priests, he prepared the neophytes for the Sacraments. He was an incomparable catechist, so clear-sighted and scrupulous that his instructions may still be taken as models by the catechists of to-day. Neither did he, as an aristocrat of the intelligence, only trouble himself with persons of culture, and leave to his deacons the care of God's common people. All had a right to his lessons, the simple ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... to, and always thus. The clear-sighted, great old man, already perceives how much his fame will owe to such an apostle and preacher of his faith—for he sees also what Carlyle himself will become. The mention of Lockhart is also ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... constituency and a more stable following. The error in judgment is excusable in one who had never veiled his sympathy with the Italian cause, and had hitherto found it no hindrance to his popularity; but so clear-sighted a man as Gracchus must have felt at times that he was staking, not only his own career, but the fate of the programme and the party which he had built up, on the chance of securing an end, which had ceased to be regarded as the mere removal ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... too clear-sighted not to perceive the cause, and hastened, by her little attentions, to remove the feeling: not that she had any definite ideas upon the subject any more than Joey; but she could not bear to see him ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... clear-sighted man, has pointed out in a recent work that this has happened in connection with economic questions. The old economists, he says, made generalizations, and they were (in Mr. Wells's view) mostly wrong. But ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... strength. On the whole, however, in 1862 the more powerful element had rallied to and upheld the government. The court and the army were so loud in their admiration of the profound policy of the Emperor that those who heeded the croakings of the few clear-sighted men composing the opposition ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... the bottom of a volcano. She has little weaknesses, but is a real generous-hearted woman, which I suppose is the finest thing in the world.' Though neither mother nor son could be called beautiful, they make a pretty picture; the ugly, generous, ardent woman weaving rainbow illusions; the ugly, clear-sighted, loving son sitting at her side in one of his rare hours of pleasure, half- beguiled, half-amused, wholly admiring, as he listens. But as he goes home, and the fancy pictures fade, and Stowting is once more burthened with debt, and the noisy companions ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was hazed with delight. He had forgotten the moment in the timeless joy of his love for her. Ellen, in the shadows, stirred and coughed. He broke out again: "Well, supposing all that's true! Are you going to be honest and be as clear-sighted about what happened after she ran away? Mother, think of the things that have been done to her, think of the things ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... say I don't," Hammond interrupted him. "Very likely I do: I don't pretend to be any better than my neighbors. But that doesn't matter. If you are so clear-sighted that there's no sending you off under a happy delusion, it would be mere brutality to urge you to undergo sea-sickness in the search for such a fate. As you say, it is attainable here. Will you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... 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 for her too attractive soft eyes, am harassed ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... clear-sighted enough to recognize in this letter a spirit quite different from that which had seemed to actuate some of the foreign aspirants for glory. And by this time they had received an informing letter from Silas Deane; so they hastened to pass a resolution (on July 31, 1777) accepting ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... of teachers—misfortune. Cast upon her own resources at the age of thirteen, she had learned to look upon everybody and everything with distrust; and by relying only on herself, she had become strangely cautious and clear-sighted. She knew how to watch and how to listen, how to deliberate and how to act. Two men, the Marquis de Valorsay and M. de Fondege's son, coveted her hand; and one of the two, the marquis, so she believed, was capable of any crime. Still she felt no fears. She ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... mattered not how dreadful life might appear, it must be great and good, since it was lived with so tenacious a will, for the purpose no doubt of this will itself, and of the great work which it unconsciously accomplished. True, he was a scientist, a clear-sighted man; he did not believe in any idyllic humanity living in a world of perpetual peace; he saw, on the contrary, its woes and its vices; he had laid them bare; he had examined them; he had catalogued them for thirty years past, but his passion for life, his admiration ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... vi. 230. May. Guthrie, 194. Baillie, ii. 156, 157, 273. This defeat perplexed the theology of that learned man. I confess I am amazed, and cannot see to my mind's satisfaction, the reasons of the Lord's dealing with that land.... What means the Lord, so far against the expectation of the most clear-sighted, to humble us so low, and by his own immediate hand, I confess ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... reached 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 ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... look round the room, which had become all at once so interesting to him. Mr. May was too clear-sighted not to see it. He thought, quite impartially, that perhaps it was an excusable weakness, even though it was his own society that was the counter attraction. They were two nice-looking girls. This was how he put it, being no longer young, and father ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... no choice but to withdraw. He did so; and a moment later Sir George, after paying his respects, followed him. Dr. Addington was clear-sighted enough to fear that his friend had gone after the lawyer, and, as soon as he decently could, he went himself in pursuit. He was relieved to find Sir George alone, pacing the floor of the ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Gorm Smallin! My own brother, Gorm Smallin!" When he finds his brother he says to him: "Ef ye had been killed in a fa'r battle, I mought ha' been able to fight hard enough for both of us; for every time I cried a-thinkin' of you, I'd ha' been twice as strong, an' twice as clear-sighted as I was buffore. But — sich things as these burns me an' weakens me and hurts my eyes that bad that I kin scarcely look a man straight furard in the face. Hit don't make much difference to me now whether we whips the Yanks or they whips ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... closely. Meshes were closing around Ramona. Three watchers of her every look and act,—Alessandro in pure love, Margarita in jealous hate, Felipe in love and perplexity. Only the Senora observed her not. If she had, matters might have turned out very differently, for the Senora was clear-sighted, rarely mistaken in her reading of people's motives, never long deceived; but her observing and discriminating powers were not in focus, so far as Ramona was concerned. The girl was curiously outside ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... a coward, he might also be a traitor but he was a clever and clear-sighted man too. Consequently Hortebise shivered as he heard these words, but Mascarin smiled disdainfully, basking in ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... been able to do anything for him beyond educating him; the younger son who, after years of uncongenial drudgery had emerged, tough, stringy, professional, his boyish dreams dead and his boyish tastes atrophied; a useful hard-working, clear-sighted member of society. And there was truth in this conception of himself. There was truth, too, in Madame von Marwitz's probe. He had more than the normal English sensitiveness where ideals were concerned and more than the normal ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the most clear-sighted do not see well at night. At any rate my hope was that they had not done so, and that is why I waded out to prick the eyes of Houman. Moreover, as I had hoped, so it was; there beneath his robe I saw the chain. Then I spoke to ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... truth. He and she had changed places. She who had used to be so practical—she was the dreamer now; had come thither following a dream, walking in a dream. He, the dreaming boy, had become the practical man, firm, clear-sighted, direct of purpose; with a dream yet in his heart, but a dream of great action, a dream he hid from her, certainly a dream in which she had neither part nor lot. And yet she had made him what he was; not willingly, not by kindness, but by injustice. What she had given he had taken; ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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
... compromise. In 1767 Carleton exchanged several important dispatches with them; and in 1768 they sent out Maurice Morgan to study and report, after consultation with the chief justice and 'other well instructed persons.' Morgan was an indefatigable and clear-sighted man who deserves to be gratefully remembered by both races; for he was a good friend both to the French Canadians before the Quebec Act and to the United Empire Loyalists just before their great migration, when he was Carleton's secretary at New York. In 1769 the official correspondence ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... Briefly this, I think. In mundane matters, where the personal equation dominates, their judgment is apt to be turbid and perverse; but as one rises into questions of pure intelligence, it becomes serenely impartial. We, on the other hand, who are pre-eminently clear-sighted in worldly concerns of law and government and in all subsidiary branches of mentality, cannot bring ourselves to reason dispassionately on non-practical subjects. "L'esprit aussi a sa pudeur," says Remy de Gourmont. Well, this pudeur de l'esprit, discouraged among the highest ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... 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. Moore ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... 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 Italy, ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... debasing prejudices, and distrust of national progress,—sparing no tyrant, however wealthy or high in station; pleading for the downcast, however lowly; hoping for the fallen, however scorned. Thanks to this clear-sighted moralist, he gave me, in his own example, a standard of generous Optimism too sun-bright ever to be eclipsed. Let it not be inferred from these hasty outlines, however, that Dr. Dewey was habitually grave, or intent on serious topics ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... 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 and a grievous malady. They ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... them to wall in their towne."[269] The pleasure of replacing stale, commonplace expressions by rare, picturesque, live ones, and in lieu of a plain sentence to give an allegorical substitute, has so much attraction for Nash, that clear-sighted as he is, he cannot always avoid the ordinary defects of this particular style, defects which he has in common with many of his contemporaries, not excluding Shakespeare himself, namely, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... "incompatible" Johnson.[20] His letters of travel are admirable: his accounts of public affairs, though sometimes extremely prejudiced, very clever; those of University society and squabbles among the very best that we have in English; those touching "the picturesque" extremely early and remarkably clear-sighted; those touching literature among the least one-sided of their time. If there are, as observed or hinted above, some unamiable touches, his persistent protection of the poor creature Mason; his general attitude to his friends the Whartons; and his communications with younger men like Norton ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... surpass, the splendors of the oldest and most famous dynasties. This insatiable thirst for action and for renown was to be the source of Napoleon's strength and also of his weakness. But only a few clear-sighted men made these reflections when the Empire began. The masses, with their easy optimism, looked upon the new Emperor as an infallibly impeccable being, and thought that since he had not yet been beaten, he was invincible. Josephine ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... themselves 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 Public judge that my composition is worthless, I shall indeed bow before ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... 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 typical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... a second of indecision which did not escape so clear-sighted an observer as M. Desmalions. He swayed from side to side, his eyes ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by the expression of their faces. Zelie's irruption into the church, her glance, which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the expectant ones in the public ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... little creature laughs at the anger of man. The gardener curses it, but the weevil is not disturbed; it imperturbably continues its trade of levying tribute. Happily we have assistants more patient and more clear-sighted than ourselves. ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... a very brave young woman, Miss Lawton, and I am glad that you are taking such a clear-sighted view of this double catastrophe which has come upon you. Ah, I had almost forgotten; here is a duplicate of the mortgage which I hold upon this house, which your father made out to me some ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... called on his sister-in-law about three o'clock in the afternoon he was rather disgusted to find Mark at home. He knew that Mark was much more clear-sighted than his mother, and he feared that he would influence her ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... great building was declared open and another important project initiated by the Prince of Wales had reached completion. The London Times of the succeeding day referred with accuracy, in this connection, to his "clear-sighted initiative and untiring energy" and a member of the Executive Committee, which had the enterprise in hand, wrote to the same paper that during the past six years "every important step in connection with the Institute ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... ambiguity of the oracle to which he appeals. The 'blessed mood' in which we get rid of the burden of the 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. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... more a man of facts, one less under the influence of his own imagination; had it been his good fortune to live even in contact with those he now so devoutly worshipped, in a political sense at least, their influence over a mind as just and clear-sighted as his own, would soon have ceased; but, passing his time at sea, they had the most powerful auxiliary possible, in the high faculty he possessed of fancying things as he wished them to be. No wonder, then, that ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... constrained to recollect that its claim to be inspired has of late years been repeatedly called in question. It has even become the fashion to cavil at almost everything which the Bible contains. We are grown so exceedingly wise, have made so many strange discoveries, and have become so clear-sighted, that the more advanced among us are kindly bent on disabusing the minds of their less gifted brethren of that most venerable delusion of all,—(for it is coeval with Christianity,)—that the Bible is in any special sense the Word of GOD. I do not say that ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... West Lodge, but even then we felt that a new misfortune was lurking in the silent house, for the health of Jane Hamerton, who had never been very strong, now began to disquiet her friends, particularly my husband, whose affection for her was very true and tender. Aunt Susan, who was her devoted but clear-sighted nurse, wrote to us in the course of the summer that her case was very serious, notwithstanding the short periods of improvement occurring at intervals. The poor girl had grown very weak and lost her appetite; almost constantly feverish, she longed for fruit to refresh ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... that all is singularly to de good, as Comrade Maloney would put it. Advices from Comrade Windsor inform me that that prince of blighters, Waring, was rejected by an intelligent electorate. Those keen, clear-sighted citizens refused to vote for him to an extent that you could notice without a microscope. Still, he has one consolation. He owns what, when the improvements are completed, will be the finest and most commodious tenement houses ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the shadow they have cast upon it in part remains. But of this be sure, that no selfish, loveless egoist could have had and retained such friends. The man whom the saintly Fraulein von Klettenberg chose for her friend, whom clear-sighted, stern-judging Herder declared that he loved as he did his own soul; the man whose thoughtful kindness is celebrated by Herder's incomparable wife, whom Karl August and the Duchess Luise cherished as a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... independence of the Irish. In any case, I think there can be no doubt of the main historical fact. The Scotch were tempted by the enormous but unequal opportunities of industrialism, because the Scotch are romantic. The Irish refused those enormous and unequal opportunities, because the Irish are clear-sighted. They would not need very clear sight by this time to see that in England and Scotland the temptation has been a betrayal. The industrial system ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... I replied, making an effort to bring the glass steadily to my lips, "you are a capital fellow—a clear-sighted, sensible, capital fellow. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... which caused him to turn pale. He tore open the letter; but it was not the one for which he would have given half his fortune. Oh! sagacious, wily, clear-sighted Mr. Flint! ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in turn. The conflicts, which in other parts of the Bible are confined to a single verse or a single chapter, are here expanded into a whole book." And after quoting a few of the darker and more cynical utterances, this clear-sighted teacher goes on: "Their cry is indeed full of doubt and despair and perplexity; it is such as we often hear from the melancholy, skeptical, inquiring spirits of our own age; such as we often refuse to hear and regard as unworthy even a good man's thought or care, ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... efforts he made, and however firmly he adhered to his resolution of silence, the hypochondria from which he suffered could not escape the notice of the 'grand chasserot'. He was not clear-sighted enough to discern the causes, but he could observe the effects. It provoked him to find that all his efforts to enliven his cousin had proved futile. He had cudgelled his brains to comprehend whence came these fits of terrible melancholy, and, judging Julien by himself, came to the conclusion that ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... that there may not be a third solution to the mystery?" asked Roger, who was clear-sighted and somewhat matter-of-fact. "There being a good many people who desire to have it supposed that the Duke is the rightful heir to the throne of England, it is possible that the paper was a bold forgery, drawn up for the purpose of influencing ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston |
