United States or Saudi Arabia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The French are, beyond all manner of doubt, the most good-humoured people on the surface of the earth; if we understand at least by the term, good-humour those minor courtesies, those considerate kindnesses, those cursory attentions, which, though they cost little to the giver, are not the less valuable to the receiver; which soften the asperities of life, and by their frequent occurrence, and the constant necessity in which we stand of them, have an aggregate, if not an individual importance.
Even the cursory glimpses which were all that Dick and Grosvenor were for the moment able to obtain, convinced them both that they were face to face with the remains of a city that must, thousands of years ago, have been of enormous extent and of almost unimaginable opulence and splendour.
As we are about to introduce our readers to scenes with which the European is little familiarised, some few cursory remarks, illustrative of the general features of the country into which we have shifted our labours, may not be deemed misplaced at the opening of this volume.
In view of this ill-intentioned omission, we shall offer a few cursory remarks bearing on, but not attempting to answer, those grave inquiries concerning the African people. As in our humble opinion these are questions paramount to all the petty local issues finically dilated on by the confident prophet of "The Bow of Ulysses," we will here briefly devote ourselves to its discussion.
The former flitted from one to another of those who lay slain; in turn stooping over each corpse, and scrutinising it to some giving but a cursory glance, to others more careful examination then leaving each with an air of disappointment, and a corresponding exclamation. At length, after going the complete round of the dead, he faced towards his satellite, saying,
With the celebrated Williams murders, on the contrary, he was entirely taken up, since these proceeded in accordance with designs not traceable to the cursory glance, but which tasked the skill of a decipherer to interpret and reduce to harmony.
Taking a cursory glance at the contents, he gives a sweep of his chin toward the bicycle, and says, "Sowar shuk; tomasha."
He had a keen perception of humor in others, but he had very little humor; he had a love of the beautiful in literature which was perhaps sometimes greater than his sense of it. I write from a cursory acquaintance with his work, not recently renewed.
One Friday, to his great joy, he came across, in the wall of the tell, a large inscribed mass of brickwork, weighing, perhaps, half-a-ton, which, from the cursory inspection he was able to make of it in the semi-darkness, he believed might prove sufficiently valuable to compensate all the disappointments of the weary months.
His Orations, therefore, may deserve a cursory perusal. It is true, indeed, they are much too languid and spiritless; but they may yet be of service to enlarge and improve an accomplishment, of which he certainly had a moderate share; and which has so much force and efficacy, that it gave Curio the appearance and reputation of an Orator, without the assistance of any other good quality.
Word Of The Day