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Perusal   /pərˈuzəl/   Listen
Perusal

noun
1.
Reading carefully with intent to remember.  Synonyms: perusing, poring over, studying.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Perusal" Quotes from Famous Books



... not pretend to any other rank than as an introduction to the larger works, it is hoped that the arrangement of its matter is such that the beginner may more readily comprehend the entire subject of Blowpipe Analysis than if he were to begin his studies by the perusal of the more copious works of ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous

... perusal, no single reading of Tacitus, will give a just conception of the surpassing richness of his works. They must be studied profoundly to be duly appreciated. They are a mine of wisdom, of vast extent and unknown depth, whose treasures lie chiefly ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... delivered by the very leaders of his own party, Marthorne found the material, and caught from their diligent perusal the spirit in which to use it. In this way, without uttering a single original idea of his own, and with very little originality of expression, the young orator succeeded perfectly in his aim. First, he became recognised as a speaker, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... of the world's epic poets stands the name of Virgil. Acknowledged by all as the greatest of Roman poets, he entered, as no other Roman writer did, into Christian history and mediaeval legend. Constantine, the first Christian emperor, professed to have been converted by the perusal of one of Virgil's "Eclogues," and Dante owned him as his master and model, and his guide through all the circles of the other world, while Italian tradition still regards him a great necromancer, a prophet, and a worker of miracles. From ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... happen. She knew instinctively that if it ever did she would lose Billy, if not immediately, then surely eventually, for Billy resented above all things interference. Then Aunt Saxon sat down to study the transcription. But after a long and thorough perusal she folded it carefully and pinned it in her bosom. But she went more cheerily down to the market to get something for supper. Billy might come any time now. His letter was here, and he would surely come ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... of even the most petty routine work. He sat to his desk at eight o'clock and began the perusal of a sheaf of letters, comprising a certain correspondence, which Collins brought him. The first three he read carefully; the following two rather hurriedly; of the next one he seized only the salient and essential ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... eyes and nodded gravely. With a little nod and a sudden pleasant smile the other returned to the perusal of his evening paper. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... afterwards became a soldier and led a very wild life until his twenty-ninth year. During the siege of Pamplona, in 1521, he was severely wounded, and while convalescing he was given lives of Christ and of the saints to read. His perusal of these stories of spiritual combat inspired a determination to imitate the glorious achievements of the saints. For a while the thirst for military renown and an attraction toward a lady of the court, restrained his spiritual impulses. But ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... "Morals and Dogma," different subjects are hard to find; the book is very naturally divided under the headings of Degrees; there are no sub-headings; and as most of the important subjects are touched on, to a greater or lesser extent, in all the Degrees it meant a perusal of the entire book if all the information on any of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... conspicuous station, he still remained a stranger to his own age and country; and in a prolific work (the five last books contain ten years) he has omitted almost every thing that posterity desires to learn. I have tediously acquired, by a painful perusal, the right of pronouncing this unfavorable sentence] We are now qualified to despise the opposite, and, perhaps, artful, misrepresentations, which have softened, or exaggerated, the oppression of the Romans of Gaul under the reign of the Merovingians. The conquerors never promulgated ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... by his side were a number of letters to which he had just dictated answers. At a neighbouring table a young clerk was using a typewriter. Stretched at full length on the sofa was Robert Machin, engaged in the perusal of the second edition of that day's Signal. Of late Robert, having exhausted nearly all available books, had been cultivating during his holidays an interest in journalism, and he would give great accounts, in the nursery, of ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... list of testimonies to some of the most remarkable cases. I have known one hundred and two cases myself in which it effected a saving change in six hours; seventy-nine in which its operations took place in as few as three; and twenty-seven where conversion followed instantaneously after the perusal. At once, poor sinners, who five minutes before had been like the demoniac in the gospel, were seen sitting 'clothed, and in their right mind.' Thus I speak within the mark, Mr. Reding, when I say I will warrant a change in you in twenty-four hours. I have never known ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... note, the perusal of which had rendered him more uneasy than he had been twice before that morning. He had not been mistaken in recognizing on the envelope the handwriting of Boleslas Gorka, and these were the terms, teeming with mystery under the circumstances, in which the brief ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... was intended to enable the mortal to put on immortality and to live eternally in a transformed glorified body. If this fact be borne in mind many apparent difficulties will disappear before the readers in this perusal of Egyptian texts, and the religion of the Egyptians will be seen to possess a consistence of aim and a steadiness of principle which, to some, it at first ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... with a sigh when he had read it, and threw it into the fire, and the old Garthowen pucker on his forehead was only chased away by the perusal of a letter from Gwenda, whose contents we will not dare to ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... do I see no cause to regret this diffidence in myself, but have invariably remarked the most unhappy consequences follow those who were less wise. So much I thought proper to set down, lest I show myself unjust to Mrs. Henry. And, besides, the remark arose naturally, on a re-perusal of the letter which was the next step in these affairs, and reached me, to my sincere astonishment, by a private hand, some week or so after the departure ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... work at the New York bank at which he was employed as paying-cashier. For Henry was a voracious reader. His idea of a pleasant evening was to get back to his little flat, take off his coat, put on his slippers, light a pipe, and go on from the point where he had left off the night before in his perusal of the BIS-CAL volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica—making notes as he read in a stout notebook. He read the BIS-CAL volume because, after many days, he had finished the A-AND, AND-AUS, and the AUS-BIS. There was something admirable—and yet a little horrible—about ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... say that Paul and John Ross read the foregoing article with the keenest pleasure the night they reached home from the hangar and found their mother just finishing its perusal. Naturally Mrs. Ross felt all of the average mother's anxiety at the thought that her sons would be exposed to the perils such a long journey would invite, but on the other hand she was very proud to think their talents had placed them in such an honored ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... that it was with difficulty he could crawl with his mat to the shade of a tamarind tree at a short distance, there to enjoy the refreshing smell of the corn-fields. The benevolent and simple manners of the negroes, and the perusal of Kafa's little volume ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... so noiseless, that he surprised a long, thin trollop of a woman, with a long, thin, scraggy neck, seated by the slatternly table, and busy with a frowsy paper-covered volume, over which her head was bent in intent perusal. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... turning away with a disappointed countenance from a close perusal of the boy's face. 'Wait till Bill ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... The perusal of the title to this chapter will, we fear, excite emotions of apprehension, rather than of curiosity, in the breasts of experienced readers. They will doubtless imagine that it is portentous of long rhapsodies on those wonders of antiquity, the description of which ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... and Villages, and Murdering the Inhabitants, which occasion'd all those Evils, that succeeded in those Regions afterward: Now to undertake the Writing of a Narrative of them, and represent them lively and Naturally to the Readers view, and perusal, is a work altogether impossible, but must lie concealed and unknown until they shall more openly and clearly appear, and be made visible to every Eye, at the day of Judgement. As for my part, if I should presume to unravel, in some, ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... arrangements by which she loved to think that she ministered to the old man's simple comforts. She placed the armchair in his favourite nook by the window, and before it the footstool for the poor lame foot; and drew the table near the chair, and looked over the books that George had selected for his perusal from Darrell's library; and chose the volume in which she saw his mark, to place nearest to his hand, and tenderly cleared the mist from his reading-glass; and removed one or two withered or ailing snowdrops ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Society. They send us papers, some of them well worth reading. You have told me so often that you would like to know how the Society is getting on, and to read some of the papers sent to it if they happened to be interesting, that I have laid aside one or two manuscripts expressly for your perusal. You will get them by ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the limited extent of the solitude allowed to kings, this man was alone,—alone for a brief space to consider, as he had informed his secretary, certain documents awaiting his particular and private perusal. ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... often an equally efficient agent for evil in the instruction of little girls in this debasing vice. Some time ago, the very intelligent parents of a bright family of children were awakened to the importance of this subject from the perusal of the first edition of this work, and upon investigation were horrified to find that their oldest child a promising daughter of ten, was already a victim to the vile practice, having been initiated by a "hired ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... surely losing a little of her Arcadian simplicity. Yesterday I caught her burning up her cowhide boots. She is ashamed of them. And she is spending most of her money on clothes, asking me many strange questions as to apparel and carrying off my fashion magazines to her bedroom for secret perusal. For the first time in her life she is using cold cream. And the end seems to justify the means, for her skin is now like apple blossoms. Rodin, I feel sure, would have carried that woman across America on his back, once to have got ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... "having come to New York a stranger some years ago, and finding the state in possession of two rich families," &c. What absurdity! But, shrinking from these disgusting and revolting exposures, the reader, it is believed, will cheerfully turn to the perusal of those letters which again presents to his view Colonel Burr in the domestic and social scenes ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... and declared that it could throw little if any light upon the matter which the earlier writers had endeavoured to illuminate as the central point in their system. We took it for granted that more light must be being thrown instead of less; and reading in perfect good faith, we rose from our perusal with the impression that Mr. Darwin was advocating the descent of all existing forms of life from a single, or from, at any rate, a very few primordial types; that no one else had done this hitherto, or that, if they had, they had got the whole subject into a ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... drawn up and sent out by Robert Daniel, for the better government of the colony. But when the governor laid these new laws before the assembly for their assent and approbation, recommending the careful perusal and consideration of them, they treated them as they had done the former constitutions, and, instead of taking them under deliberation, modestly laid ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... The instructor ought from time to time to tell his class something about the books he suggests, and about their authors and their careers, viewpoints and merits, as a reader always profits by knowing these things. As the reading of snatches from collateral books is hardly profitable, so the perusal of longer histories is often impossible, and generally confines the student for a long time to the minutiae of one period while the class is going forward. In view of these difficulties there is much ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... O'Connor, on one of those occasions, "here is a book which I recommend to your perusal; it is called 'The Afflicted Man's Companion;' try if you cannot glean some ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... the domestic habits and personal appearance and practices of the primitive Christians." Lami was a very learned and sincere Christian, and of course his testimony cannot be objected to, and the reader will find, on a perusal of his work, that what I have asserted in the 17th and 18th chapters is altogether true, and not the whole truth neither. Indeed, that the statements in those chapters, as to the effects of the peculiar maxims of the New Testament upon the heart and understanding, ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... rhythms; prose is memorable speech set down without constraint of metre and in rhythms both lax and various—so lax, so various, that until quite recently no real attempt has been made to reduce them to rule. I doubt, for my part, if they can ever be reduced to rule; and after a perusal of Professor Saintsbury's latest work, "A History of English Prose Rhythm," I am left doubting. I commend this book to you as one that clears up large patches of forest. No one has yet so well explained what our prose writers, generation ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... extremities. Accordingly there was little real surprise when on the 7th May Japan filed an ultimatum demanding a satisfactory reply within 48 hours to her Revised Demands—failing which those steps deemed necessary would be taken. A perusal of the text of the Ultimatum will show an interesting change in the language employed. Coaxing having failed, and Japan being now convinced that so long as she did not seek to annex the rights of other Foreign Powers in China ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... A critical perusal of the valuable documents, placed of late years in the archives of the Dominion, clearly proves that it was a fortunate day for Canada when so resolute a soldier and far-sighted administrator as General Haldimand was in charge of the civil and ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... more attractive at the second perusal. Lilian's heart beat with unwonted emotion. Mrs. Boyd leaned back in her chair, paler than ever but not ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... of this note, "the entertaining" Mr. Frederick, and the "charming" Miss Marianne laughed heartily, and looked at Sophy, as if they were afraid that she should think it possible they could like such gross flattery; but upon a second perusal, Marianne observed that it certainly was very good-natured of Mrs. Theresa to remember the macaroons; and Frederick allowed that it was wrong to laugh at the poor woman because she had the headache. Then twisting the note in his fingers, he ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... others; and he could recall how, on his having heard that owing to an error it had happened to the great so-and-so, he, in his quality of philosopher, had instantly decided what frame of mind the great so-and-so ought to have assumed for the perusal of his biography. He carefully and deliberately adopted that frame of mind now. He thought of Marcus Aurelius on the futility of fame; he remembered his life-long attitude of gentle, tired scorn for the press; he reflected with wise modesty that in art nothing counts ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... confirm which particulars, because they will probably seem strange to you, I will here annex the Transcript of an entry, that I find in a Note book of the Phaenomena and success of one of those Experiments, as I then tryed it; though I should be asham'd to expose to your perusal a thing so rudely pen'd; if I did not hope, you would consider, that 'twas hastily written onely for my own Remembrance. And that you may not stop at any thing in the immediately annext Note, or the two, that follow, it will be requisite to premise this Account of the seal'd ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... but by a quotation made by Lavengro from the life of Mary Flanders, cut-purse and prostitute, which life Lavengro had been in the habit of reading at the stall of his old friend the apple-woman, on London Bridge, who had herself been very much addicted to the perusal of it, though without any profit whatever. Should the reader be dissatisfied with the manner in which Peter Williams is made to find relief, the author would wish to answer, that the Almighty frequently accomplishes His purposes ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... public eye, we offer the only apology for the imperfections of the work, which, in our judgment, the circumstances of the case demand. If this explanation shall not cause the critic to throw the work aside, we would welcome him to whatever pleasure he may find in its perusal. Of the defects which it contains, we prefer to share jointly the responsibility; and have, therefore, omitted to attach signatures to the several articles. The shorter paragraphs, scattered through the work, embody ideas from several contributions ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston

... being the first expedition against a place, the whole of which was undertaken and planned by himself, has been thought worthy of very particular attention. That the plan was not defective in wisdom, the reader has had an opportunity of sufficiently judging, by a perusal of the various preliminary documents actually issued on the occasion. The undertaking could only be expected to prove with certainty successful, by a secret and rapid coup de main, which should suddenly have obtained possession, in the first place, of the fort on the north-east side of the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... favourite author, as above recited, took up the book again in the excess of his admiration and was composing himself for a further perusal of its sublime morality, when he was disturbed by a noise at the outer door; occasioned as it seemed by the endeavours of his servant to obstruct the entrance of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... caused some retardation in the progress of 'William Tell', but on February 18, 1804, it was completed, and two days later the final installment was despatched to the waiting Iffland. How eagerly he was waiting may be inferred from the language used by him after perusal of the first act, which had been sent ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... gone to her letters, and found it all as she supposed; and the re-perusal of these letters, after so long an interval, her poor son gone for ever, and all the strength of his faults forgotten, had affected her spirits exceedingly, and thrown her into greater grief for him than she had ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Hounds." Notwithstanding a decidedly horsey and somewhat vulgar tone,—a tone which by the way certainly did not characterize Mr. Surtees himself,—they possess a certain original humour, which will render their perusal productive of amusement. He died suddenly on the 16th of March, 1864, in ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... border might be conceived from a perusal of the late Lord Castlereagh's speeches! We should here have Parliamentary eloquence under a most fantastic yet captivating phase. Who, for instance, but the artist to PUNCH could paint CASTLEREAGH'S figure of a smug, contented, selfish traitor, the "crocodile with his hand in his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... to borrow some of the Author's wit, 'tis possible I might so trim this curious work with such quaint expressions, as that the Preface might bespeak thy further Perusal; but I fear 'twill be a shame for a Man that can speak so little, to be seen in the title-page of this Woman's Book, lest by comparing the one with the other, the Reader should pass his sentence that it is ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... in the attitude of mind with which Huxley regarded the doctrine of 'uniformitarianism.' He assures us 'I owe more than I can tell to the careful study of the Principles of Geology[18],' and again 'Lyell was for others as for me the chief agent in smoothing the road for Darwin[19].' From the perusal of the letters of Lyell, published in 1881, Huxley learned that the author of the Principles of Geology had, at a very early date, been convinced that evolution was true of the organic as well as of the inorganic world—though ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd

... church with her in her pocket, while on one occasion he was obliged to bury it in the ground to preserve it from the insidious foe. These facts, in themselves startling, appear yet more extraordinary on perusal of the volume, in which there seems to be nothing of perilous value. Nevertheless, to the ill-regulated imagination of the Rebels, this novel might have appeared a very dangerous thing, to be kept from ever seeing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run thence-forward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if it ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the plans against her; no idea whatever that people might be using her as a tool—that there was any interest contrary to her own, in the conduct or management of others. But yet she turned the key in the door before she commenced the perusal of the letter, which was ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... never liked to confine himself at home for many hours together. And so it happened that my brother William was obliged to make trial of my abilities in copying for him catalogues, tables, &c, and sometimes whole papers which were lent [to] him for his perusal. Among them was one by Mr. Michel, and a catalogue of Christian Mayer in Latin, which kept me employed when my brother was at the telescope at night. When I found that a hand was sometimes wanted when any particular measures were to be made with the lamp micrometer, or a fire to be kept ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous

... unworthy of such dignity is too delicately cultivated, too richly bound, that a poor dilettantism comes in between the reader and what he reads. Indeed, the best of volumes may, in my estimation, be destroyed as a possession by a binding so sumptuous that no fingers dare to open it for perusal. To the feudal splendours of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, a tenpenny book in a ten-pound binding, I say fie. Perhaps the ideal library, after all, is a small one, where the books are carefully selected and thoughtfully arranged in accordance ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... not hurling my spears against the devils that possess poor man. My principal daily task was to read the newspapers with a microscopic eye, to glean from them every hint of news to come and to be covered, to present the clippings to Mr. Hanks ready for his easy perusal, and though in our province we had to do only with events of a local character, the life of the city was so interwoven with that of the whole world that to me our desk seemed a high lookout tower from which we kept an eye on the very corners of the globe. Did I look from the smutted window at my ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... schoolboy will find keen enjoyment in the perusal of 'Fighting the Flames,' and assure his little sisters with suitable emphasis that Mr. Ballantyne is 'a stunning ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... translation is something to be glad of: it lends itself kindly to perusal, and it presents Goethe's charming poem in the metre of the original.... It is not a poem which could be profitably used in an argument for the enlargement of the sphere of woman: it teaches her subjection, indeed, from the lips of a beautiful ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott

... forth in gay and gaudy attire, with glittering helmet and cuirass, and entered the lists, and bravely fought for his fair lady's fame. She spoke with fervid eloquence, and with a glibness that betrayed a very recent perusal of the tournament-scene in Ivanhoe. I was about to reply, and say something in behalf of modern chivalry; but just then a gentleman claimed her hand for a quadrille that was forming, and my ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... judgment which has in England, and I believe in America, assigned that proud place to his friend and predecessor at Harvard College, H. W. Longfellow. To any reader who has not met with Lowell's Poems, and who may be induced to read them after a perusal of the present volume, I should recommend "The Vision of Sir Launfal," "A Parable," "Stanzas on Freedom," "The Present Crisis," and "Hunger and Cold," as specially fit to be read in connexion with the "Biglow Papers." It is only by looking at all sides of a man of this mould that you can get a notion ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... you guys not to be taking up the company's time with them novels?" he demanded. He sternly returned to his big chair behind the railing, where he no less sternly took up his own perusal of the confiscated tale. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... number of brown-looking old books, which had not been touched for many a long day. Amongst them were Rollin's Ancient History, some of Swift's Works with pages torn out, doubtless those which some impatiently clean creature had justly considered too filthy for perusal. There were also Paul and Virginia, Dryden's Virgil, Robinson Crusoe, and above all a Shakespeare. Miriam had never been much of a reader; but now, having nothing better to do, she looked into these ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... letter which lay snugly ensconced in his left-hand waistcoat pocket, a letter which had come by the same mail as that which his wife held in her hand, but which he had not thought fit to submit to her perusal. It was a letter thanking him for giving her the liberty of asking for anything she wished for—her choice had been that she might be allowed to remain at her uncle's house during the stay of the family ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... found to exist with human nature; except a few, who are described as the devotees to particular fashions; and such will always be found while vanity, luxury, and dissipation, exist in society. Therefore, from this universality of character, his Lecture will ever be worthy the perusal of every person who would wish to avoid being contemptible or ridiculous: for {111}there is no person but may be liable to some vice or folly, which he will find exposed by this masterly, ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... second, no facilities existed in the city for operations of a nautical character; and, lastly, my Christmas money amounted only to five dollars. It was my father who pointed out these and other objections. For, after a careful perusal of the price lists I had sent for, I had been forced to appeal to him to supply additional funds with which to purchase a row-boat. Incidentally, he read me a lecture on extravagance, referred to my last month's report at the Academy, and finished by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the great College of St. Etienne in Jerusalem, founded by the Dominicans expressly for the study of the Scriptures, carries on a never ending and widely extended perusal of the subject. Parties of students are taken over the Holy Places to study the inscriptions and evidences of Christianity, and the most learned and brilliant members of the Order are engaged in research and study that fits them to combat the errors of the Higher Criticism. Their work, which ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis

... rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself for more comfortable perusal of the copy of Home Whispers which he had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm being too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested in the series ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... over by Gibbon before he was well in his teens. "My indiscriminate appetite subsided by degrees into the historic line, and since philosophy has exploded all innate ideas and natural propensities, I must ascribe the choice to the assiduous perusal of the Universal History as the octavo volumes successively appeared. This unequal work referred and introduced me to the Greek and Roman historians, to as many at least as were accessible to an ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... eighteenth year. He afterwards read a number of theological works, from his employer's collection of books; and among others of a speculative cast, "Burnet's Theory of the Conflagration of the Earth," the perusal of which, he has recorded, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... kingdom where taxgatherers, tithe-proctors, and aristocrats, still exist. Perhaps, there is nothing more calculated to make an Englishman tolerably satisfied with the state of things in his own country than the occasional perusal of the newspapers of lands so "highly favoured" in the way of "taxation" or "liberal institutions," as the Australian colonies and the United States of America. The christian patriot looks down with pity upon the strife of tongues and the turmoil of party-spirit which Satan contrives to raise ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... the reader, of the sermons in question. For the kindly reception of the scriptural truths enforced by Paley, there must be nothing ascetic, nothing morose, nothing self-willed and intolerant, in the mind of him who sets himself in right earnest to the task of their perusal. In like manner, all highly wrought, impassioned, and uncontrollable emotions, which carry the infatuated understanding into a wide and wild sea of doubt and distraction, must be absent from the reader. It cannot be dissembled that, when read with a proper spirit, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various

... A critical perusal of the terms of this shrewd contract will readily convince even a layman that it was perfectly legal. Bob hurled mental defiance at every legal light in the country to prove collusion and conspiracy to defraud under that contract. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... retirement of your lordship, I wish I could bring a better entertainment than this play; which, though it succeeded on the stage, will scarcely bear a serious perusal; it being contrived and written in a month, the subject barren, the persons low, and the writing not heightened with many laboured scenes. The consideration of these defects ought to have prescribed more modesty to the author, than to have presented it to that ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... repository of the papers, relative to the estates, where she found them as described; and, since she knew of no better place of concealment, than this, returned them, without examining their contents, being fearful of discovery, while she should attempt a perusal. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... regiment, no doubt attached to the Staff, and when, after rubbing his eyes, he at length opened the window, I apologized perfunctorily for having disturbed him, adding that I was acting on Captain Laycock's suggestion in coming there. In my heart I hoped he would leave me to the undisturbed perusal of the literature which I saw on a large centre table. He showed, however, no signs of taking his departure, and made himself so agreeable that I was perforce obliged to continue the conversation he commenced. I told him ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... the new Rajah entered upon his duties can be best understood by a perusal of his familiar letters. He writes to his mother: "Do not start when I say that I am going to settle in Borneo, that I am about to endeavor to plant there a mixed colony amid a wild but not unvirtuous race, and to become the pioneer of European ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... derives its importance from its being adopted by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, and its bearing the imprimatur of that institution. It is commended by their catalogue as "well worthy of perusal by those who have doubts as to the scriptural character of those doctrines which ignorance and prejudice brand as the horrible dogmas of Calvinism.'" ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... on with most profound attention: Dire woes stand forth in gloomy vividness! Ah! would'st thou shrink from some vague apprehension That the perusal might cause thee distress? ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... the obscurity compatible with her rank and expectations. To literature, the never failing resource of its votaries, she turned again for solace and occupation; and claiming the assistance which Ascham was proud and happy to afford her, she resumed the diligent perusal of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... to imagine, but I cannot describe the effect produced upon my mind by the perusal of this letter. I felt stupefied and bewildered. How I reached my home I could never tell. I entered the house just as my father and mother were sitting down to their noon-day meal. As soon as my mother caught sight of me she enquired of me what was the matter? I suppose the agony of my mind ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... After all, it's not expensive. There's no doubt about it," he murmured, returning to his perusal, "that fellow does look popular. Of course, the evening dress may have something ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... I did promise my kind Cousin Oliver (whom I pray God to have always in his keeping), when I parted with him nigh unto three months ago, at mine Uncle Grindall's, that, on coming to this new country, I would, for his sake and perusal, keep a little journal of whatsoever did happen both unto myself and unto those with whom I might sojourn; as also, some account of the country and its marvels, and mine own cogitations thereon. So I this day make a beginning of the same; albeit, as my cousin well knoweth, not from ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... interest than its human occupants. There were two. Both were clad in the thick, warmth-giving garments characteristic of the north. One stood behind the counter leaning over an account book of considerable proportions and was absorbed in its perusal. The other was seated with his feet resting on the steel rail of the stove, basking in its warmth. His back was to the lamp and the cotton-covered window, and he was gazing in the direction of the man at the counter through a haze of smoke from his pipe. He was lounging ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... those who would know what manner of man this Stonewall Jackson was, and why he was so universally revered, so beloved, so trusted by his men, I can cordially recommend Colonel Henderson's delightful volumes. From their perusal I have derived real pleasure and sound instruction. They have taught me much; they have made me think still more; and I hope they may do the same for many others in the British Army. They are worth the closest study, for few military writers ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... popularity of these long, didactic works, it must not be forgotten that the people of that day were almost entirely without books. A single volume was the treasure of a whole household. In unfavorable weather it was read to a circle around the fire, and when it was finished the perusal was again commenced. No comparison with other books enabled men to form a judgment upon its merits. It was reverenced like holy writ, and they accounted themselves happy in being ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... written amid camp scenes and on the march,' says our author, 'under circumstances unfavorable to literary composition, and were intended for private perusal alone. Portions of them appeared in the Providence Journal, and were received with a favor alike unexpected and gratifying. Numerous requests having been made that they should be gathered up as a Rhode Island contribution to the history of the War of the Rebellion, the author, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... deterring one young man from the commission of a deed, which the repentance of years will not obliterate, I shall feel that I have not labored in vain. As a true story of detective experience, the actors in which are still living, I give this volume to the world, trusting that its perusal may not fail in its object of interesting and instructing the few or many who ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... of this time have recently been revived by the perusal of a remarkable document,[9] signed by as many as thirty-eight out of the twenty odd thousand clergymen of the Established Church. It does not appear that the signataries are officially accredited spokesmen of the ecclesiastical corporation to which ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... unchallenged felicity. I couldn't at all gloriously recall, for instance, as I floated to Subiaco on vast brave wings, how on the occasion of my first visit to Rome, thirty-eight years before, I had devoted certain evenings, evenings of artless "preparation" in my room at the inn, to the perusal of Alphonse Dantier's admirable Monasteres Benedictins d'ltalie, taking piously for granted that I should get myself somehow conveyed to Monte Cassino and to Subiaco at least: such an affront to the passion ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... and urge him to perseverance in any honourable course of employment. The father's letter at this time to his son, to apprize him of the true position of the family, and preserve him against the dangers in his path, is honourable to both, and worthy of perusal. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... him with an indescribable interest in his progress, I had the satisfaction to find, that, after a few mornings given to promiscuous correction, and to frequent perusal of the above-mentioned Notes, he was evidently settling on the sixteenth Book. This he went regularly through, and the fruits of an application so happily resumed were, one day with another, about sixty new lines. But with the end of the sixteenth Book he had closed the corrections ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... which Jo proposed to indulge was of a peculiar kind which never failed him—it was the perusal of ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... in an unillustrated volume of travel of, let us say, six engraved plates depicting scenes mentioned in the text, adds a charm to the volume and enhances both its appearance and the pleasure of its perusal. Similarly the addition of an authentic portrait to a biography certainly lends an added interest, whilst the addition of a map is often of the greatest assistance to the reader. But that books should be mutilated, torn apart, and stuffed with play-bills, lottery-tickets, ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... nature for the life of the cloister, the home of learning and contemplation in those days, wherein alone were libraries to be found, and peaceful hours to devote to their perusal. He learned his lessons with such avidity as to surprise and delight his teacher, his leisure hours were spent in the library of the castle—for Kenilworth had a library of manuscripts under Simon de Montfort—a long low room on an upper floor, one end of which was boarded off ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... the increasing dependence of his client on the fair hypnotist, and the growing interest that she seemed to feel in him, and therefore showed some coolness toward the proposal to take her to Bellevale. The eyes inured to the perusal of dusty commentaries and reports were still sharp enough to see the mutual tenderness exchanged in the unwavering, eye-to-eye encounters whereby Amidon was converted into Brassfield, and to note the softness of the feline strokings by which Florian's catalepsy was induced ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... both the brothers, and write down their answers, the perusal of which will be a liberal education for our boys at home. Among other things, they say that whenever——But here is ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... may be thrown on this subject by a perusal of Mr. W. H. Dawson's book entitled "The German Workman," although conditions are evidently vastly different in this country and England from ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb

... this—evidently the preferable mode of learning, for a | | delicate and sensitive woman. Plain and intelligible, but | | without offense to the most fastidious taste, the style of | | this book must commend it to careful perusal. It treats of | | the needs, dangers, and alleviations of the time of travail; | | and gives extended detailed instructions for the care and | | medical treatment of infants and children throughout all the | | perils of early life. | | | | As a Mother's Manual, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various

... open, and felt dimly the force of the diction that no man can serve two masters; and, with a view to saving himself worry, dismissed the matter from his mind until some weeks afterwards it was forcibly revived by the perusal of a newspaper which the engineer had brought on board. Without giving himself time for due reflection, he ran up on deck and ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... Expurgatorius for Catholic countries is still freshly filled every year. And in Protestant countries a more subtle and a more effectual influence prevents, on the part of the majority, the candid perusal of all theological discussions which are not pitched in the orthodox key. Certain dogmas are the absorbed thought of the sects which defend them: no fresh and independent thinking is to be expected on those subjects, no matter how purely fictitious these secretions ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... been amusing themselves with a perusal of the hotel register, and the notes of admiration or disgust with which the different sojourners at the inn had filled it. As a rule, the English people found fault with the poor little hostelry and the French people ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... not get it, and played it again. The third time she interrupted Wolf's slow and patient perusal of the Scientific American to announce that she was now going to play it to see if he was in love with ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... in store. His cup brimmed at the discovery that in the cherub also he had cherished a viper. His mortification was too keen for the perusal of more than an occasional phrase: "Art's New Patron"—"The Champion of Canals couches a lance against the tariff on art"—"his naive canons of criticism"—"judges a picture by its area of canvas—the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... ever died of a sluggish liver or of any one of the other ills that beset sedentary, peace-loving people. Nations were like men—too much ease made them flabby. And Blaze had his own ideas of strategy, too. So during the perusal of his paper he bemoaned the mistakes his government was making. Why waste time with ultimatums? he argued to himself. He had never done so. Experience had taught him that the way to win a battle was to beat the other fellow to the draw; hence this diplomatic procrastination ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... sensitive place and fail. Delicacy shrank from seeing him compelled either to amplify a deception or blunder out a confession—he was too easy a prey; and, after all, the matter was of small moment. I returned the book to the shelf, the only definite result of its perusal being to recall my promise to keep a diary myself, and I then and there dedicated ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... Sir Reginald," exclaimed Madame De La Motte, breaking off the conversation in which she was engaged with Harry, and looking up briskly. "Surely la pauvre France has produced some pure and religious writers, and many works on science worthy of perusal." ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... THE "ATLANTIC MONTHLY."—The following graceful and picturesque description of the new condition of things on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, originally written for private perusal, seems to me worthy of a place in the "Atlantic." Its young author—herself akin to the long-suffering race whose Exodus she so pleasantly describes—is still engaged in her labor of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... A perusal of the communications contained in this paper lead to the impression that their writer accepts many of the theories advanced by Brasseur de Bourbourg, that he is a believer in the interpretations of Landa, and that he thinks he has been able to establish a system which enables ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... he had at that time read. When thirteen years of age he was induced to begin the study of civil and canonical law; but the attempt only served to disgust him with every species of application and to increase his relish for the perusal of French romances. By the death of his uncle, who had hitherto taken some charge of his education and conduct, he was left, at the age of fourteen, to enjoy without control his vast paternal inheritance, augmented by the recent accession of his uncle's fortune. He now ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... child until morning, while Wyvis Brand was frantically pacing up and down his old hall for the greater part of the night, and Janetta was wetting her pillow with silent tears, and Philip Ashley, sleepless like these others, vainly tried to forget his disappointment in the perusal of certain blue-books. Margaret was the cause of all this turmoil of mind, but she knew nothing of it, and most certainly did not partake ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... instincts of achievement, of enterprise, of invention, of command, who depend upon themselves, who shift for themselves, and believe in self-help rather than in querulous complaint. The Newry folk belong to Ulster, where as a whole the people can take care of themselves. A careful perusal of the addresses presented to Lord Houghton on his current Viceregal tour accentuates the difference in the Irish breeds. The aborigines all want to know what is going to be done for them. We want a pier, we want a quay, we want a garrison or a gunboat to spend some money in the district. Will ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... physical purity at least was holiness. Everything that could in any way soil the body or clothing was looked upon with abhorrence and detestation."[CE] The number of specifications given in this connection is worthy of careful perusal. But it is a strange nemesis of history that the sense of physical pollution should develop a religious rite fitted to become the very means for the dissemination of physical ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... direction at Edinburgh, in the country, it may be well imagined, they were less so. A respectable subscription library, a circulating library of ancient standing, and some private book-shelves, were open to my random perusal, and I waded into the stream like a blind man into a ford, without the power of searching my way, unless by groping for it. My appetite for books was as ample and indiscriminating as it was indefatigable, and I since have had ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... inculcation will become an object of particular inquiry and solicitude. The English language ought to be learned at school or in colleges, as other languages usually are; by the study of its grammar, accompanied with regular exercises of parsing, correcting, pointing, and scanning; and by the perusal of some of its most accurate writers, accompanied with stated exercises in composition and elocution. In books of criticism, our language is already more abundant than any other. Some of the best of these the student should peruse, as soon as he can understand and relish them. Such ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown



Words linked to "Perusal" :   perusing, poring over, reading, studying, peruse



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