Word: proof
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...influence exerted upon society by the silent man is irresistible; his very silence is a proof of wisdom. But let him break through his reserve, and his doom is sealed; henceforth he has lost his dignified-exaltation, and become one of the mobile vulgus. There is deeply implanted in the human heart a feeling that to speak, to write, is a sign of weakness, of lack of self-reliance. It shows that one's own approbation is not sufficient unless that of others be superadded. And there is a dim belief that the speaker, as Socrates says, is moved...
...this, and when we have duly pondered, go on with the author, glowing like him with real pride at the thought, "To have placed itself at the historic headship of the race that cut off all pre-historic races, and crushed out of being all synchronic races, is certainly proof of no mean power, worthy almost scientific recognition." May we be pardoned for presuming to hint that in this very instance it has obtained recognition by the "almost scientific." But this is not all. On such a colossal scale was it that "it fused facts back and down into...
...almost with regret that we take up a burlesque of that delight of our school-days, Sandford and Merton; but, since the author of the new history has already given us proof of his humor in Happy Thoughts and other books, we look for amusement, if not instruction, and are not disappointed. The book opens very funnily with a description of the "hilarious" son of the farmer, and of the young Jamaica nabob. Of course the omniscient Mr. Barlow falls an easy prey to the author's talent for ridicule, and becomes in farce what Mr. Pecksniff is in comedy...