Brevitic

If the life of some animals is short, so is their office small. The frame of a living thing seems proportional in duration, elegance, and strength, to the object of its life. The more perfect, according to our notions, the mechanism of a creature, the more important seems its operations. Some live but one summer ; some only a day ; many are born, grow old, and die, all in the space of an hour. Still how important, in the whole, may these brevitic existences be !

1931: Francis W. Chapman, Great Pyramid of Ghizeh from the Aspect of Symbolism and Religion, reprint edition (1997 September 1), page 139 (Kessinger Publishing Co; →ISBN And, indeed, we must believe that Cheops, often anciently called “ the glorious,” in a graphic but wordless suggestiveness aims to convey this ; and as Paul did convey until his word “ eirene,” no doubt for euphonic and brevitic advantage, was inadequately translated in its present abbreviated form.