The poet's reaction was a brilliant essay titled Zmowa eunuchów ("Conspiracy of the Eunuchs") (1936).
"Aren't you the boy," said Commander Merton, "who wrote the brilliant essay on the Frictionless Bearing?"
The first and last chapters are really self-contained essays, often brilliant, sometimes arguable, illuminating the John Wayne phenomenon from every imaginable angle.
Like Le Corbusier, Koolhaas has the double-barreled power to write brilliant, provocative essays and to design surprising and satisfying spaces.
Instead, we have this vastly more valuable book, "River of Shadows," a brilliant essay on Muybridge and all he begat.
Johnson's brilliant personal essay rivals the opening image of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and might have the same impact on society.
The authors of the Buildings of England series describe the church as "a brilliant essay".
I am writing this, literally, six minutes after reading Daphne Merkin's brilliant essay on the pending marriage of Charles and Camilla.
But although the cult of the auteur has been widely attacked - not least by Gore Vidal in a brilliant essay called Who Wrote the Movies?
He was known for his spirited participation at meetings and occasionally brilliant essays.