"Prolix" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... illustration, I would say, that we should proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear or Othello, but from Richard the Second, or the three parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapidity in an historical drama; and many prolix speeches are pardoned from characters, whose names and actions have formed the most amusing tales of our early life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays more individual beauties, more passages the excellence of which will bear reflection than in the former ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... Chicago, including those on the Pacific coast. Houses publishing competitive lines and non-copyright books have other methods and machinery for distribution. I speak only for the copyright salesman, and not to be too prolix, take only the copyright novel as an ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... committees. Not once, but twice a week does this society meet, and when the full moon is propitious for a clear journey home through the morasses, the debates are often unduly prolonged and the chairman's summing-up luxuriantly prolix. How many politicians of note in London have been raked fore and aft in that little schoolroom! What measures and enactments, plausible to the unthinking metropolitans, have been cut and slashed there, while the conscious ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... reason"—replied the Vicar General—"had the wise man in the Old Testament, when he said: 'The fool is easily taken in his speech.' I had firmly declared I would not dispute." This beginning, certainly unexpected by the majority of the audience, was followed by a prolix homily on the origin of heresies; the battles of the Pope and Christendom against them; words of Roman historians on the value of unity; the rareness of the gift of interpreting languages, of which he himself could not boast; in short, every thing but that which was demanded. Yet even here Zwingli ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... Banims in literature is to be estimated from the merits of the O'Hara Tales; their later works, though of considerable ability, are sometimes prolix and are marked by too evident an imitation of the Waverley Novels. The Tales, however, are masterpieces of faithful delineation. The strong passions, the lights and shadows of Irish peasant character, have rarely been so ably and truly depicted. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... investigations. When it is added that Raspe during this part of his life also wrote papers on lithography and upon musical instruments, and translated Algarotti's Treatise on "Architecture, Painting, and Opera Music," enough will have been said to make manifest his very remarkable and somewhat prolix versatility. In 1773 he made a tour in Westphalia in quest of MSS., and on his return, by way of completing his education, he turned journalist, and commenced a periodical called the Cassel Spectator, with Mauvillon as his co-editor. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... great stress on the degree and manner in which this element enters into the composition of the New Testament; that ethical truths are there expressed in every variety of form which can fix them upon the imagination and the heart, with an entire absence of those prolix discussions and metaphysical refinements which form so large a portion of Aristotle and Plato. If we find in these writers a moral truth expressed with something approaching the comprehensive beauty and simplicity of ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... take sides for or against the novel-with-a-purpose, but that Richardson justified his fiction writing upon moral grounds and upon those alone is shown in the descriptive title-page of the tale, too prolix to be often recalled and a good sample in its long-windedness of the past compared with the terse brevity of the present in this matter: "Published in order to cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the mind of youth ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... father of the celebrated Sir John Moore, published Zeluco. Various views of Human Nature, taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic, in 1789. Zeluco was an unmitigated scoundrel, who led an adventurous life; but the prolix narrative of his villanies does not recall Childe Harold. There is, perhaps, some resemblance between Zeluco's unbridled childhood and youth, due to the indulgence of a doting mother, and Byron's early emancipation from ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... prolix description of a battle almost identical with those already given in Chapter II. of this Book and previously. It ends with the rout of Argon's army, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... islands of Japon they have another factory, from which they procure supplies and military stores, and which is of much importance to them. Of the other islands of this archipelago no mention is made, to avoid being prolix, although there are a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... another nuisance. They generally consist of choicely turned disclosures to the confidants, delivered in a happy moment of leisure. That very public whose impatience keeps the poets and players under such strict discipline, has, however, patience enough to listen to the prolix unfolding of what ought to be sensibly developed before their eyes. It is allowed that an exposition is seldom unexceptionable; that in their speeches the persons generally begin farther back than they naturally ought, and that they tell ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... was published, in three volumes quarto, by Thomas Ledyard, who had accompanied him in many of his later travels, and had been the spectator of some of the last of his military exploits. This is a work of much higher authority, and contains much valuable information; but it is prolix, long-winded, and diffuse, filled with immaterial documents, and written throughout in a tone of inflated panegyric. III. Another life of Marlborough, written with more ability, appeared at Paris ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... catch the faint sound of far distant waterfalls, or the whole scene around him would imprint itself with new force upon his perceptions.—Read the sonnet, if you please;—it is Wordsworth all over,—trivial in subject, solemn in style, vivid in description, prolix in detail, true metaphysically, but immensely suggestive of "imagination," to use a mild term, when related as an actual fact of a sprightly youngster. All I want of it is to enforce the principle, that, when the door of the soul is once opened to a guest, there is no knowing who ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... other six Hells are personified as feminine; and (woman-like) they are somewhat addicted to prolix speechification. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Mexico, written by various authors, under the patronage of the Government. It is a valuable book of reference, but somewhat prolix, and the type is small and the volume unwieldy. After the manner of books issued in Spanish-American countries, too much space is taken up with adulations of public men. There are no less than four full-page portraits ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... are less well known to us than that of Egypt; the insufficiency of our knowledge of the political and social organization of the two kingdoms is to be explained by the same reasons. The inscriptions, prolix enough on some subjects, hardly touch on others that would be much more interesting, and, moreover, their interpretation is full of difficulty. The Greek travellers knew nothing of Nineveh, while their visits to Babylon were paid in its years of decadence. They seem to have been chiefly struck ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... outline, which presents in a book of about 300 pages the main facts of our national history, and a very fair and judicial presentment it is, too. While the general reader will find it of interest, it has been prepared more particularly for the young, who are easily wearied by the prolix details which encumber so many of the histories prepared for them. Mrs. Parmele very truly remarks that the child, bewildered in a labyrinth of unfamiliar names and events, fails to grasp the main lines and soon dislikes history, simply because he has been studying, not with a thinking mind, but ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 16, February 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... that an obscure and prolix author may not improperly be compared to a Cuttle-fish, since he may be said to hide himself under his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... re-entered the hall and the sitting was resumed. The jurors were required to give reasons for their verdict, and each spoke in turn facing the empty chair. Some were prolix, others confined themselves to a sentence; one ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... of seeming prolix, I must say a few more words on this matter. I have special reasons for it. Until I can get you to "let your thoughts play freely" round this question of the superposition of soils and rocks, there will be no use in my going on with ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... What you say is right—perfectly right. You speak as a Christian should, and I honour you for it; but go on," replied Captain Poynder, who was evidently anxious to arrive at the conclusion of the master's somewhat prolix narrative. ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to have been dozing a whole night when the clocks struck six. As there was full an hour and a half between me and daylight, I dozed again; now, waking up uneasily, with prolix conversations about nothing, in my ears; now, making thunder of the wind in the chimney; at length, falling off into a profound sleep from which the daylight woke ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... controversy in connection with them. He explained those almost indefinable terms which had been so variously employed by the schoolmen, and summed up the literature on the points in question. His style was prolix but his conclusions carried great weight with them. As a specimen of his tedious method, he begins his discussion of original sin with the questions, "Is there such a thing as original sin? Then, what ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... interest in this visit of the departed guid-man, and, having touched a chord which was extremely sensitive and not easily put to rest after having been made to vibrate, old Mrs Cameron entertained her with a sweet and prolix account of the last illness, death, and burial of the said guid-man, with the tears swelling up in her bright old eyes and hopping over her wrinkled cheeks, until Flora forbade her to say another word, reminding her of the doctor's orders ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... will have remarked that in our recent correspondence I have, with a definite purpose, endeavoured to impart to you such a general knowledge of our business as was practicable, without being too prolix. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... notes contained in memorandums P. and R. The first volume of this work is intended as introductory, and contains the best recital of the political history of the colonies which I have read. The other four volumes embrace a wide mass of facts, but are rather diffuse and prolix, considered as biography, A good life of Washington, which shall comprise within a small compass all his prominent public and private acts, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... interest, to the chronicles of all the village families, robustly and unimaginatively told by the parson's wife; meanwhile I, tortured by intolerable ennui, pumped up questions, tried a hundred subjects with my worthy host. He told me long and prolix stories, he discoursed on rural needs. At last I said that we must be going; he replied with genuine disappointment that the night was still young, and that it was a pity to break up our pleasant confabulation. I saw with a shock of wonder that he had evidently been enjoying himself ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Eusden from any worse fault, as a writer, than being too prolix and too prolific.—See Note to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... prevailed at St. Gall and Schaffhausen. The Junker, in the latter place, rendered themselves especially ridiculous by the innumerable offices and chambers in which they transacted their useless and prolix affairs. In all these aristocratic cantons, the peasantry were cruelly harassed, oppressed, and, in some parts, kept in servitude, by the provincial governors. The wealthy provincial governments were monopolized by the great aristocratic ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Somervilles," written by James, eleventh Lord Somerville, who died in 1690, which was printed for private distribution, and edited by Sir Walter Scott, and gives ample details of all the branches of our family. Although infinitely too prolix for our nineteenth century ideas, it contains many curious anecdotes and pictures ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... receive any other impression from the contents than of their excessive tedium; certainly if she formed therefrom any opinion regarding his favorite party, it was most probably the not very flattering one that its members were all especially tiresome and prolix. ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... Difference between the ancient and modern Cacklogallinians. The former, tho' tenacious of their Liberty, were remarkable for their Loyalty; and each thought it his peculiar Interest zealously to promote that of the Publick. But not to be prolix in the Character of the old Cacklogallinians, I shall give it in few Words. They were what the English now are, Wise, Modest, Brave, Human, Loyal, Publick-spirited, capable of governing their own, and conquering ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... so weak," he once said, "and my brain is so easily tired out that I am forced to read a great deal to recreate myself. That's why you see me reading so much." The book in which he was at the moment seeking recreation was a ponderous work on metaphysics by a prolix Scotchman, treating in many dreary chapters of such amusing topics as the unity of the act of perception with the object perceived! As may be supposed of such a man, whose illness forbade action and whose interior trials made contemplation an agony, he chafed sometimes at his enforced ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... was the first who dared to cross the threshold of the church, which he did, however, not for his own benefit, but to do honor to the memory of Leo I. The inscription in which he describes the event is too prolix to be given here. It tells us that the grave of Leo the Great was in the vestibule below the sacristy. There he lay "like the keeper of the temple, like a shepherd watching his flock." But other graves had crowded the place so that it was almost impossible to single them out, and read their epitaphs. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... me as childishly garrulous, stupidly prolix, swollen with comments not interesting in themselves and leading to nothing. Mr. Hardy possesses the power of being able to shape events; he can mould them to a certain form; that he cannot breathe into them the spirit of life I have ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... ardent vagueness, were held captive by the cogency of his understanding. His writings have none of this compulsion. We see the flame, but through a veil of interfused smoke. The expression is not obscure, but it is awkward; not exactly prolix, but heavy, overcharged, and opaque. We miss the vivid precision and the high spirits of Voltaire, the glow and the brooding sonorousness of Rousseau, the pomp of Buffon. To Diderot we go not for charm of style, but for a ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... prolix about Boggs. Which on the contrary, his nacher is shorely arduous that a-way. If it's a meetin' of the committee, for instance, with intent then an' thar to dwell a whole lot on the doin's of some malefactor, Boggs allers gets to a mental show-down ahead of the other gents involved. ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... is indifferent," interrupted Inez, too anxious to await the prolix explanations of the old man; "why is the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... enough, but he is fond of the sound of his own voice, his style is prolix, and I don't think he has ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... attention to a speech unusually prolix and descriptive for a Spartan; and he sighed deeply as it closed. For that young Athenian, destined to so renowned a place in the history of his country, was, despite his popular manners, no favourer of the popular passions. Lofty ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... protract; spin out, swell out, draw out; battologize[obs3]. Adj. diffuse, profuse; wordy, verbose, largiloquent|, copious, exuberant, pleonastic, lengthy; longsome[obs3], long-winded, longspun[obs3], long drawn out; spun out, protracted, prolix, prosing, maundering; circumlocutory, periphrastic, ambagious[obs3], roundabout; digressive; discursive, excursive; loose; rambling episodic; flatulent, frothy. Adv. diffusely &c. adj.; at large, in extenso[Lat]; about it ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Jackson (the Emperor of Pugilism) and another of the select, at Crib's the champion's. I drank more than I like, and have brought away some three bottles of very fair claret—for I have no headach. We had Tom * * up after dinner;—very facetious, though somewhat prolix. He don't like his situation—wants to fight again—pray Pollux (or Castor, if he was the miller) he may! Tom has been a sailor—a coal heaver—and some other genteel profession, before he took to the cestus. Tom has been in action at sea, and is now only three-and-thirty. A great man! ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the policy and progress of the different nations of Europe; and its descriptions of what may be called external history—of battles, sieges and state pageants—are spirited and interesting. On the other hand the faults of the work are numerous and glaring. The general style is prolix, involved and vicious; mistakes of fact and false deductions are to be found in almost every page; and the constant repetition of trite moral reflections and egotistical references seriously detracts from its dignity. A more grave defect resulted from the author's ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of explaining the matter to begin with. One word suffices—Chaos. It will take a great many words to explain why my little suburban retreat, on which I had prided myself for so many years of my bachelor life, was a mass of conglomerated wreckage. I will be as brief as I can. I am not a prolix man; I know the value of time, and of other people's time. I should not have had a flourishing business in Bermondsey, if I didn't know. Golden Birch Villa, Streatham, then, had been burgled. Broken into, despoiled and defaced, was my little country retreat from the turmoil of town, and it ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... characteristics of that very peculiar writer. The translation of the Horatian poems, on the other hand, seems to me on the whole undoubtedly successful, though, for whatever reason, its merits do not appear to have been recognized by the public. It is unequal, and it is too prolix: but when it is good, which is not seldom, it is very good, unforced, idiomatic, and felicitous. In one of its features, the habit of supplying connecting links to Horace's not unfrequently disconnected thoughts, perhaps I should have done wisely to follow ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... of his character was a cool and determined courage, which gave an appearance of resolution and confidence to all his actions, and inspired his friends with admiration and excessive devotion to him, and caused him to be respected by his most violent opponents. As a speaker he was prolix, monotonous, and never eloquent, except, perhaps, for a few minutes when provoked into a passion by something which had fallen out in debate. But, notwithstanding these defects, and still more the ridicule which his extraordinary phraseology had drawn upon him, he was always heard with attention. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... rather impatiently to the prolix story. He might have heard it before, he did not remember. There were several Indian ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... whether, after trying hard at a definition of the verb as a distinct part of speech, as a terrier-dog mumbles a hedge-hog, he did not find it too much for him, and leave it to its fate. It is also a pity that Mr. Tooke spun out his great work with prolix and dogmatical dissertations on irrelevant matters; and after denying the old metaphysical theories of language, should attempt to found a metaphysical theory of his own on the nature and mechanism of language. The nature of words, he contended (it was the basis of his whole system) ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... arrived yesterday. Both very well. At dinner-time to-day came Dr. Jamieson[304] of the Scottish Dictionary, an excellent good man, and full of auld Scottish cracks, which amuse me well enough, but are caviare to the young people. A little prolix and heavy is the good Doctor; somewhat prosaic, and accustomed to much attention on the Sunday from his congregation, and I hope on the six other days from his family. So he will demand full attention from all and sundry before ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... memory. We had all driven out to a point on the shore beyond the Third Beach, where the Norsemen were supposed to have landed during their apocryphal visit to this continent. It had been a hot drive, but when we stopped, a keen wind was blowing in from the sea. During a pause in the prolix address that followed, a coachman’s voice was heard to mutter, “If he jaws much longer all the horses will be foundered,” which brought the learned address to an ignominious ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... pious contemplation, below the current of the world's events, his thoughts, on the contrary, never were for a moment diverted from the political surface of the times. He read nothing but despatches; he wrote or dictated interminable ones in reply, as dull and prolix as any which ever came from his pen. He manifested a succession of emotions at the course of contemporary affairs, as intense and as varied, as if the world still rested in his palm. He was, in truth, essentially a man of action. He had neither the taste nor talents which make a man ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... measures, and coins, it follows that a corresponding base of numeration and notation must be provided, as that best suited to commerce. For this purpose, the number two immediately presents itself; but binary numeration and notation being too prolix for arithmetical practice, it becomes necessary to select for a base a power of two that will afford a more comprehensive notation: a power of two, because no other number will agree with binary gradation. It is scarcely proper to say the third power has been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... relate how the Samnites stood looking on while the Romans were subjugating the Equians and the Volscians; and, to avoid being prolix, shall content myself with the single instance of the Carthaginians, who, at the time when the Romans were contending with the Samnites and Etruscans, were possessed of great power and held in high repute, being already masters of ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... original form the Pur[a]nas were probably Hesiodic in a great extent, and doubtless contained much that was afterwards specially developed in more prolix form in the epic itself. But the works that are come down as Pur[a]nas are in general of later sectarian character, and the epic language, phraseology, and descriptions of battles are more likely taken ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... barons and others present kneel likewise, and all the musicians sound their instruments, till the khan has done drinking. If I were to describe all the pomp and magnificence of these festivals, and all die dainties and delicate dishes which are served up, I should become prolix and tiresome. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... clear that he was ignorant of those arts in which I thought he excelled, I began to despair of his opening and solving the difficulties which perplexed me (of which indeed however ignorant, he might have held the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee). For their books are fraught with prolix fables, of the heaven, and stars, sun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able satisfactorily to decide what I much desired, whether, on comparison of these things with the calculations I had elsewhere read, the account given in the books of Manichaeus ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... started for the interior of the island, and without meeting with anything beyond the ordinary routine of bad bush and mountain travelling; certainly encountering nothing that would justify me in inflicting a prolix description upon the reader—we arrived late on the following evening at the rendezvous, found the 'Daylight' safely at anchor, and thus completed one portion of our search, without having obtained the faintest clue to an elucidation of the mystery ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... of the Middle Ages, has literary skill, a vivid though prolix style, a keen eye for the picturesque, bold and independent judgment, wonderful breadth and range, and an insatiable curiosity. He was a man of the world, a courtier and a scholar; he took immense pains to collect his facts from documents and eye-witnesses, and had great advantages in this respect ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... "Summe rerum sator, cujus tot nomina sant, quot linguas gentium esse voluisti, quem enim te ipse dici velin, scire non possumus." (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 26.) In explaining Constantine's progress in the faith, Mosheim (p. 971, &c.) is ingenious, subtle, prolix.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... general, are strangely prolix in their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect to insects holds good in every other branch: 'Verbositas praesentis saeculi, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... which the people care less for form, for phraseology, than for what seems to them true, real—for what, as they would express it, "takes hold of them." This is no plea or excuse for careless work, but rather a suggestion that the day of prolix, fine, flowery writing is passing. The immense number of well-written books in circulation has made success with careless, slovenly manuscripts impossible. Publishers and editors will not even read, much less ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... I saw with these Eyes of mine the Spaniards for no other reason, but only to gratifie their bloody mindedness, cut off the Hands, Noses, and Ears, both of Indians and Indianesses, and that in so many places and parts, that it would be too prolix and tedious to relate them. Nay, I have seen the Spaniards let loose their Dogs upon the Indians to bait and tear them in pieces, and such a Number of Villages burnt by them as cannot well be discover'd: Farther this is a certain Truth, that they snatched Babes from ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... he has settled down, like his people; and here is a picture of him. A real photograph of a live old Goth, nearly 1400 years ago. Gibbon gives a good translation of it. I will give you one, but Sidonius is prolix and florid, and I ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... system, or in the books which profess to deliver that system, minute directions for every case and occurrence that may arise. This, say they, is necessary to render a revelation perfect, especially one which has for its object the regulation of human conduct. Now, how prolix, and yet how incomplete and unavailing, such an attempt must have been, is proved by one notable example: "The Indoo and Mussulman religions are institutes of civil law, regulating the minutest questions, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... prolix, it may be admitted, but who could bear to have him cut? He loved to sit down and tell you just all about it. His use of letters for his narratives made this gossipy style more easy. First he writes and he tells all that passed. You have his letter. She at the same time writes ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... such material one is apt, even unconsciously, to be egotistical, and to linger too long and too fondly over scenes and incidents of which one might say, in Virgilian phrase, quorum pars, si non magna, at parva fui. Should the reader deem any portions unduly prolix, he will, perhaps, kindly excuse it on this score. But I have known several instances, and especially of late two in this neighbourhood, when a person advanced in years and of wide experience, has passed away, and there has been a general, and doubtless sincere, regret that he has gone, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... popular publications will be given, accompanied with short critical remarks upon them, and, whatever appears most interesting in the periodical productions of Great Britain will be transferred into this; pruned if they be prolix, and illustrated by explanatory notes, whenever they may be found obscured by local or ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... it is of an old standing, since, shortly after he was called to the bar in 1792, it was pointed out to him by Robert M'Intosh, Esq., one of the counsel in the case, then and long after remarkable for the interest which he took, and the management which he possessed, in the prolix and complicated affairs of the York ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... yourself, and whither have you vanished? What is the meaning of all this?" The poet received this note at Vaucluse, and sent an explanation of his flight, sincere indeed as to good feelings, but prolix as usual in the expression of them. Pastrengo sent him a kind reply, and soon afterwards did him the still greater favour of visiting him at Vaucluse, and helping him to ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... of the schism, of the charges of the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of Photius, (Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47—61,) and of Michael Cerularius, (Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p. 281—324, edit. Basnage, with the prolix answer ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Rastignac, with that curtness of speech which to a prolix speaker is a warning to ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... brevity often lack perspicuity. The latter applies to Abraham Ibn Ezra, who might have said with the poet, "I avoid long-windedness, and I become obscure." Samuel ben Meir, on the other hand, grandson and pupil of Rashi, is, at least in his Talmudic commentaries, so long-winded and prolix that at first glance one can detect the additions made by him to the commentaries of his grandfather. It is related, that once, when Rashi was ill, Samuel finished the commentary Rashi had begun, and when Rashi got well he weighed the ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... be able, when I see you, to divert you with some excellent stories of a principal figure on our side; but they are too long and too many for a letter, especially of a letter so prolix as this. Adieu, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... tell you that yesterday I asked our experienced neighbour, the chemist, whether in experiments of this kind an explosion could take place which would have a momentarily fatal effect. He said, "Oh, certainly!" and described to me in his prolix and circumstantial way how it could be occasioned, mentioning at the same time so many strange and funny words that I could not remember them at all. Now I know you will be angry at your Clara, and will say, "Of the Mysterious which often clasps man in its invisible arms there's ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the Godhead and humanity, is here again declared, though contradicted in the intervening chapters. In this and the following chapters we have a prolix statement of the births, deaths, and ages in the male line. They all take wives, beget sons, but nothing is said of the origin or destiny of the wives and daughters; they are incidentally mentioned merely as necessary factors in the propagation ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... he holds a high, perhaps the highest place, among English letter writers: and the collection of his letters appended to Southey's biography forms, with the biographical portions of his poetry, the materials for a sketch of his life. Southey's biography itself is very helpful, though too prolix and too much filled out with dissertations for common readers. Had its author only done for Cowper what he did for Nelson! [Our acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Benham, the writer of the Memoir prefixed to the ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... Charles IX died young, and his character is unfavorably viewed by the historians. In the voluminous correspondence which I have examined, could we judge by state letters of the character of him who subscribes them, we must form a very different notion; they are so prolix and so earnest that one might conceive they were dictated by the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... meeting these brothers and sisters were no better than the rest of the human family, but on the whole were, to put the case mildly, as bad as most, in respect of giving short weight in their shops, and not speaking the truth, - I say, before this knowledge became forced upon me, their prolix addresses, their inordinate conceit, their daring ignorance, their investment of the Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth with their own miserable meannesses and littlenesses, greatly shocked me. Still, as their term for the frame of mind that ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... not an allegory, that Virgil had not been initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries when he wrote it, and so forth. Indeed the best judges now hold that he has not done full justice to the grain of truth that was to be found in Warburton's clumsy and prolix hypothesis.[8] It should be added that Gibbon very candidly admits and regrets the acrimonious style of the pamphlet, and condemns still more "in a personal attack his cowardly concealment ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... 'function', 'numerous', 'penetrate', 'penetrable', 'indignity', 'savage', 'scientific', 'delineation', 'dimension'—all which he notes to have recently come up; so too 'idiom', 'significative', 'compendious', 'prolix', 'figurative', 'impression', 'inveigle', 'metrical'. All these he adduces with praise; others upon which he bestows equal commendation, have not held their ground, as 'placation', 'numerosity', 'harmonical'. Of those neologies which he disallowed, he only anticipated in some cases, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Mr. Grevenkop, of the 21st February, N. S., I find that you had been a great while without receiving any letters from me; but by this time, I daresay you think you have received enough, and possibly more than you have read; for I am not only a frequent, but a prolix correspondent. ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... writers of Elizabethan prose (whom he resembles in ardency and in freshness), too often wraps you in words, stupefies you with gorgeous repetition, goes about and about and about, trailing phrases after him, while the procession of narrative images halts. He can be as prolix in his brooding descriptions as Meredith with his intellectual vaudeville. Indeed, many give him lip service solely because they like to be intoxicated, to be carried away, by words. A slight change of taste, such as that which has come about since Meredith was on every ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... the shade of the maple trees deepened, and on the lawn the dandelions opened, sowing with pieces of gold the velvet of the sward. The songs of the robin, the catbird and the thrush became more confident, more prolix until, at last, the drab and angular little village was transfigured into celestial beauty by the heavenly light and melody of ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... their ark, they were to trust to his power, and the veneration that would be accorded to him, when he should re-emerge. In other words, they were to press on the Presbyterian theory in the Assembly, allowing "the Five Dissenting Brethren," as they were now called, the most prolix liberty of speech and reasoning, but always beating them in the final vote so as to secure a thoroughly Presbyterian report to Parliament at the last. But, in the second place, as the Independents had appealed to public opinion against such a contingency, it was necessary not ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... neither attained to the throne, nor seems to have exceeded the peaceful authority of an ally. Upon the dim and confused traditions relative to Ion, the wildest and most luxuriant speculations have been grafted—prolix ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... our poets use blank verse, as many other people walk, as if they had no sense of rhythm within them; but Milton, by reason of his long study and practice of music, seems to be always writing to melody. In consequence it is easy to read his most prolix passages, as it is easy to walk over almost any kind of ground if one but keeps step to outward or inward music. Not only is Milton's verse stately and melodious, but he is a perfect master of words, choosing them for their sound as well as for their sense, as a musician chooses ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... brainsickly of things.' So in like manner will all the emphasis and elaboration in the literature of sensuality become a weariness without meaning, also. Congreve's caustic wit will turn to spasmodic truism; and Theophile Gautier's excess of erotic ardour, into prolix and fantastic affectation. All its sublimity, its brilliance, and a large part of its interest, depend in art on the existence of the moral sense, and would in its absence be absolutely unproducible. The reason of this is plain. The natural pains ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... vigorous, impressive, lively, figurative, polished, graceful, fluent, rhythmical, copious, elevated, flexible, smooth, dignified, terse, epigrammatic, felicitous, euphonious, elegant, and lofty. Undesirable qualities are the diffuse, verbose, redundant, inflated, prolix, ambiguous, feeble, monotonous, loose, slip-shod, dry, flowery, pedantic, pompous, rhetorical, grandiloquent, artificial, formal, ornate, halting, ponderous, ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... through experience what was denied to his predecessors to hear even through report. Had I not already given your Majesty news of many other things which occur here, I would not dare to omit them now, even if I might be considered prolix. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... to be suggested to your Piety verbally by the bearers of this letter, that on the one hand this epistolary speech of ours may not become too prolix, and on the other that nothing may be omitted which would tend to ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... in order to reduce the Bulk and Price of the Impression, that the Notes, where-ever they would admit of it, might be abridg'd: for which Reason I have curtail'd a great Quantity of Such, in which Explanations were too prolix, or Authorities in Support of an Emendation too numerous: and Many I have entirely expung'd, which were judg'd rather Verbose and Declamatory (and, so, Notes merely of Ostentation), than necessary ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Malory's "Morte Darthur," printed by Caxton in 1485, a compilation principally from old French Round Table romances. This was the final mediaeval shape of the story in English. It is somewhat wandering and prolix as to method, but written in delightful prose. The story of "Enid," however (under its various titles and arrangements in successive editions), he took from Lady Charlotte Guest's translation of the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... already put you to so prolix a trouble, it is time for me to relieve you with a promise of putting speedily a period to it; And to make good that promise, I shall from all that I have hitherto discoursed with you, deduce but this one proposition by way of Corollary. [That it may as yet be doubted, whether or ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... contributions of our countrymen to its history have been hitherto commemorated, the following extract from a note, made by me on the spot some years ago, may not be unsuitable for publication in "NOTES AND QUERIES." As I had neither the time nor the patience which the pious, but rather prolix, Scotchman bestowed upon his composition, I found it necessary to content myself with a mere abstract ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... right, and both wrong. They each maintained opposite poles of the same truth; which truth neither of them saw, for want of a higher premiss. Duns Scotus was the head of the Realists; Ockham,[1] his own disciple, of the Nominalists. Ockham, though certainly very prolix, is a ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... the story to each other in a prolix fashion, each supplementing the narrative where the other's memory failed; and, when ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... author had of gaining a knowledge of his subject, it must be owned, that he made his accounts of it very perplexed. By endeavoring to take in every thing, he descends to many trifles; and by dwelling too long on a subject, he comes to render it obscure, by being prolix in things which hardly relate to what he treats of. He interrupts the thread of his discourse with private anecdotes, long harangues, and tedious narrations, which have little or no relation to the subject, and are of much less consequence to the reader. The want of method ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... interest in its contents. It should, therefore, be expressive; and since by its very nature it must be short, it should be concise, laconic, pregnant, and if possible give the contents in one word. A prolix title is bad; and so is one that says nothing, or is obscure and ambiguous, or even, it may be, false and misleading; this last may possibly involve the book in the same fate as overtakes a wrongly addressed letter. The worst titles of all are those ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... that curious difference which exists between the poetical writer and the poet. It is easier to give the instance than the reason, but I suppose the cause of the rhythmetical impotence must lie somewhere in the want of the power of concentration. For is it not true that the most prolix poet is capable of briefer expression than the least prolix prose writer, or ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... accounted a good hand at speaking in the debating society, and though rather more prolix than Bertram, and not quite so vivacious, had been considered almost more than a match for his cousin on account of his superior erudition and more practised delivery; but now his voluble gift of words deserted him. "He was much obliged ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... the best authority for these proceedings. The "Memoir," written by an old man who had squandered his energies and sunk into deserved obscurity, is tedious and magniloquent, and sometimes inaccurate. Moreover, Dillon has not always chosen the extracts judiciously. Clark's decidedly prolix speeches to the Indians are given with intolerable repetition. They were well suited to the savages, drawing the causes of the quarrel between the British and Americans in phrases that could be understood by the Indian mind; but their inflated hyperbole is ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... small authority, and all the vast delay, which cannot be comprehended except by those who have suffered under it, that belongs to the transaction of any affair in which many persons have to cooperate, compares the suit of Columbus to a battle, "a terrible, continuous, painful, prolix battle." The tide of this long war (for war it was, rather than a battle) having turned against him, Columbus left the court, and went to Seville "with much sadness and discomfiture." During this dreary period of a suitor's life—which, however, has been ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... posthumous Books: A Discourse of the Freedom of the Will (1675); Rise, Race and Royalty of the Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man (1683), and Appearance of God to Man in the Gospel (1710).[40] His prose style is lofty and often marked with singular beauty, though he is almost always too prolix for our generation, and too prone to divide his discourse into heads and sub-heads, and sub-divisions of sub-heads. Here is a specimen passage of his dealing with a topic which Plato and the great poets have often handled: "Imagine this Life as an Island, surrounded ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... more prolix in my speech to Congress on the commencement and progress of this insurrection than is usual in such an instrument, or than I should have been on any other occasion; but as numbers at home and abroad will hear of the insurrection, and will read the speech, that may know nothing of the documents ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... with every kindness. Fleming once offered me money, which I refused, saying that I had no use for it. I was on the best terms with them, at the same time that I took notice of all that passed, without offering a remark to excite their suspicions. But not to be too prolix, it will suffice to say that we made many trips during several months, and that during that time I made the following observations:—that Fleming went on shore at night at certain places, taking with him bags and bundles; that he generally returned with others, which were taken ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fame, and but for his excessive vanity and sentimentalism might have reached the foremost rank in the national councils. He was distinguished not only for eloquence, but for his historical compositions, which are brilliant and suggestive, but rather prolix ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... interpreting any part or any verse of Scripture we must look to the purpose of the whole and explain it from this outlook, "without dissecting or disturbing its harmony or disintegrating its unity."[133] Why should God, asked the scoffer, reveal these trivial or prolix details? Philo's answer is in fact to spiritualize everything that is material, and universalize everything that is particular. While he believes in the literal inspiration of the Bible, he does not insist upon the literal ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... to give us all they know, than to try their discernment for rejection. Let us sometimes recollect, that the page over which we toil will probably furnish materials for authors of happier talents. I would rather have a Birch, or a Hawkins, appear heavy, cold, and prolix, than that anything material which concerns a Tillotson, or a Johnson, should be lost. It must also be confessed, that an anecdote, or a circumstance, which may appear inconsequential to a reader, may bear some remote or latent connexion: ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... that I have been very prolix upon this man, but the extraordinary singularity of his life, and my close connexion with him, appear to me sufficient excuses for making him known, especially as he did not sufficiently figure ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Duke of York, and said, 'He wished to God he might die, I for he was going to be mad;' and the Queen, who sent to Dr. Warren, on his arrival, privately communicated her knowledge of his situation for some time past, and the melancholy event as it stood exposed. I am prolix upon all these different reports, that you may be completely master of the subject as it stands, and which I shall continue to advertise you of in all its variations. Warren, who is the living principle in this business, (for poor ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... severe conscientiousness, and imperturbable frigidity in a style that was pure, though somewhat prolix, that History of Florence, virtually a history of Italy, which from its first appearance was hailed as a classic and has remained one. His history is altogether that of a statesman; he passed his life among prominent public affairs, being Governor of Modena, Parma, and ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... time was distinguished by the liberality of mind of its leading clergymen, which was due, according to Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p 57), to the fact that the Professor of Theology under whom they had studied was 'dull and Dutch and prolix.' 'There was one advantage,' he says, 'attending the lectures of a dull professor—viz., that he could form no school, and the students were left entirely to themselves, and naturally formed opinions far more liberal than those ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... it, it is difficult to imagine one more variable. The important organs before alluded to, so necessary to the economy of life, are all liable to the most severe visitations of disease. Not to be too prolix, take, for the sake of example, the first on the list, the liver: both in the acute and chronic forms of inflammation of this viscus, how important a change is wrought in the digestive functions, how enfeebled does the system ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... to read the poets of her country, and other books belonging to the library of the household, among which are mentioned, as a proof of her vehement love of reading, the "Critical History of Spain," by the Abbe Masuden, "and other works equally dry and prolix." She was afterward sent to Badajoz, where she received the best education which the state of the country, then on fire with a civil war, would admit. Here the intensity of her application to her studies caused a severe malady, which has frequently recurred in after-life. ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... life, and did not know the human character. I had not sufficient conversation with him to judge of this. He was intimate with d'Invernois, who spoke highly of him. He had certainly none of our Irish vivacity, and fulness of imagery. He was rather querulous and prolix, than piquant, and declaimed rather than said sharp things. I said to him, "Why do you not endeavour, in your writings, to accommodate yourself more to the public taste?" He answered, in despair, "I cannot—I have no turn that way. I know the value of the bon-mot, the sarcasm, and the epigram; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... having already chidden Meilhan for being prolix in his answers, now scolded him for anticipating the questions. But the fact was that Meilhan was ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.' Now Clarendon is not a great writer, not even a good writer, for he is prolix and involved, yet we see that even Clarendon, when he comes to a matter in which his heart is engaged, becomes sweet and harmonious in his rhythm. If we turn to a prose-writer of the very first place, we are instantly conscious of a still greater difference. How flashy and shallow Macaulay's ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... irascible contraction of the muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the huge mouthfuls that he masticated. But I forbear to dwell on the odd beings that were congregated together in one hotel. I have been thus prolix about the old general because you desired me in one of your letters to give you ample details whenever I happened to be in company with the 'great and glorious,' and old Trotter is more deserving of the epithet than any of the personages I ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Madame Pavlowa do one. The point of a story is apt to lie in the telling, or at least to depend upon it in a high degree. Certain stories, it is true, depend so much on the final point, or "nub," as we Americans call it, that they are almost fool-proof. But even these can be made so prolix and tiresome, can be so messed up with irrelevant detail, that the general effect is utter weariness relieved by a kind of shock at the end. Let me illustrate what I mean by a story with a "nub" or point. I will take one of the best known, so as to make no ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... rhetorical device, so wearisome to modern readers, is used by Chretien preferably when some sentiment or deep emotion is to be portrayed. Ovid may well have suggested the device, but Ovid never abuses it as does the more prolix mediaeval poet. For the part playing by the eyes in mediaeval love sophistry, see J.F. Hanford, "The Debate of Heart and Eye" in "Modern Language Notes", xxvi. 161-165; and H.R. Lang, "The Eyes as Generators ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... to understand," remarked the burglar, "how all this prolix account of your amours can possibly ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... called) in America had been hitherto mere puffery—puffery for the most part of weak, prolix, commonplace scribblings of little would-be authors and poets. A reformation in criticism, therefore, Edgar Poe conceived to be the only remedy for the prevalent mediocrity in writing that was vitiating the taste of the day, the only ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... what had passed, and as she was very prolix, Mr Vanslyperken was a mass of snow on the windward side of him before she had finished, which she did, by pulling down her worsted stockings, and showing the wounds which she had received as her ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rule which had only been an exception before. But, as will have been seen earlier, the continuation of romance genealogically had been not uncommon, and there had been a constant tendency to lengthen from the positively terse Roland to the prolix fifteenth-century forms. In fact this went on till the extravagant length of the Scudery group made itself impossible, and even afterwards, as all readers of Richardson know, there was reluctance ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... no details in the action and unrolling endless descriptions of dresses, trappings, gardens, etc. He invented plots and situations full of fine possibilities by which later poets have profited, but his own handling of them was feeble and prolix. Yet there was a simplicity about the old French language and a certain elegance and delicacy in the diction of the trouveres which the rude, unformed English failed ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Unsatisfied with herself and with the influences surrounding her, she sought in Briconnet a spiritual adviser and guide. The prelate, in the abstruse and almost unintelligible language of exaggerated mysticism, endeavored to fulfil the trust. His prolix correspondence still exists in manuscript in the National Library of Paris, together with the replies of his royal penitent. Its incomprehensibility may perhaps forever preclude the publication of the greater part;[233] but we can ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... November and December did, in some way or other, get rid of themselves at last, bringing with them the usual events of village-life and a few unusual ones. Some of the geologists had been up to look at the great slide, of which they gave those prolix accounts which everybody remembers who read the scientific journals of the time. The engineers reported that there was little probability of any further convulsion along the line of rocks which overhung the more thickly settled part of the town. The naturalists drew up a paper on the ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... already prolix with respect to these Gypsies, but I will not leave them quite yet. The intended combatants at length arrived; it was necessary to clear the ring,—always a troublesome and difficult task. Thurtell went up to the two Gypsies, with whom he seemed to be acquainted, and with ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... circumstances of the times became objects of notice in a political view, were men of great erudition, deep views of Religion, and unquestionable piety: and though the writings of the puritans are prolix; and according to the fashion of their age, rendered rather perplexed than clear by multiplied divisions and subdivisions; yet they are a mine of wealth, in which any one who will submit to some degree of labour will find himself well rewarded for ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... listening with interest and attention is one which should be specially cultivated. Even if the talker is prosy and prolix, the well-bred person will appear interested, and at appropriate intervals make such remarks as shall show that he has heard and understood all that has been said. Some superficial people are apt to style this hypocrisy; but if ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... the "Very good, madame," "Certainly, madame," with which he replied to the poor mother, to whom a trip of twenty miles appeared a journey, showed plainly that he desired to get away from her useless and prolix instructions. ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... which is now the Church of St. Saviour, Southwark, where he spent his last years, and to which he was a liberal benefactor. G. represented the serious and cultivated man of his time, in which he was reckoned the equal of Chaucer, but as a poet he is heavy and prolix. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... one way out of this difficulty. The main incidents of the Epic are narrated in the original work in passages which are neither diffuse nor unduly prolix, and which are interspersed in the leading narrative of the Epic, at that narrative itself is interspersed in the midst of more lengthy episodes. The more carefully I examined the arrangement, the more clearly it appeared to ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous |
