"Circumstantial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to caper in this style, Trying to make a foot-cloth of my banner. You ought to know the temper of our Isle, You've tested it in circumstantial manner. Down before SOULT and JUNOT you'd have gone But for that very flag, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... World Kin Why Darwin Pleased the Socialists Darwin and Karl Marx Why Darwin pleased the Profiteers also The Poetry and Purity of Materialism The Viceroys of the King of Kings Political Opportunism in Excelsis The Betrayal of Western Civilization Circumstantial Selection in Finance The Homeopathic Reaction against Darwinism Religion and Romance The Danger of Reaction A Touchstone for Dogma What to do with the Legends A Lesson from Science to the Churches The Religious Art of the ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... a later date, he made Grey expunge, in his book on Colonial Policy, details of the outrage which followed the passing of the Act; for, said he, "I am strongly of opinion that nothing but evil can result from the publication, at this period, of a detailed and circumstantial statement of the disgraceful proceedings which took place after the Bill passed.... The surest way to arrest a process of conversion is to dwell on the errors of the past, and to place in a broad light the contrast between present sentiments and those of an earlier ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... and by the Governor of the Colony of New York, all of whom found occasion for his services in their transactions with the Indians. The facts which I shall present in their chronological order, and the strong circumstantial evidence adduced therefrom, will indicate the reasons why I have unraveled the threads of this Indian's life from the weft of the past, and why the recital of his career should be the theme of a special ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker
... circumstantial evidence. But sometimes that is the strongest kind. Naturally, he would take the greatest care not to have any witnesses to the theft. The proof seems strong and many a man has ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... did not reach them in time. And yet Etta went herself to the telegraph-office. As you may have perhaps heard, a tall fair young man, with a light moustache, cashed the cheque early in the afternoon. Yes, I know, Ursula, the circumstantial evidence is rather strong just here. I am quite aware that it was possible for Eric after leaving our house to be in London at the time mentioned, but no one can prove that it ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... examinations have been proved to consist of such a mass of falsehood, that it is scarcely possible to sift out the truth: and all that can be done is to accept as fact such portions of his narrative as are either confirmed by other witnesses, or seem likely to be true from circumstantial evidence. His contradictions of his own previous assertions were perpetual, and where confirmation is accessible, it sometimes proves the original statement, but sometimes, and more frequently, the contradiction. This utter disregard for truth prepares us to discount ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... The action must be circumstantial and distinct. There is a passage in the Iliad which cannot be read without strong emotions. A Trojan prince, seized by Achilles in the battle, falls at his feet, and in moving terms supplicates for life. "How can a wretch like ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... at home with his collection of wonders, he attempts, perhaps, to give a description of some of the strange people he has been visiting. Instead of representing them as a community of lusty savages, who are leading a merry, idle, innocent life, he enters into a very circumstantial and learned narrative of certain unaccountable superstitions and practices, about which he knows as little as the islanders themselves. Having had little time, and scarcely any opportunity, to become acquainted with the customs he pretends to describe, he writes them down one after another ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... reached the village he learned the dreadful tale of the murder, and though he did not like to believe Anthony guilty, he knew not how to get satisfactorily over the great mass of circumstantial evidence, which even his own letter contained against him. Every person with whom he talked upon the subject held the same opinion, and many who before had execrated the old man, and spoke with abhorrence of his conduct to his son, now mentioned him with pity ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... of the time of Juvenal, or to the Jew of the dark ages. What the horns are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what the sting is to the bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek song, is to woman, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises, smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons, offensive and defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges. All those millions do not furnish one sepoy to the armies of the Company. But as usurers, as money-changers, as sharp legal practitioners, no ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of bustle, interest, and whimsicality, as a popular election for a member of Parliament. The generality of the persons who are frequent visitors to the house are termed Harponians, and by due qualification become citizens of Lushington. Although we cannot give a true and circumstantial history of this ancient city, we doubt not our numerous readers will discover that its title is derived from an important article in life, commonly called Lush. The four wards are also appropriately titled, as symbolical of the effects which are usually produced by its improper application. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... cloud'; that before he went he was 'cudgelled' by an infuriated publisher; that he swindled Lord Peterborough out of large sums of money, and that the outraged nobleman drew his sword upon the miscreant, who only escaped with his life by a midnight flight. A more circumstantial story has been given currency by Dr. Johnson. Voltaire, it appears, was a spy in the pay of Walpole, and was in the habit of betraying Bolingbroke's political secrets to the Government. The tale first appears in a third-rate life of Pope by Owen Ruffhead, who had it from Warburton, who ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... painful. It afterwards transpired that the bishop pleaded in Alfgar's favour, while Herstan ably seconded him; but all was in vain. Edric's eloquence, and the strong circumstantial evidence against the prisoner, carried the day, and the ealdorman even proposed that execution should be speedy, "lest," he whispered, "Canute should interfere to ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... suspected nothing and walked into the trap, he would almost certainly have been hanged. Now how often may not a plan to throw the guilt of murder on an innocent person have been practised successfully? There are, I imagine, numbers of cases in which the accused, being found guilty on circumstantial evidence, have died protesting their innocence. I shall never approve again of a death-sentence imposed in a ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... may imagine what were the feelings of the poor old man as he sat in the dark corner of the cave listening to this circumstantial relation of his most secret affairs. When he heard Long Orrick's last words, and felt how utterly powerless he was in his weakness to counteract him in his designs, he could not prevent the escape of ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... gloss says on this passage, "uncleanness" stands for lust against nature, while "lasciviousness" is a man's abuse of boys, wherefore it would appear to pertain to seduction. We may also reply that "lasciviousness" relates to certain acts circumstantial to the venereal act, for instance ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... excuse me for being thus minutely circumstantial, when it is considered that the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson was to me a most valuable acquisition, and laid the foundation of whatever instruction and entertainment they may receive from my collections concerning the great subject of the work ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... afterwards, that while my son had not had time to dress, they all had on their boots except the one who fell last, and he was in his socks, with no boots on. It was he who had waited for me as I have already said, on the cabin steps that I usually passed up and down on, but this time avoided. Circumstantial evidence came up in abundance to make the case perfectly clear to the authorities. There are few who will care to hear more about a subject so abhorrent to all, and I care less to write about it. I would not have said this much, but for the enterprise of a rising ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... part at least of that gentleman's tale is purely romantic. It would not, for instance, be supposed that at the time he is favouring us with the highly wrought account of his amour with the adorable Peggie, the Chevalier Johnstone was a married man, whose grandchild is now alive; or that the whole circumstantial story concerning the outrageous vengeance taken by Gordon of Abbachie on a Presbyterian clergyman is entirely apocryphal. At the same time it may be admitted that the Prince, like others of his family, did not esteem the services done him by his adherents so highly as he ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... been made before witnesses, whom the father had asked to countersign his report. I have preserved this letter, and have added a few circumstantial details thereto. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... more circumstantial in relating this affair, because it furnished abundance of discourse, and gave rise to many wild conjectures and misrepresentations, as well here as in Holland, especially that part which concerned the Duke of Ormonde;[7] ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... a pale-faced, anaemic-looking youth, declared, "rely upon two things, circumstantial evidence and motive. In the present case there is no circumstantial evidence, and as to motive, poor old Victor was too big a fool to have ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was on the spot at the time—the death-dealing weapon was essentially a woman's weapon, and the murdered woman was her feared and hated rival—and now we have direct evidence that she felt her to be such. If the judges can find any other hypothesis supported by stronger circumstantial evidence than this—why, I think that I had ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... cetera), that Mr. Masters was recuperating from a very stubborn attack of typhoid. But was Mr. Willcox quite sure? Yes, Mr. Willcox had to be sure of just such things. So Mrs. Bainbridge drove out to Miss Langrais' tea at the golf club, and passed on the glad tidings with an addition of circumstantial detail. Mister Masters (people found that it was quite good fun to say this, with assorted intonations) had been sick for many months at—she thought—the New York Hospital. Sometimes his temperature had touched a hundred and fifteen ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... sword lying beside the corse. His account was corroborated, in the very minutest points, by the men who had accompanied him, even though cross-questioned with unusual particularity by Father Francis. Old Pedro's statement, though less circumstantial, was, to the soldiers and citizens especially, quite as convincing. He gave a wordy narrative of Senor Stanley's unnatural state of excitement from the very evening he had become his lodger—that he had frequently heard him muttering to himself ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... left no stone unturned to clear him at the trial, had himself played detective unceasingly. But the hard facts remained, and on a chain of circumstantial evidence Blaze Turgeon was convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison for ten years. Blaze himself had said that he did not remember, but he could not believe that he had committed the crime. Robbery? He shrugged his shoulders at that, he insisted that his lawyer should not reply to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... retained with little diminution to her death at the age of seventy-nine. (111) Her mental qualifications were by no means shining; her eyes and countenance showed her character, which was grave and mild. Her strict love of truth and her accurate memory were always in unison, and made her too circumstantial on trifles. She was discreet without being reserved; and having no bad qualities, and being constant to her connexions, she preserved uncommon respect to the end of her life; and from the propriety and decency of her behaviour was always treated as if her virtue had never been questioned; her ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the press. The enemy have long lain idle, and amused themselves with carrying on the war by proclamations only. While they continue their delay our strength increases, and were they to move to action now, it is a circumstantial proof that they have no reinforcement coming; wherefore, in either case, the comparative advantage will be ours. Like a wounded, disabled whale, they want only time and room to die in; and though in ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... senate. Sparta, Rome, and Carthage are, in fact, the only states to whom that character can be applied. In each of the two first there was a senate for life. The constitution of the senate in the last is less known. Circumstantial evidence makes it probable that it was not different in this particular from the two others. It is at least certain, that it had some quality or other which rendered it an anchor against popular fluctuations; and that a smaller ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... on the scene in charge of the ROEBUCK—a ship sent out by the English Government in 1699. His account of his voyage is very minute and circumstantial, but he still retains his aversion to the unfortunate natives, of whom he always speaks with the greatest scorn. Some of his statements are slightly doubtful, to say the least of it, as, for instance, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... country, whose name was Prasenajit, and who lived in a city named Vitankapura, in order to have the dispute decided. There they had themselves announced by the warder, and went in, and gave the king a circumstantial account of their case. The king said, "Wait here, and I will put you all in turn to the proof;' so they agreed and remained there. And at the time that the king took his meal, he had them conducted to a seat of honour, and given delicious ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... arranged in his mind the damning, if circumstantial, evidence he had accumulated, he awaited the hour with confidence, for his nature was not lacking in the cock-surety of a Briton. All the same, he dressed himself particularly well that morning, putting on a blue and white striped waistcoat which, with a cream-coloured tie, set off his fulvous ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... neighbour. Pleasant that," he added, pointing to the reversed coal-scuttle—"that's a new addition, not of 'Coke upon Littleton,' but of Coal upon—what's the suit? aye, Buffer versus Stoker. I shall have to make out a case of circumstantial evidence against the cat, or I'm safe for a rowing from the governor. Good-bye, old boy! don't fancy I'm mad; I'm not the fool I seem, though I confess appearances are against me just at present. There's the coach, by Jingo, three bays and a grey—no ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... originally did homage to the other for its title. History is only to be prized as it tends to improve our knowledge of mankind, to which such investigations contribute in a very small degree. I have therefore attempted rather to give a comprehensive than a circumstantial description of the divisions of the country into its various governments; aiming at a more particular detail in what respects the customs, opinions, arts, and industry of the original inhabitants in their most genuine state. The interests of the European powers who ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... said Steve earnestly, "I've got a strong case of circumstantial evidence." He turned over the eight of hearts; then, after a pause, the ace, king, queen and jack of spades; and resumed the stacking of his chips. "I discarded that seven of hearts," he said, smiling at ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... now propose, we will discard the interior points of this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts. Not the least usual error, in investigations such as this, is the limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral or circumstantial events. It is the mal-practice of the courts to confine evidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... told her mother he must go back to the mountains, the police were on his track,—she knew now he spoke of having deserted,—and he gave her mother lots of money, for she opened and counted it afterwards and told her it must all go to papa to get some one out of trouble,—all were so clear and circumstantial that at last the hardened woman began to break down and make reluctant admissions. When an astute sheriff's officer finally told her that he knew where he could lay hands on Sergeant Gower, she surrendered utterly. So long as he was out of the way,—could ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... monstrous disproportionately extradition ob circumstantial occurrances dat ever transpositioned on my optical vasionariness!" he exclaimed as he laid his gun and the black box carefully down on the sand. "Ten thousand naked imps of darkness swarmin' ober de ship an' not ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... it is a dim and wavering light—of the archaeological evidence, helped out by circumstantial evidence from such parallel or analogous instances as are afforded by existing communities on a comparable level of culture, one may venture more or less confidently on a reconstruction of the manner ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... the slightest remembrance of him, or anybody else except my mother." I then proceeded, and continued my narrative until it was time to go to bed; but as I was very circumstantial, and was often interrupted by questions, I had not told a quarter of what I had ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to-day, sift the matter for you. I understand woman; it is an art in itself, though not, perhaps, a very high one. A careless conversation with Madame Le Prun will let me further into the mystery, than a year spent in accumulating circumstantial evidence. You may ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... them later on, with all my papers and luggage. One or two items I remember quite well. One gave a vivid account of how the Queen of Holland had killed her husband because he had allowed the Germans to pass through Maestricht; another even more circumstantial story was that England had declared war on Holland, Holland had submitted at once, and England imposed many stringent conditions, of which I only remember two. One was, that all her trade with Germany should ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... of the doctrines of the gospel, and want a suitable practice and conversation becoming the gospel, cause, and cross of Christ. Many are grossly ignorant of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, or study the circumstantial and controverted more than the fundamental truths. There has also been great short coming of real, sincere and constant endeavors to preserve the worship of God, public and private. "In times of hazard, many ministers left off preaching, and the people hearing. We have been negligent ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... necessary to give a circumstantial account of Ben's trial. Mr. Sampson was faithful to his promise, and presented himself, somewhat to his personal inconvenience, at the early hour assigned for trial. His testimony was brief and explicit, and cleared Ben. The real pickpocket, however, being recognized by the judge as ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... the audacity of circumstantial evidence, the astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant how much he has been censured, the nature of the favour conferred, and the respectful exultation at the receipt of it, are surely complete; it is truth topsy-turvy, entirely ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... this course, but violent pressure had been exerted on him by his father and by Gilbert who were both in a state of panic over the trial. Unlikely as this seemed, especially in Gilbert's case, the account was so circumstantial, and from so near a connection, that I felt almost obliged to accept it. What was my amazement a few months later at receiving a letter in which she stated that after "a great deal of close research work, re-reading of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Report contains three striking cases of supposed criminals being unjustly hanged in America; and also five more in which people whose innocence was not afterwards established were put to death on evidence as purely circumstantial and as doubtful, to say the least of it, as any that was held to be sufficient in this general summary of legal murders. Mr. O'Connell defended, in Ireland, within five and twenty years, three brothers who were hanged for a murder of which they were afterwards shown to have been ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... Union," which he contributed to promote. The closing years of his life were occupied mainly with literary work, and it was then, in 1719, he produced his world-famous "Robinson Crusoe"; has been described as "master of the art of forging a story and imposing it on the world for truth." "His circumstantial invention," as Stopford Brooke remarks, "combined with a style which exactly fits it by its simplicity, is the root of the charm ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... —Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham added. That's the maxim of the law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... fresh eggs,—one of the eggs blown, and a Note of Daun's Procedures substituted as yolk. "You are dead, sirrah," said Daun; "hoisted to the highest gallows: Are not you? But put in a Note of my dictating, and your beggarly life is saved." Retzow Junior, though there is no evidence except of the circumstantial kind, thinks this current story may be true. [Retzow, i. 347.] Certain it is, neither Friedrich nor any of his people had the least suspicion of Daun's project, till the moment it exploded on them, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... of his own accord. His greeting was frank and natural. There were breadth and spaciousness in his eyes and his smile as well as in his manner. To justify my friendly interest, I pretended to have heard about him from Rose as he himself had heard about me: that is to say, with the most circumstantial details regarding position, occupations and all the externals of life. He did not therefore enter into explanations about things of which I was ignorant and we at once began to ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... month. "Listening to this, unrecognised," he added, in conclusion, "knowing the purpose for which I was there, and remembering that not one word of the number she was asking for was yet written, for the first and only time in my life, I felt—frightened!" So much for the circumstantial account put forth of this Reading at Peterborough, and of the purely imaginary nervousness displayed by the Reader, who, on the contrary, there, as ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... a logical simplicity, a keen sifting of facts, the exposure of flaws in the circumstantial evidence. There was a force back of what he said like the force back of the projectile. About the form of the hardened sinner, Miggs, David drew a circle of innocence that no one ventured to cross. Simply, convincingly, and ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... wanderers, peculiar by reason of the very characteristic that would have resulted from the Hussite oath, made their first appearance in Europe at this very period,—between 1418 and 1427,—and in those very countries in which the Orphans ought first to have been seen. But the earliest circumstantial notice of a company of Gypsies relates to the one that visited Paris in 1427. Pasquier gave a particular account of them, and remarks, that, though they had a very bad name, and though he was with them a great deal, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... piecing together and the most elaborate dove-tailing. Nevertheless, if you cast your joke upon the waters, you shall find it no joke after many days. This is what I read in the Lyttelton Times, New Zealand: "The chain of circumstantial evidence seems fairly irrefragable. From all accounts, Mr. Zangwill himself was puzzled, after carefully forging every link, how to break it. The method ultimately adopted I consider more ingenious than convincing." After that I made up my mind never ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... seemed impossible to trap Tarzan through any voluntary act of his own, Rokoff and Paulvitch put their heads together to hatch a plan that would trap the ape-man in all the circumstantial ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... relates the tale in a circumstantial way, regarding Moslems persecuted by Christians of course. It declares that the sun, out of respect for these young martyrs, altered his course, so that twice in the day he might shine upon the cavern. The name of the dog, "Kit Mehr," has always appeared in the traditions ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... like, while they are the natural topics of such persons' conversation, would, one might have thought, be the last which an inventor would have introduced into a pretended narrative betwixt the dead and living. In short, the whole is so distinctly circumstantial, that, were it not for the impossibility, or extreme improbability at least, of such an occurrence, the evidence could not but support ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... went on, with a look that included Guy Pollard's silent and contemptuous figure in its scope, "whether you have anything but words wherewith to impress your belief upon the public? I have heard that judge and jury like facts, or, at the least, circumstantial proof that a man's denial is a ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... said nothing, and the mother looked kindly at us; but after a moment's silence she spoke at some length, and with the utmost candour and wisdom. She gave me circumstantial information as to the position of the family and her husband's restricted means, saying that under the circumstances he could not have avoided running into debt, but that he had done wrong to bring them all with him ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... who had brought to the ranch the pigeons carrying cholera, was tried in Rocky Bend. The evidence, though circumstantial, was strong against him, and the prosecution was pushed hard. But it was little surprise to any one at the ranch when the trial resulted in a hung jury. The ablest lawyer in the county had defended Donley, and finally, late in August, secured his acquittal. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... one has a taste for that kind of thing the merest starting-point becomes a coign of vantage, and then by a series of logically deducted verisimilitudes one arrives at truth—or very near the truth—as near as any circumstantial evidence can do. I have not studied de Barral but that is how I understand him so far as he could be understood through the din of the crash; the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the newspaper contents bills, "The ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... World[A] the tale is told (SMITH, ELDER do it cheap) in diction So circumstantial that its hold Is more than that of common fiction; If you can run the story through, By aid of portraits when you need it, And not be half convinced it's true, You simply ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... herewith send you a very roughly written copy of what I have to say about my sisters. When you have read it you can better judge whether the word "Notice" or "Memoir" is the most appropriate. I think the former. Memoir seems to me to express a more circumstantial and different sort of account. My aim is to give a just idea of their identity, not to write any narration of their simple, uneventful lives. I depend on you for faithfully pointing out whatever may strike you as faulty. I could not write it in the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... This circumstantial account, which was in every point exactly as the affair happened, and many other questions concerning the family which the captains asked him, and he as readily answered, (having got every particular information concerning ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... the fact that the thread with which she had sewed my collar together to keep me from going in swimming, had changed color. My mother would not have discovered it but for that, and she was manifestly piqued when she recognized that that prominent bit of circumstantial evidence had escaped her sharp eye. That detail probably added a detail to my punishment. It is human. We generally visit our shortcomings on somebody else when there is a possible excuse for it—but no matter, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... possible, some way to make the money, either in whole or in part, her own, she began cautiously to ask the old woman, who and whence he was, what he did there, and how she came to know him. The old woman gave her almost as much and as circumstantial information touching Andreuccio and his affairs as he might have done himself, for she had lived a great while with his father, first in Sicily, and afterwards at Perugia. She likewise told the girl the name of his inn, and the purpose with which he had come ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... O'Connors, whose pretensions to ancestry he treated with contempt, but further, that they were renowned for their strength, and were famous for using the longest bows in battle that were ever known or heard of. Here we have circumstantial evidence, although not proof. If strong, they might have been kings in Ireland, for there "might has been right" for many centuries; and certainly their acquirements were handed down to posterity, as no one was more famous for drawing the long ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... heard this circumstantial story, and with it many new tales concerning wicked mysteries practised by the Mormons in Fayette, he threw down his books, as long ago the fabled fruit that had turned to ashes was thrown down, and prepared for ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... "Circumstantial evidence points to her having disappeared of her own volition, Miss Whitney, to escape being charged with a ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... these people in their blind impetuosity ever give the merits of the case one thought? do they remember that Orton was detected in his every lie, and found as heinously guilty as man can be detected and found guilty, when the evidence against him admits of but circumstantial proof? They do not; and like the man who constantly avers that the earth is flat, and his congeners who deny the existence of a Being who is apparent in every one of His marvellous works, the believers in Orton must be placed in the catalogue ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... War, for His Majesty knowing the Artist's connections with that country, and acquaintance with some of the most distinguished of the rebels, often conversed with him on the subject; and on different occasions Mr. West was enabled to supply the King with more circumstantial information respecting some important events than was furnished by the official channels. I do not consider myself at liberty, nor this a fit place, to enter upon subjects so little in unison with the arts of peace, or ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... "things heavenly or things earthly; things moral or things evangelical; things sacred or things profane; things past or things to come; things foreign or things at home; things more essential or things circumstantial." ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Bowleggs, the landlord of the Goose and Goslings, was very unsatisfactory to Jack and his friend. They feared from the circumstantial way in which it was given them that it was too likely to be true. Jack had therefore great difficulty in keeping up the spirits of his companion. He undertook to make further inquiries in the neighbourhood, and to devote himself to the ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... circumstantial narrative of these proceedings, copies of the minutes of the privy council, and other documents, will be found in the introduction to The Pilgrim's Progress.[278] One of these official papers affords an interesting subject ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... every kind, with all their circumstances, however minute, and however familiar they may have been rendered by custom, should be carefully noted down; and it is also desirable that he should be as circumstantial as possible in describing the general appearance of the country, its surface, soil, animals, vegetables and minerals, every thing that relates to the population, the peculiar manners, customs, language, etc., of the individual natives, or the tribes ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... seeming miracle, the many desperate fights and bloody massacres that occurred during the short but severe conflict for Texian independence, in which nearly the whole of his comrades were slain. He has recently published an account of the campaign; and his narrative, highly characteristic and circumstantial, derives a peculiar interest from his details of the defeats suffered by the Texians, before they could succeed in shaking off the Mexican yoke. Of their victories, and especially of the crowning one at San Jacinto, various accounts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... woman at Salisbury. And the Marquis had made fresh inquiry which had completely corroborated his previous information. He had learned Mrs. Stiggs's address, and the name of Trotter's Buildings, which details were to his mind circumstantial, corroborative, and damnatory. Some dim account of the battle at the Three Honest Men had reached him, and the undoubted fact that Carry Brattle was maintained by the Vicar. Then he remembered all Fenwick's old anxiety on behalf of the brother, whom the Marquis had ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... handling I could have wished. Those who would like to see it treated still more at large, with the addition of critical disquisitions and the advantage of collateral facts, would do well to refer themselves to Mr. Prior's circumstantial volumes, or to the elegant and ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... these papers are lost, and suspicion is turned upon Richard, he and his mother fall heir to a neat little sum of money. My boy, I want to beg your pardon for suspecting that this incident only added to the weight of circumstantial evidence against you. You have proven entirely innocent in so far as this money is concerned. We will forget all about that now, and answer me a few more questions, if you please, about that fatal day when ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... circumstantial account of it; he says, "The streets were paved with dead or dying bodies, the portes-cocheres, (great gates of the hotels) were stopped up with them, there were heaps of them in the public squares, ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... furnish us with a circumstantial and very interesting history of Spenser's second courtship, which, after many repulses, was successfully terminated by the marriage celebrated in the Epithalamion. As these poems were entered in the Stationers' Registers on the 19th ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... nullification of the act is the rightful remedy." As originally prepared, the resolutions were found in Jefferson's handwriting after his death. Hildreth's conjecture that Madison, as well as the brothers Nicholas, was consulted in the preparation of these resolutions, rests only on circumstantial evidence. The Kentucky resolutions were passed in November; those of Virginia in December; the former were written by Jefferson, the latter by Madison; and the doctrines in each are essentially the same. It would have been a perfectly natural thing for the ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... and the method of spread of all these diseases is as familiar as the alphabet and as firmly settled, the most careful study and innumerable researches have failed to identify positively the germ in any one of them. There are a number of "suspects" against which a great deal of circumstantial evidence exists: a streptococcus in scarlet fever, a bacillus in whooping-cough, and a protozoan in measles; but none of these have been definitely convicted. The principal reason for our failure is a very common ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... shrieks of his own countrymen, that the work of butchery had begun. He had little hopes of escaping, but life even to him was dear, and he kept in his hiding-place, hoping, at all events, to prolong it. His evidence was clear and circumstantial. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... trifles one can go by. The character of the publication, the general verisimilitude of the news, the consideration of the motive, and so on. I don't trust blindly the accuracy of special correspondents—but why should this one have gone to the trouble of concocting a circumstantial falsehood on a matter of no importance to ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... dispassionate as could be shown in a philosophical treatise. The tone is one of grave and lofty eloquence, apt to move even to tears the reader who is fully alive to the stupendous issues that were involved in the discussion. Hamilton was supremely endowed with the faculty of imagining, with all the circumstantial minuteness of concrete reality, political situations different from those directly before him; and he put this rare power to noble use in tracing out the natural and legitimate working of such a Constitution as that which the Federal Convention ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... and cruel of you to wish so," said Maggie, starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and upsetting Tom's wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but the circumstantial evidence was against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but said nothing; he would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to strike a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Possibly there were other thefts of which he knew nothing, in which suspicion had pointed to her. Possibly the vague confessions, implicating no one, which he had made to Mrs. Miller, taken in connection with events of which he had no knowledge, had proved sufficient to weave a chain of circumstantial evidence about her; and now the commanding officer was aroused, and was coming down on him, and poor Mac yonder, for full details of their losses and their knowledge of the affair. He would give anything to secure the postponement ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... had put into words what was in the thoughts of both Stone and Elliott. They realized that, while Aunt Abby's experience might have been entirely a dream, it was so circumstantial as to indicate a real occurrence, and in that case, what solution so plausible as that Eunice, after committing the crime, wandered into her aunt's room, and whether purposely or accidentally, dropped the ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... was taken into custody, he gave a circumstantial detail of his travels to the north-west along the bank of a large river, named, as he said, the Kindur; by following which in a south-west direction he had twice reached the seashore. He described ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... effect for men what is to be expected from evangelical doctrine. And if the faith of Christ was so much declined (and its decayed state ought to be dated from about the year 270), we need not wonder that such scenes as Eusebius hints at without any circumstantial details took place in the Christian world." Cent. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... bridge into the village carried something under his arm, carefully covered with his sarong. My box was stolen between the hours he was seen going and returning, and it was so small as to be easily carried in the way described. This seemed pretty clear circumstantial evidence. I accused the man and brought the witnesses to the Commandant. The man was examined, and confessed having gone to the river close to my house to bathe; but said he had gone no farther, having climbed up a cocoa-nut tree and brought home two nuts, which he had covered over, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in the sudden and tragic change of fortune recorded. Such changes, it is urged, are of rare occurrence; and, recurring too often, they impress a character of suspicious accuracy upon the narrative. Doubtless they do so, and reasonably, where the writer is pursuing the torpid current of circumstantial domestic annals. But, in the rapid abstract of Herodotus, where a century yields but a page or two, and considering that two slender octavos, on the particular scale adopted by Herodotus, embody the total records of the human race down to his own epoch, really ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... "But as to how it happened, come in to the library, sir. It was in his ain library he was killed! The Fiscal and Superintendent is there now and we've been going into the circumstantial evidence. Most ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... letter, and a circumstantial relation from the messenger of all that had happened on shore, Paulo de Gama immediately sent the goods; but said in answer to the general, that he could not answer to his honour to return to Portugal without him, and he trusted God ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... degrees Ripton ventured to grow circumstantial, saying that Richard's case was urgent and required immediate medical advice; and that both he and his father were of opinion Richard should not lose ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... characteristics of objects of the senses are allowed to drop away, in so far as they are unessential and merely circumstantial, and gradually there arises in the mind the type—the general form—of the object perceived. This general form is the object of memory. Memory deals therefore with what is general, and a type, rather than with what is directly ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... tried; he was convicted; he was sentenced to serve seven years in the state prison. He refused to allow Squire Hexter to appeal the case. He had no taste for further struggle against the circumstantial evidence that was reinforced by perjury. His consciousness of protesting innocence was subjugated by the morose determination ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... same authority we gather this circumstantial account of the Bridges erected at Staines ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... the rest. The miracle was wrought on the south-eastern side of the lake—St Matthew says, upon two demoniacs; St Mark and St Luke make mention only of one. The accounts given by the latter Evangelists are much more circumstantial than that by the former. It was a case of peculiarly frightful character. The man, possessed of many demons, was ferocious, and of marvellous strength, breaking chains and fetters, and untameable. It is impossible to analyse the phenomena, ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... the Klosking with a discourse on advertising. No talent availed without it; large posters, pictures, window-cards, etc.; but as her talent was superlative, he must now endeavor to keep up with it by invention in his line—the puff circumstantial, the puff poetic, the puff anecdotal, the puff controversial, all tending to blow the fame of the Klosking in every eye, and ring it in every ear. "You take my advice," said he, "and devote this money, every penny ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... custody; here must be your device, either to restore them or condemn them. We have no whither to appeal but to your consciences; we have no friends to make there but your heeds and discretions." Then he touched briefly on the evidence, showing how faulty and circumstantial it was, and urged them to remember that a man's life by the very constitution of the realm must not be sacrificed to mere probabilities or presumptions; then he showed the untrustworthiness of his accusers, how one had confessed himself a ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson |
