"Circumstance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brought her eyes, however, earthwards. "Why?" she asked, not realizing it to be the most futile of questions when applied to human actions. To every such "Why?" there are a myriad answers. When a mysterious murder is committed, everyone seeks the motive. Unless circumstance unquestionably provides the key of the enigma, who can tell? It may be revenge for the foulest of wrongs. It may be that the assassin objected to the wart on the other man's nose—and there are men to whom a wart is a Pelion of rank ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... is nothing of this; on the contrary, it is a clear water stream. A circumstance that may seem strange, till the explanation be given—which is, that the name is a misnomer. In other words, the Texan river now bearing the designation Colorado is not that so-called by the Spaniards, but their Rio Brazos; while the present Brazos is their ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... very severe, very pointed, and very untrue. The Sigismunda of Hogarth is not tearing off her ornaments, nor are her fingers bloodied by her lover's heart. It is said that the picture resembled Mrs. Hogarth, who was a very handsome woman; and to this circumstance Wilkes maliciously alludes in his unprincipled attack on her husband. 'If the Sigismunda,' says this polite patriot, 'had a resemblance of any thing ever seen on earth, or had the least pretence to either meaning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... always avoided speaking to me on that melancholy subject. As you have heard, he even left me in doubt whether he was one of the governing body at the asylum. No reference to any circumstance in his life which might alarm or distress me ever passed his lips." Her voice failed her as she paid that tribute to her husband's memory. She waited to recover herself. "But, on the night before his ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... the interest of the subject, or the correctness of the versification into consideration. Memorials like these of such a man, are, in the highest degree, interesting; they serve to display the man, divested of the "pomp and circumstance" of royalty. That Napoleon had many faults cannot be disputed, but it is equally clear that he possessed many virtues the world never gave him credit for:—"Posterity will ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... respective districts, a measure the utility of which I shall afterward notice.—The judicial punishments were mostly fines of sheep and oxen; for the property of the people at that time consisted in their fields and cattle, and this circumstance has given rise to the expressions which still designate real and personal wealth. Thus the people were kept in order rather by mulctations than by ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... cup of cool water for which he has long agonised is brought suddenly before his eyes? Such a sound, with all that goes to make it eloquent, did I hear from one of the two girls who leaned over my shoulder. Can you understand this amazing, this unheard-of circumstance? Can you name the woman—can you name the grief capable of making either of these seemingly happy and innocent girls hail the sight of such a doubtful panacea, with an unconscious ebullition of joy? You would clear my wedding-eve of a great dread if you could, for if this ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... of sensation. And his eye—his eye too. He hasn't used it to dominate people: he didn't care to. He simply looks through 'em all like windows. Makes me feel like the fellows who think they're made of glass. The mitigating circumstance is that he seems to see such a glorious landscape through me." Wade grinned at the thought of serving ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... packet to Dunregan, was one of our number—also, that both our Scotsmen were Highlanders, one being named Donald Bane, the other James Dougall. Why the first called the second Shames Tougall, and the second styled the first Tonal' Pane is a circumstance which I cannot explain. ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose "Autobiography" breathes the fresh manly spirit of the best days of chivalry, was the king's ambassador to France. George Herbert, too, was in a fair way to this court patronage, when his hopes were checked by the death of the monarch. It is a circumstance, this court favor, worth considering in the poet's life, as the antecedent to his manifold spirit of piety. Nothing is more noticeable than the wide, liberal culture of the old English poets; they were first, men, often ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... the cliff and planted ready for invaders. Her grandmother had spoken often of the time when all the men from the Ratcliffe property, away west, had followed somebody that wanted to send the King away, but Mary's knowledge of this circumstance was severely indefinite. The lads in the place would have followed their Squire had he chosen to imitate "Ratcliffe," but the Squire of that day was a quiet man who liked the notion of keeping his head on his shoulders. Mary knew of one country beyond England, and ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... greatest respect, tells us that at banquets it was once the fashion for boys to sing, sometimes with and sometimes without instrumental music, ancient ballads in praise of men of former times. These young performers, he observes, were of unblemished character, a circumstance which he probably mentioned because, among the Greeks, and indeed, in his time among the Romans also, the morals of singing boys were in ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... knees. Had there been a fender at her father's fireside Jess would have often sat on it, for there is a dangerous species of girl that, like a cat, looks best sitting on a fender. And such a girl is always aware of the circumstance. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... conducting-stick, the conductor is compelled—to ensure, after a pause, the taking up a point by the chorus—to indicate this point by marking the beat which precedes it by a slight tap of his stick upon the desk. This exceptional circumstance is the only one which can warrant the employment of an indicating noise, and even then it is to be regretted that recourse must ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... all his life in cramped New England, where sharpness and shrewdness had been whetted to razor-edge on the harsh stone of meagre circumstance, he had found himself abruptly in the loose and free-and-easy West, where men thought in thousand-dollar bills and newsboys dropped dead at sight of copper cents. Josiah Childs bit like fresh acid ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... well dressed, and it was not an uncommon thing for young ladies to manage their own boats on the Hudson; so, if they had been seen to land from the Greyhound, no notice was taken of the circumstance. They were not likely to be molested, except by their own guilty consciences. They walked directly to the railroad station, and ascertained that the train would leave in half an hour. Fanny, anxious to conciliate her associate, and accustom ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... and therefore having the modern inclination to expatiate upon the beauty of my own productions, and display the bright parts of my discourse, I thought best to do it in the body of the work, where as it now lies it makes a very considerable addition to the bulk of the volume, a circumstance by no means to be ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... mystery here, Sandy," said Mr. Delamere reflectively. "Have you told me all, now, upon your honor? I am trying to save your life, Sandy, and I must be able to trust your word implicitly. You must tell me every circumstance; a very little and seemingly unimportant bit of evidence may sometimes determine the issue of a great lawsuit. There is one thing especially, Sandy: where did you get the gold which ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... indeed confirm each circumstance The gipsy told! No orphan, nor without a friend art thou. I am thy father, HERE'S thy mother, THERE Thy uncle, THIS thy first cousin, and THESE ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... away completely and this was a favorable circumstance for the maneuver he desired to execute. At least, if she did not remain stationary the "Albatross" would be carried he ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... self on friendly terms with her. It was abundantly clear that she was a spoiled child, in the most pronounced acceptation of the term, and would be likely to remain so all her life unless some extraordinary circumstance should haply intervene to break down her repellent pride, and bring to the surface those sterling qualities of character that ever and anon seemed struggling for an opportunity to assert themselves. Her name was Flora Trevor; her father was an Indian judge; and, accompanied by her ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... merry over the delicious meal, but a curious constraint seemed to rest upon the captain and Chris. Once Walter surprised them exchanging glances full of a strange, expectant uneasiness. The circumstance aroused his curiosity, but he refrained from asking any questions, deciding that the captain would explain the trouble in his ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... It is, from this circumstance, sufficiently clear that Henry himself was far from feeling any inclination to share his throne with the daughter of Charles IX's mistress; and that, despite the infatuation under which he laboured, he already estimated at its true price the value of Henrietta's affection. Nevertheless, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... question is engaged to be married to a gentleman, a circumstance which in the pages of a novel is not calculated to attract much special attention. She is engaged to be married, but the gentleman who has the honour of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... some very inhuman, were inflicted; and although the owners had no power of life or death over them, if the latter were the result of too severe beating 'neither the Government nor the public took notice of the circumstance.' Not only was it 'under the care of these depraved servants that the boyards were brought up,' but as the women of the higher classes were not in the habit of nursing their infants, they placed them in the hands of gipsy wet-nurses, who imparted to them their diseases, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... when Breed brought me my dinner on my gallery, he did not speak of a visitor. You may be sure I did not mention the circumstance. But Breed always told me ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in a cold damp sweat all over his face and hands which she touched, and that from his infinite concern at the defeat, the extreme respect he shewed her in midst of all the rage at his own disappointment, and every circumstance, she knew it was no feigned thing for any discovery he had made: on this confirmation, from a maid cunning enough to distinguish truth from flattery, she writ Octavio this letter ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Greater Seal appears to have lasted until the reign of the First Emperor, 221-210 B.C. (see History), when a further modification took place. For many centuries China had been split up into a number of practically independent states, and this circumstance seems to have led to considerable variations in the styles of writing. Having succeeded in unifying the empire, the First Emperor proceeded, on the advice of his minister Li Ss[)u], to standardize its script by ordaining that only the style in use in his own state ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... farmer-looking man had entered the coach, followed by a stocky- built lad about the age of Frank. The latter bore the appearance of a boy sullen and unhappy over some circumstance. Frank thought he had never seen a more dissatisfied face than that of this lad. He shuffled along after the farmer in an ungracious fashion, and taking the first empty ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... succeeding the period to which we arrived in the preceding chapter. Since then it has flagged often enough; sometimes it has seemed to stand entirely still; and the reader may easily judge how it fares at the present, from the circumstance of my taking pen in hand, and endeavouring to write down the passages of my life—a last resource with most people. But at the period to which I allude I was just, as I may say, entering upon life; I had adopted a profession, and—to keep up my character, simultaneously ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... poacher. No sportsman could descend so low. Grant that the tiger is a scourge, a pest, a nuisance, a cruel and implacable foe to man and beast; pile all the vilest epithets of your vocabulary on his head, and say that he deserves them all, still he is what opportunity and circumstance have made him. He is as nature fashioned him; and there are bold spirits, and keen sights, and steady nerves enough, God wot, among our Indian sportsmen, to cope with him on more equal and sportsmanlike terms than by poisoning him like a mangy dog. On this point, however, opinions differ. I do not ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... miner more hard toward the two girls was a circumstance which would have awakened a better feeling in a softer father's heart. Nancy, the younger girl, since the dreadful catastrophe, had seemed to grow gradually dull and defective in her intellect, she had a slow and somewhat idiotic air ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... west; France would be annihilated before the American armies could count, if indeed they were ever raised. Hence the heavy terms of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest and the preparations for the great drive of March. As Wilson said, "The tragical circumstance is that this one party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just." Thus Germany lost her last chance to emerge from ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... Jamestown on the 19th of June. The colony being not then divided into counties, the members were elected by the different boroughs, amounting at that time to seven. From this circumstance the popular branch of the legislature received the appellation of the house of burgesses, which it retained until all connexion with ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... therefore, very unlike the monotonous stone pepperboxes which, in modern Gothic architecture, are employed for the same purpose. One of these turrets was square, and occupied as a clock-house. But the clock was now standing still; a circumstance peculiarly striking to Tressilian, because the good old knight, among other harmless peculiarities, had a fidgety anxiety about the exact measurement of time, very common to those who have a great deal of that commodity to dispose ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... hear some one of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... was that of a female, and there were a great many rings on the fingers of the hands, and bracelets, necklaces, and other ornaments on the other bones. From this circumstance it is supposed that this person was the wife of the owner of the house, and that in trying to save herself and her jewelry upon her, she had fled with the servants to this cellar, and there ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... caution, and Mira was introduced to the mother alone; but the child retreated under the fear of a scream which might betoken either joy or despair; nor did her mother ask for her again—a strange circumstance, and not of good omen; but we behoved to persevere, and Mr. Bernard himself, accompanied by Mr. Gordon and me, presented ourselves before her. Was there ever a meeting under such circumstances? The husband clasped the unconscious wife to his bosom. I stood to watch the effect ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... am writing to you, having just struggled out of a most appalling nightmare, and out of Dantesque scenes that I have lived through. Things that Gustave Dore had the courage to picture through the text of the Divina Commedia have come to pass, with all the variety and circumstance of fact. In the midst of labours that happily tend to deaden one's feelings, I have been able to gather the better fruits ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... occasion had excited in my mind, when he smiled, without telling me whether it was well or ill founded." Having done this service, the suit was again laid away until it was brought forth to be worn at Paris at the signing of the treaty of peace with England, a circumstance the more noteworthy since at that time the French court was ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... eldest Daughter to Sir Francis Fairname, a Gentleman of a noble Family, and of a very large Estate in the West of England, a true Church-Man, a great Loyalist, and a most discreetly-indulgent Parent; nor was his Lady any Way inferiour to him in every Circumstance of Virtue. They had only two Children more, and those were of the soft, unhappy Sex too; all very beautiful, especially Arabella, and all very much alike; piously educated, and courtly too, of naturally-virtuous Principles ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... for time. His brain was not yet normal, but it was clearing rapidly. He saw this was no ordinary man he had to deal with, no ordinary circumstance; and his plan ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... afterwards, Mrs Arbuthnot gave birth to a healthy male-child; but the young mother's life, assailed by fever, was for many days utterly despaired of—for weeks held to tremble so evenly in the balance, that the slightest adverse circumstance might in a moment turn the scale deathward. At length the black horizon that seemed to encompass us so hopelessly, lightened, and afforded the lover-husband a glimpse and hope of his vanished and well-nigh despaired of Eden. The promise was fulfilled. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... lost; his army defeated near Flotha, by Count Hatzfeld; but his attempt served to occupy for some time the attention of the enemy, and thereby facilitated the operations of the Swedes in other quarters. Other friends began to appear, as fortune declared in their favour, and the circumstance, that the States of Lower Saxony embraced a neutrality, was ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... entitled to pre-eminence—this is virtually equivalent to your original proposition. The respect in which your interests seem different from all others either enters into your definition of interest, in which case it becomes general; or it is some adventitious circumstance that does not belong to your interests as such, some accident of proximity which may have psychological or instrumental importance, but cannot rightly affect your judgment of good. For goodness lies in {61} the objective ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... lay my plans before you. I believe, madame, I have already convinced you that your farms are under-let, and your property lowered in value by general mismanagement; this was doubtless known to Perrin, and set him scheming. Well, I rely on the same circumstance to defeat him. I have consulted Picard and shown him the rent-roll and balance-sheet I had already shown you. He has confessed that the estate is worth more than its debts, so capitalists can safely advance the money. To-morrow morning, then, I ride to Commandant Raynal for ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... chief of a hydrographic surveying party, in surveying the approaches to Boston Harbor. Then its garrison consisted of a superannuated sergeant whose office was a sinecure; now it held an armed garrison, who drilled and paraded every day, with all the "pomp and circumstance" of war, to the patriotic tune of "John Brown's body lies a-moulding in the grave, but his spirit is marching on;" and it was crowded with southern prisoners ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... satisfied with him, and, moreover, he had himself a venture in the cargo; and we had just received the remainder of the ivory from the governor's stores, and had only to get on board a sufficiency of provisions and water for our homeward voyage, when a circumstance took place which ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... theory, we are struck at first by the circumstance, that the Bible gives it very little support. The Bible continually speaks of man as a sinner; but there are very few texts which can, without straining, be made to seem to teach that he is totally depraved. Let us examine a ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... Coleridge one day that the friendless school boy in his "Elia," (soon after its publication) was intended for him, and taken from his description of the Blue-coat school. After Coleridge's death, Lamb related the same circumstance to me, that he had drawn the account from Coleridge's feelings, sufferings, &c., Lamb having himself been an indulged boy and peculiarly favoured through the ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... such selection had upon our story rises from the circumstance that it led to an introduction between Tudor and the Honourable Undecimus Scott, and that this introduction brought about ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Dick used to sleep when he went over to Canterbury to visit David Copperfield at Dr. Strong's school. All the little bills which he contracted there, it will be remembered, were referred to Miss Trotwood before they were paid; a circumstance which caused David to think "that Mr. Dick was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it". A less pretentious establishment, the "little inn" where Mr. Micawber put up on his first visit to Canterbury, and "occupied a little room in it partitioned off ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... originally intended for the church, but eventually became a lawyer, applying himself to the study of his profession with a diligence far surpassing that of the associates with whom he lived. In 1635, he attracted the notice of Archbishop Laud, which may be regarded as the most fortunate circumstance of his life, as it led to his introduction to Charles I. In consequence of the ability displayed by him in the responsible duties he was called to perform, that Monarch offered him the office of Solicitor-General. But this Hyde ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... of paper, with a pencil, and let the Japanese count them. Whilst they were thus employed, midshipman Moor observed that naked sabres were being distributed among the soldiers, and immediately advised me of the fact; but as we had been so kindly treated, I thought little of the circumstance, especially as they were preparing for us a feast, consisting of rice, fish served up with a green sauce, and many other delicacies, the names of which we did not know. After we had partaken heartily of these solids, and ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... those three altars and the winged figures about them, the whole space beneath the vast white dome is utterly empty and devoid of ornamentation — a circumstance that to my fancy adds greatly to ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... last year in his native city,—that petite perle. It was a fortunate circumstance for the development of a genius so powerful and original, that the place was not one of such importance as to call thither any composer or pianist of very great eminence,—such a one as would have ruled the musical ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... me, I am led to hope that coal will be found in the elevated hills of the northern part of the peninsula, easterly from Little Traverse Bay, a circumstance which, should it prove to be the case, will add much to the value of that portion of the State."—Houghton Geological Reports ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... obsequiously, and in a moment hurried young Perrot from the room; leaving me to congratulate myself on the strange and fortuitous circumstance that had thrown him in my way, and enabled me to guard against a RENCONTRE that might have had ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... little of chemistry, and had, in a manner, no idea on the subject before I attended a course of chemical lectures, delivered in the Academy at Warrington, by Dr. Turner of Liverpool. But I have often thought that, upon the whole, this circumstance was no disadvantage to me; as, in this situation, I was led to devise an apparatus and processes of my own, adapted to my peculiar views; whereas, if I had been previously accustomed to the usual chemical processes, I should not have so easily thought of any other, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... being in the eyes of the soldiers," and when he returned to Canada after West Indian service of eleven years[14] a little before the war of 1812, he was already the hero of the French-Canadians. That the stories of his strength and vigor are true is corroborated by every circumstance which has been perpetuated about him. His ruddy, energetic face is preserved in portraits among his family, and his walking-stick, said to be an enormous article, is kept at Quebec in the collection of the ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... strong constitution rose superior in Pen's case to all the evils of circumstance and environment, and one afternoon the old clear look came back ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... been executed by an ingenious Gentleman of my Acquaintance. He has compos'd, it seems, the History of a young Fellow, who has taken all his Notions of the World from the Stage, and who has directed himself in every Circumstance of his Life and Conversation, by the Maxims and Examples of the Fine Gentlemen in English Comedies. If I can prevail upon him to give me a Copy of this new-fashioned Novel, I will bestow on it a Place in my Works, and question not but it may have as good an Effect ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... a very essential part, and two or three of them when led on by a man will eagerly attack one of those ferocious creatures. An Esquimaux seldom uses any other weapon than his spear and panna in this encounter, for which the readiness of the dogs may be implied from the circumstance of the word “nennook” (bear), being often used to encourage them when running in a sledge. Indeed, the only animal which they are not eager to chase is the wolf, of which the greater part of them seem to have an instinctive dread, giving notice at night of their approach ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... in the universe, sees deeper into the secret of things, and carries up the interpretation of nature to higher levels; one who, unperturbed by passions and undistracted by petty detail, can see deeper than others behind the veil of circumstance, and catch glimpses into ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... cannot all be described;—and yet with you I would have no reticence. I would put the whole history before you to read, with all my troubles past and still present, all my hopes, and all my fears,—with every circumstance as it has passed by and every expectation that remains, were it not that the poor tale would be too long for your patience. The result of it would be to make you feel that I am no longer fit to enter in upon a new home. I should bring showers instead of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... five hundred years old, where the granite is cut with exquisite delicacy, are still to be seen throughout Egypt. Many inventions, hitherto supposed to be modern, such as glass, mosaics, false gems, glazed tiles, enamelling, were well known to the Egyptians. But, for us, the most fortunate circumstance in their taste was their fondness for writing. No nation has ever equalled them in their love for recording all human events and transactions. They wrote down all the details of private life with wonderful zeal, method, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... hand. Attempts to teach her to give six to ten straws were not very successful. For Sally "above six" meant "many," and besides, her limits of patience were probably less than her range of computation. This was hinted at by the highly interesting circumstance that when dealing with numbers above five she very frequently doubled over a straw so as to make it present two ends and thus appear as two straws. The doubling of the straw looked like an intelligent device to save time, and it was ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... affairs. My very affection for my cousin, the complete appreciation which I now possess of her character, before so little estimated and so feebly comprehended by me, is the very circumstance that, with my feelings, would prevent our union. She may, I am confident she will, yet be happy. I can never make her so. Our engagement in old days was rather the result of family arrangements than of any ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... auspicious circumstance for Ormond's love that Florence had now a daily object of thought and feeling in common with him. Mrs. M'Crule's having piqued Florence was in Ormond's favour: it awakened her pride, and conquered ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... leaps and bounds. In a rush he had emerged from groping boyhood into full maturity; physically, mentally, morally, he had grown strong and broad and brown. Having abandoned himself to the tides of circumstance, he had been swept into a new existence where Adventure had rubbed shoulders with him, where Love had smiled into his eyes. Danger had tested his mettle, too, and to- day the final climax had come. What roused his deepest satisfaction now was the knowledge that he had met that climax with credit. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... thy own frequent and involuntary remorses, when thou hast time, place, company, and every other circumstance, to favour thee in thy wicked design, convince thee, that there can be no room for a hope so presumptuous?—Why then, since thou wouldest choose to marry her rather than lose her, wilt thou make her hate ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the good reasons which the first Charles had in the like contention. The father's tergiversations with Cromwell may be supposed to have given a glamour of kingcraft to his sojourn later, but the bad part which the son took against his wife was without one dignifying circumstance. One reads with indignation still hot how he brought the plain little Portuguese woman there for their honeymoon, and brightened it for her by thrusting upon her the intimacy of his mistress Lady Castlemaine; how he was firm ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... pandemonium of riot and revelry, that prolonged the night into the day, and defied the very order of nature by its audacious disregard of all decency of time, place, and circumstance. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... all night to leave this perfidious neighborhood behind them; but first it was necessary to blind the guide as to their intentions. He accordingly addressed him in a friendly tone, and adverting to the late circumstance, pretended to suppose that he had lost his way, and fired his gun merely as a signal. The Indian, whether deceived or not, readily chimed in with the explanation. He said he now knew the way to his cabin, which was at no great ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... undiscovered walks and rides in the neighbourhood. Once, in particular, Emilie, who was spending the afternoon with the Parkers, was struck with the expression of agony that arose to Joe's face from a very trifling circumstance. They were all talking with some young companion of what they would be when they grew up, and one of them appealing to Joe, he quickly said, "oh, a sailor—I care for nobody at home and nobody cares for me, so I ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... driving from Cavendish Square to Charing Cross, Cynthia was crossing London on a converging line from St. Pancras to the Savoy Hotel. Strange, indeed, was the play of Fate's shuttle that it should have so nearly reunited the unseen threads of their destinies! Again, a trifling circumstance conspired to detain Vanrenen in London. One of his business associates in Paris, rendered impatient by the failure of the great man to return as quickly as he had promised, arrived in England by the afternoon service from the Gare du Nord, and was actually ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Ivan a little out of his melancholy. In time, indeed, they came to think it banished, and the young man at peace. He was merely gathering strength to renew his battle: that intangible fight against circumstance and his own nature that has been waged by every fine and sensitive soul since the world began, and Abel bethought him of his lamb-offering. Meantime, Ivan's secret but ardent desire to work again worthily was fulfilled on a day that was to become ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... think Miss Edgeworth—has broached the consolatory doctrine, that in intellect and disposition all human beings are entirely equal, and that circumstance and education are the causes of the distinctions and divisions which afterwards unhappily take place among them. Not to argue this question, which places Jack Howard and Jack Thurtell on an exact level,—which would have us to believe that Lord Melbourne ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... also he had been a failure. No matter how he contradicted himself, and said it was absurd to imagine he was a failure as Helena's lover, yet he felt a physical sensation of defeat, a kind of knot in his breast which neither reason, nor dialectics, nor circumstance, not even Helena, could untie. He had ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... the feast proves a fatal circumstance, and as managed by Sohemus, fixes the appearance of guilt upon her. While Herod was absent at Rome, Sohemus made addresses to Arsinoe, a Roman lady, confidant to Mariamne; to whom in the ardour of his passion he revealed the secret entrusted ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... Introductions to Professor Foerster's recent editions. When we speculate upon the development of Chretien's moral ideas we are not on such sure ground. As we have seen, his standards vary widely in the different romances. How much of this variation is due to chance circumstance imposed by the nature of his subject or by the taste of his public, and how much to changing conviction it is easy to see, when we consider some contemporary novelist, how dangerous it is to judge ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... stop to consider that these soldiers could be used in England to replace those stationed there, who in turn could be sent to America. Shrewder men were quick to see the mistake and to take advantage of any circumstance to prevent it. Such a circumstance was afforded by Burgoyne himself, who, not liking the quarters assigned to him in Massachusetts, had declared the terms of the surrender had been broken. Moreover, when the Americans were ready to let the troops go on their arrival in Massachusetts, ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... of life, eager, imperious life, the deaf-blind child, fettered to the bare rock of circumstance, spider-like, sends out gossamer threads of thought into the measureless void that surrounds him. Patiently he explores the dark, until he builds up a knowledge of the world he lives in, and his soul meets the beauty of the world, where the sun shines always, and the birds sing. ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... failures to a Second Aorist, or a something equivalent to "the salmon," or "the melted butter," or "that glass of sherry," which are recognized as the causes for so many morning reflections. This curious circumstance suggests an interesting source of inquiry for ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... no cure for these desperate situations like such an explosion. It burns up at once the litter of circumstance and leaves hardly an ash. It fuses elements that otherwise resist welding, and it annihilates all minor fears in one great terror that ends in a ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... observed that "by no circumstance in the character of an individual is the love of literature so strongly evinced as by the propensity for collecting together the writings of illustrious scholars, and compressing the 'soul of ages ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... never succeed in concealing his true disposition. As the cub of a tiger or a leopard resembles its sire and dam in form and in (the matter of) its stripes of spots, even so a person cannot but betray the circumstance of his origin. However covered may the course of one's descent be, if that descent happens to be impure, its character or disposition is sure to manifest itself slightly or largely. A person may, for purposes of his own, choose to tread on an insincere path, displaying ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... is born, unto us a son is given," are contrasted with the various designations of the Messiah, according to His divine majesty. This qualification and limitation which everywhere takes place, have their ground in the circumstance that the Messiah is constantly represented to the covenant-people as their property; and that He, indeed, was, inasmuch as salvation went out from Jews (John iv. 22), and was destined for the Jews, into whose ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... buying out GE's computer group, but it was never very successful (among other things, on some versions one was commonly required to enter a password to log out). One of the developers left in the lurch by the project's breakup was Ken Thompson, a circumstance which led directly to the birth of {{UNIX}}. For this and other reasons, aspects of the Multics design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers. See also ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... a thousand visitors during the first year, a circumstance that greatly increased the nervous strain of teaching; for I had to train myself, as well as the children to as absolute a state of unconsciousness as possible. I always jauntily described the visitors ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under his door at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and then at long intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the Marshalsea. 'With the compliments of a collegian ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... in early winter you might have seen them together in a different vehicle—a first-class compartment of the express from Knype to Liverpool. They had the compartment to themselves, and they were installed therein with every circumstance of luxury. Both were enwrapped in furs, and a fur rug united their knees in its shelter. Magazines and newspapers were scattered about to the value of a labourer's hire for a whole day; and when Denry's eye met the guard's it said "shilling." In short, nobody could possibly ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... after my arrival at the pawnbroker's shop, an unusual circumstance happened to break the monotony of my unruffled existence. This was nothing more nor less than a Clearance Sale. I must ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... suspicious circumstance, that the pencil spelling is in some places modern, while that of the ink reading is old; as "body" in pencil, and "bodie" in ink. We wonder that such a fact was noticed by a man of Mr. Hamilton's knowledge; for it can be easily set aside; or rather, it need not be regarded, because ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... relationships, no more. And it is only part of ANY human relationship. And why one should be required ALWAYS to feel it, any more than one always feels sorrow or distant joy, I cannot conceive. Love isn't a desideratum—it is an emotion you feel or you don't feel, according to circumstance.' ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... his first term, in 1880, a surplus in the treasury was not so great a novelty as the circumstance altogether unique in the political annals of Mexico-that Diaz turned over the presidency in peaceful fashion to his properly elected successor! He did so reluctantly, to be sure, but he could not afford just yet to ignore his own avowed principle, ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... breast-work erected by ourselves. The citizens of the Borough, assisted by two strangers from Massachusetts, manned the 18-pounders at the breast-work, and also the 4-pounder. One cause of discouragement, only, seemed to prevail, which was the deficiency of ammunition for the cannon. This circumstance, however, together with the superior force arrayed against us, did not abate the zeal for resistance. Such guards of musketry as were in our power to place, were stationed at different points on the shores. In this state of preparation we waited the attack ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull
... the municipal assembly of Louviers,[1310] "not a farmer has made his appearance in the markets of this town. Such a circumstance was never known before, although, from time to time, high prices have prevailed to a considerable extent. On the contrary, the markets were always well supplied in proportion to the high price ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... justification of the poet's presentment of the case is certainly not dependent on its absolute scientific accuracy. The flaws above alluded to are of another nature. One of them is the prominence given to the fact that the Asylum is uninsured. No doubt there is some symbolical purport in the circumstance; but I cannot think that it is either sufficiently clear or sufficiently important to justify the emphasis thrown upon it at the end of the second act. Another dubious point is Oswald's argument in ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... that they are free from any reference to the Presidency. If Mr. Conkling, General Logan, Mr. Cameron, and myself came to be considered the special representatives of General Grant at the Chicago Convention of 1880, the circumstance was not due to any designation by him prior to the Galena letter, of which I am to speak and which was written while the convention was in session, and when the contest between the contending ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... chief thing deserving of attention here,—the only thing in fact which I am concerned to point out,—is the notable circumstance that the supposed dictum of Eusebius,—("quod scribere non potuisset si pericopam dubiam agnovisset,")—is no longer discoverable. To say that "it has disappeared," would be incorrect. In the original document it has no existence. In plain terms, the famous "{GREEK SMALL LETTER ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... in order, but had it pleased the commander in chief to look under the uniforms he would have found on every man a clean shirt, and in every knapsack the appointed number of articles, "awl, soap, and all," as the soldiers say. There was only one circumstance concerning which no one could be at ease. It was the state of the soldiers' boots. More than half the men's boots were in holes. But this defect was not due to any fault of the regimental commander, for in spite of repeated demands boots had not been issued ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... to what issue my reflections upon these matters would have led me, for a circumstance, in the last degree trivial, intervened to turn my thoughts into an entirely new channel, and to guide me, though I could not know it at the time, into the service ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... his bonds, straining away from the sudden heat, the fast-running fire eating the canvas from the bows, the bunk within, and all the furnishings and supplies, on fire. There seemed to be no wind, a merciful circumstance, for a whip of the high-striving flames would have wrapped him, stifling out ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... speaking, was staying as a guest in my house. He met with an accident while he was out riding which caused a serious injury to one of his legs. The leg had been previously hurt while he was serving with the army in India. This circumstance tended greatly to aggravate the injury received in the accident. He was confined to a recumbent position on a sofa for many weeks together; and the ladies in the house took it in turns to sit with him, and while away the weary time by reading to him and talking to him. My niece was foremost ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... and Miss Eyrecourt had declined to taste it. My lord had tried it, and had left it on his plate. My lady alone had really eaten her share of the misplaced dish. Having stated this apparently trivial circumstance, the head servant was surprised by the effect which it produced on the housekeeper. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, with an appearance of unutterable enjoyment. That night there was one supremely happy woman in ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... characteristically exact passages are some in the love-scenes of Tasso; for I have omitted the plays upon words and other corruptions in style, in which that poet permitted himself to indulge. But I have noticed the circumstance in the comment. In other respects, I have endeavoured to make my version convey some idea of the different styles and genius of the writers,—of the severe passion of Dante; of the overflowing gaiety and affecting sympathies of Pulci, several of whose passages ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... published in 1793, may serve as a fair instance: 'He' (Sir W. Waller) 'was, indeed, at length sensible of the misery which he had contributed to bring on his country;' (by the way, it is a suspicious circumstance—that Sir William [3] first became sensible that his country was miserable, when he became sensible that he himself was not likely to be again employed; and became fully convinced of it, when his party ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... writers who have dealt with this subject during the last century, much surprise has been manifested over the fact that for untold ages the people of the earth have worshipped a Trinity. Forster, in his Sketches of Hindoo Mythology, says: "One circumstance which forcibly struck my attention was the Hindoo ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... disinclined to fight against his countrymen, the rebels; so when the cholera broke out, he made this a pretext for escaping the vigilance of the authorities, and fled with his family and belongings to a farm on his sugar estate. My mother would have accompanied us, but for a circumstance which obliged her to remain in the town. Her rightful owner, Don Vicente, had in one day lost half his fortune; the rebels having encamped at his principal estate and utterly despoiled it. Four hundred ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... if uneasily debating the possible drawbacks of so elaborate an escort, but he was really ruminating upon the princess, who moved upon the wilderness with such pomp and circumstance. ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... flame—why it happens, what it does in happening, and where, after all, the whole candle goes to: because, as you know very well, a candle being brought before us and burned, disappears, if burned properly, without the least trace of dirt in the candlestick—and this is a very curious circumstance. In order, then, to examine this candle carefully, I have arranged certain apparatus, the use of which you will see as I go on. Here is a candle: I am about to put the end of this glass tube into the middle of the flame—into that part which old Hooker has represented in the diagram as being ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... answered, with emphasis. "Not the very slightest reason in any way to fear it. The sanest man, coming from the very sanest and healthiest stock on earth, would almost certainly be subject to delusions under such circumstances. This is accident, not disease—circumstance, not temperament. The injury to the brain is the result of a special blow. Grief for the loss of his son, and brooding over the event, no doubt contributed to the particular shape the delusion has assumed. But the injury's the main thing. ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... Monmouth, eldest natural son of Charles II. They were afterwards created duke and duchess of Buccleuch. She was an accomplished and high-spirited lady, distinguished for her unblemished conduct in a profligate court. It was her patronage which first established Dryden's popularity; a circumstance too honourable to her memory ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... its use continuing without variation of meaning for many generations. With Slang this is the exception; present in force to-day, it is either altogether forgotten to-morrow, or has shaded off into some new meaning—a creation of chance and circumstance. Both Cant and Slang, but Slang to a more determinate degree, are mirrors in which those who look may see reflected a picture of the age, with its failings, foibles, and idiosyncrasies. They reflect the social life of the people, the mirror rarely ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... soon regain their empire over cleared lands if their culture be abandoned. It may also be feared that, during a long series of years, no foreign traveller will be enabled to traverse all the countries which I have visited. This circumstance may perhaps add to the interest of a work which pourtrays the state of the greater part of the Spanish colonies at the beginning of the 19th century. I even venture to indulge the hope that this work will be thought worthy of attention when passions shall be hushed into ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... arrest. The charge was supposed to be high treason and Mr. Richard O'Gorman wrote to me to inquire what I wished to have done in my behalf. My answer was a distinct refusal to accept any aid from a body whose constitution I could not approve. This circumstance is mentioned, not because it deserves distinct attention, or even a place in this narrative, but to prove that my objections to the dissolution of the Confederation, and my feeling that it was a fatal step, are not of recent growth, or founded on ex-post facto opinions. ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... tide—its slight rise and fall—had not attracted our observation till some time after our residence on the island. Neither had we observed another curious circumstance until we had been some time there. This was the fact that the tide rose and fell with constant regularity, instead of being affected by the changes of the moon as in our own country, and as it is in most other ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... immersion in water: still he left it to every individual to be satisfied in his own mind as to this outward sign of the invisible grace. 'Strange,' he says, 'take two Christians equal on all points but this; nay, let one go far beyond the other for grace and holiness; yet this circumstance of water shall drown and sweep away all his excellencies; not counting him worthy of that reception that with hand and heart shall be given to a novice in religion, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... nature and providence have designed to live together in an union and friendship, and which we cannot separate like man and wife, when they happen to disagree. The profound silence that is enjoined upon the monks of La Trappe, is a singular circumstance of their unsociable and unnatural discipline; and were this injunction never to be dispensed with, it would be needless to visit them in any other character than as a collection of statues; but the superior of the convent suspended, in our favour, that rigorous law, and allowed ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... by adding one circumstance to another, that the other translation was the work of Addison himself; but, if he knew it in Addison's lifetime, it does not appear that he told it. He left his illustrious antagonist to be punished by what has been considered as the most painful of all reflections, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... children." Johnson, at this time, did not know that Dr. Blair had just published a Dissertation, not only defending their authenticity, but seriously ranking them with the poems of Homer and Virgil; and when he was afterward informed of this circumstance, he exprest some displeasure at Dr. Fordyce's having suggested the topic, and said, "I am not sorry that they got thus much for their pains. Sir, it was like leading one to talk of a book when the author is concealed ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... stational churches used to repose on a letto or bed prepared for them in the sacristy, where they afterwards put on the paramenti or vestments. The paschal candle also, an emblem of Christ the true light, as we shall afterwards see is removed on the day of the ascension: this circumstance ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... justice which has harrassed me from my earliest youth—ah, for years have I waited in vain for justice—and the foolish passion for hunting after mitigating circumstances, even when the misdeed has been proved—all this compels me to say that Pennewip's lot might be considered a mitigating circumstance for a man convicted ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... anatomical details. The question of stability is generally dealt with in an incidental manner, and in many cases it is difficult to reach conclusions from the facts given. Especially disturbing is the circumstance that from a horticultural point of view it is quite sufficient that a new type should repeat itself in some of its offspring to be called stable, and that for this reason ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... circumstance not a little singular, but the only cast in this collection which is anterior to the Queen's, itself appertains to Royalty, being none other than the hand of Caroline, sister of the first Napoleon, who also, it must not be forgotten, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Jacques innocent, was to take the glory out of his own speech, and turn the sting of his argument against himself. Besides, if he produced the witness who had secretly given him the information, he should be self-condemned, for he could not conceal that he had been aware of the circumstance before the trial. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... continues visible a whole minute, and in some rare instances longer than the light of the nucleus of the shooting star; in which case the luminous track remains motionless. (Gilb., 'Ann.', bd. xiv., s. 251.) This circumstance further indicates the analogy between large shooting stars and fire-balls. Admiral Krusenstern saw, in his voyage round the world, the train of a fire-ball shine for an hour after the lluminous body itself had disappeared, and scarcely ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... peaceful home. The quaintness and antiqueness of the homely kitchen chimed in with his present feeling; he wanted no display or grandeur. This was no common every-day world he was in; there was a strange flavor about every circumstance. Impatient as he was to see Sophy, and hold her once more in his arms, he could not but feel a sense of comfort and tranquillity mingling with his more unquiet happiness. There was a fire burning cheerily on the hearth, though it was a May evening. Coming from ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... young hero lineally descended from their renowned Henry the Fourth. At length, the two English noblemen arriving at Paris as hostages for the performance of the treaty, and seeing him appear at all the public places of diversion, complained of this circumstance as an insult to their sovereign, and an infringement of the treaty so lately concluded. The French king, after some hesitation between punctilio and convenience, resolved to employ violence upon the person of this troublesome stranger, since milder remonstrances had not been able to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... flow of animal spirits of the little man; and I confess I had been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from authors who certainly were not in the range of every-day reading. I mentioned this last circumstance to Frank Bracebridge, who told me with a smile that Master Simon's whole stock of erudition was confined to some half a dozen old authors, which the squire had put into his hands, and which he read over and over whenever he had a studious fit, as he sometimes had on a rainy day or a long ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... not be induced, under any circumstance, to take a Portland boat, and she could not have been taken ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... Alarmed at the circumstance, he walked slowly to his bed-side, and drew forth his pocket-pistols from under the pillow; these he carefully placed upon the table, and resumed the elbow-chair. All was again still as death; and nought but the winds, which whistled round the watch-tower and the ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... is well arranged, and the table exceedingly good. My stay was limited to three or four days, a circumstance I regretted the less on account of finding that most of my intimate acquaintance ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... enjoying the fresh air. In the presence of God let us be simple men—our hearts will be more apt to be elevated by the sight of the beauties of nature, than if we go surrounded by all this 'pomp and circumstance' ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... elbows. "My faith! Castanado, there are their name'! and 'For destrugtion of their eighteenth enemy aeroplane, under circumstance' calling for ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... on a pair of steel-rimmed eyeglasses and read it. When he had finished he put the eyeglasses in his pocket, folded the letter, and handed it to her. He had read the contents with equal deliberation. It seemed impossible that he would act otherwise in any circumstance. ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... complete realization of his oneness with the Father, by mastering, absolutely mastering every circumstance that crossed his path through life, even to the death of the body, and by pointing out to us the great laws which are the same for us as they were for him, he has given us an ideal of life, an ideal for us to attain to here ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... unable to face the light, and the lines of his face, the hooked nose, and the thin, constantly quivering, drawn-in lips suggested a mixture of boldness and baseness, of cunning and sincerity. But there is no book which can instruct one to read the human countenance correctly; and some special circumstance must have roused the suspicions of these four persons so much as to cause them to make these observations, and they were not as usual deceived by the humbug of this skilled actor, a past master in the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... circumstance," said Bob, "and that circumstances alter cases. But whose carriage is this ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... with his intimate knowledge of Sicily, will add an anecdote from there. Gelo of Syracuse had disagreeable breath, but did not find it out himself for a long time, no one venturing to mention such a circumstance to a tyrant. At last a foreign woman who had a connexion with him dared to tell him; whereupon he went to his wife and scolded her for never having, with all her opportunities of knowing, warned him of it; she put in the defence that, as she ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... as can be written on the subject. If she had been born in Paris, at the proper time, she would have been the leader of a salon; separated from that brilliant destiny by years, by race, and by imperious circumstance, she wielded the same sort of sceptre in her own circumscribed but appreciative sphere. No social occasion in Eden Place was complete without Mrs. Grubb. With her (and some light refreshment), a party lacked nothing; without her, even if other conditions were favourable, ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the man's, after all, and the fame and visible reward. A man will sometimes say, 'I owe all my success to my wife, or my mother, or sister,' but he never really believes it, nor, in fact, does any one else. It is his success, after all, and the influence of the woman is but a circumstance, real and powerful though it may be. I am not sure," she added, "that woman's influence, so called, isn't rather an overrated thing. Women like to feel that they have it, and men, in matters which they hold lightly, flatter them by yielding, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... another theory, in making its bed. Through a long era this union lasted; but, as the old saying is, “the course of true love never did run smooth”; a change geologic came over the scene, and, through force of circumstance, the two, so long wedded together, broke the connubial bond, and henceforth separated, pursuing each their different ways; the one, the Trent, the river of thirty fountains, betaking herself “to fresh woods and pastures new,” after brief dalliance with the Ouse, became bosomed ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... Jocelyn the announcement came as a tremendous surprise. He knew well enough that this sort of accident was an everyday affair, in effect the usual prelude to matrimony, among the peasantry of Connaught; but that such an ugly circumstance should intrude itself into the Hewish family—in the case of one of its female members—seemed a monstrous calamity. He was in no condition to stand another shock, and Biddy's pronouncement completely knocked him over. In a case of this kind it was idle to doubt ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... table of a real friend, asks me to dine with him: I find a large company assembled upon the occasion, and hardly is the cloth taken away, when mine host, with all the freedom of an established acquaintance, without the least delicacy, or even common feeling, often without the softening circumstance of asking some other person to begin, or even of beginning himself, calls upon Mr. Hodgkinson for a song."—"Then why do you comply? why dont you refuse the invitation? or, if you cannot, why dont you pretend to be hoarse?" "I will ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... and he allows it to be seen a little too much. He embarrasses us sometimes. But there is one extenuating circumstance—he has ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... jealous of you; I warned you he or some one else might become so. But the most curious circumstance is, he wrote a second letter in his own name. I suspect he has bought a ticket. I advise you to say nothing about the matter ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... You may not be aware, madam, that these islands were once the centre of the British Commonwealth, during a period now known as The Exile. They were its headquarters a thousand years ago. Few people know this interesting circumstance now; but I assure you it is true. I have come here on a pious pilgrimage to one of the numerous lands of my fathers. We are of the same stock, you and I. Blood is thicker than water. We ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... progress of manufacture may have been in other parts of Ireland, in Dublin, under the circumstances to which your Committee are about to call the attention of the Society, it has produced all the effects of actual prohibition, all the mischiefs of the most rigorous exclusion. It is a singular circumstance that, in the metropolis of the country, possessing local advantages in respect to manufactures and facilities for trade with the interior, superior, probably, to any other city or town in this portion of the empire, with a population excessive as to the means of employment, in a degree ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... risibility whenever the frailties of human nature are put to severest test. I think we possess a better reason than Democritus himself for our Abderian tendency; for laughter with us oftenest veils an effort to regain balance of temper, when disturbed by any untoward circumstance. It is a counterpoise of sorrow ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... his historic battle for Home Rule, and during the subsequent Premiership of Lord Rosebery, was exceptional. He was the trusted friend of both statesmen, and probably no other journalist was so absolutely in the confidence of the leaders of the Liberal party—a circumstance which was due quite as much to his character as to his capacity. It is not my intention to anticipate the story, as he himself tells it, either of the "Hawarden Kite" or the Home Rule split, much less to disclose his opinions—they are emphatic and deliberate—of the men who ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... Neville," he repeated, laughing—"you bad, spoiled little beauty! You know devilish well that if there's any intellectual space between you and me it's purely a matter of circumstance ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... The circumstance is not to be lightly dismissed, for it was of immeasurable effect upon the fortunes of the Emir, and—if we can be excused for connecting an interest so stupendous with one so comparatively trifling—the fate of Constantinople. Theretofore the Turk's ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... may be followed by a correspondingly speedy dehydration of the body, a retention of salts by a sudden increase of weight. The parathyroid glands are probably closely concerned in regulating the retention and excretion of salts, and especially of calcium, a circumstance which becomes of significance when we remember how frequently rickety changes, tetany, and other convulsive seizures form part of the clinical picture which we are now considering. While it is difficult to determine the effect ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... eminent Persons, and of their Behaviour in that dreadful Season. I may also add, that there are no Parts in History which affect and please the Reader in so sensible a manner. The Reason I take to be this, because there is no other single Circumstance in the Story of any Person, which can possibly be the Case of every one who reads it. A Battle or a Triumph are Conjunctures in which not one Man in a Million is likely to be engaged; but when we see a Person at the Point of Death, we cannot forbear being ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the record of his own transgressions, even to the most minute exactness. It would of itself mete out perfect justice, since the sin would be seen amid its accompanying facts, every aggravating or extenuating circumstance. Each man would be strictly punished according to his talents. As no one is without sin, it makes the necessity of an atonement indispensable, and, in its most rigid interpretation, it exhibits the truth of the scheme of salvation in the clearest colors. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... was of the nature of light. The fairest, purest, oldest of created things, passing untainted through pollution, turning gloomy night into day, and imparting their varied beauties to earth and air and ocean, this of all material elements was the fittest symbol of God. A circumstance this to which we probably owe the ancient practice of worshipping the Divinity by fire, and certainly such figures as these: "God is light;" "He clothes himself with light as with a garment;" "He dwelleth in light that is inaccessible and full of glory." This light, said to have been intensely luminous, ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... enthusiasm for freedom waned, the weakness of the theory upon the constructive side became obvious. Merely to leave everything to nature was, after all, but to negate the very idea of education; it was to trust to the accidents of circumstance. Not only was some method required but also some positive organ, some administrative agency for carrying on the process of instruction. The "complete and harmonious development of all powers," having as its ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... benevolent. And so long as the Society adheres to the object announced in its constitution, as it hitherto has done, the master can surely find no reasonable cause of anxiety. And it is a gratifying circumstance that the Society has from the first obtained its most decided and efficient support from the slaveholding States.'—[Sermon, delivered at Springfield, Mass., July 4th, 1829, before the Auxiliary Colonization Society of Hampden County, by ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... times by its accuracy and the rapidity of its fire; and what says the wise man? 'Life is sweet, even to the bravest.'" And all the time he was talking, Harry Forsyth kept thinking, "Where have I seen him? What circumstance does his face recall?" ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... generally all other Protestants who choose episcopal constitution. The first is the only one which may justly claim the title of a national church, because she has at her head a Christian King of the same rite, which circumstance is absolutely required to constitute a national church. The other episcopal one, known by the name of Unitas Fratrum, is far from pretending to that title." In that manifesto the Brethren assumed that their episcopal orders were on a par with those of the Church of England; and that assumption ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... waiting at the platform, choosing an empty compartment. Action had temporarily dulled the passion of her misery, her rage, her shuddering horror at herself. But alone in the train, it all returned upon her, only with a complete realization of circumstance which made ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... to our own moral standard, but not according to that of the narrator, as the magnificently tragic Icelandic incest story of Sigmund and Signy; the guilt which has come about no one well knows how, an unfortunate circumstance leaving the sinner virtually stainless, in his or her own eyes and the eyes of others, like the Homeric Helen; the heroic guilt, where the very heroism seems due to the self-sacrifice of the sinner's innocence, of Judith; the struggling, remorseful guilt, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... excellent health when the accident occurred, and so when he began to recover, his restoration was rapid. The process, however, was still long enough to compel the cousins to know more of each other than twelve months of ordinary circumstance ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald |
