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Anecdote   /ˈænəkdˌoʊt/   Listen
Anecdote

noun
1.
Short account of an incident (especially a biographical one).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Anecdote" Quotes from Famous Books



... school—courtly and somewhat ceremonious, reminding one of those Italian nobles of the sixteenth century of whom we lead in the novels of Giraldo Cinthio and Fiorentino—uomini illustri, e di civil costumi. His greeting is cordial and his conversation delightful, full of anecdote and marked with enthusiasm for his art. When I first became acquainted with him I was of opinion that his interpretation of Hamlet was based only upon the translated text, but in the course of a very long conversation on the subject I discovered that he was well ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... never uttered a sentence of satire or censure or harshness concerning any one of his contemporaries. I cannot recall any conversation with him in which he spoke of intimacy with the great, and certainly no anecdote of his familiarity with men or women of the upper orders; although he conversed with me often of those who are called the lower classes. I remember his describing with proud warmth his visit to his friend Boyse, at Bannow, in the County of Wexford: the delight he enjoyed at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... for the first time in these pages will prove that his letters are very interesting as contributions to biography. If some of the letters that helped to make up The Bible in Spain are interesting, it is because in them Borrow incorporated considerable fragments of anecdote and adventure from his notebooks. It is quite a mistake to assume, as does Dr. Knapp, that the 'Rev. and Dear Sir' at the head of a letter was the only variation. You will look in vain in the Bible Society correspondence for many a pearl that is contained in The Bible in Spain, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... them the love of work and of study, making it easier by explaining things carefully and in a pleasant fashion, and by introducing in the explanation some anecdote which will make the child eager for the ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue

... was suggested by an anecdote of Stuart, related in Dunlap's History of the Arts of Design,—a most entertaining book to the general reader, and a deeply interesting one, we should ...
— The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... resumed his place and went on with his speech. The crowd cheered him and there was no further disturbance at that meeting. The speech was a modest, straightforward declaration of his principles. When he was leaving several voices called for a story. Abe raised a great laugh with a humorous anecdote in which he imitated the dialect and manners of a Kentucky backwoodsman. They kept him on the auctioneer's block for half an hour telling the wise and curious folk tales of which he knew so many. He had ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... condition, in the month after his seizure, he was writing these Letters, and also a fourth series of the "Tales of a Grandfather." The slight softening of the brain found after death had then begun. But the old delight in anecdote and skill in story-telling that, at the beginning of his career, had caused a critic of his "Border Minstrelsy" to say that it contained the germs of a hundred romances, yet survived. It gave to Scott's "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft" ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... The following anecdote respecting his manner of preaching will serve to illustrate this part of his character. One day, while preaching from the balcony of the court-house, in Philadelphia, he cried out, "Father Abraham, who have you got ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... into the French Court, was the necessity of observing a system of etiquette to which she had been unaccustomed, and soon pronounced, with girlish vehemence, insupportable. Barriere copies a ridiculous anecdote in illustration of this from the manuscript fragments of Madame Campan: "Madame de Noailles" (this was the first lady of honor to the dauphiness) "abounded in virtues; I cannot pretend to deny ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... of anecdote and leisure ended. There was thrust into my hands a typewritten-sheet and I caught the next thing on wheels out to Corozal for my first investigation. It was one of the most commonplace cases on the Zone. Two residents of my first dwelling-place ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... had in preventing his sleeping at night. He was so restless on one occasion that his wife became seriously alarmed. "What's the matter wi' ye, John? are ye ill?" "On no," replied the doctor, "it's only that confounded Bounder Clay!" This domestic anecdote brought down the house, and the meeting terminated in a loud and ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... An anecdote is related of a heroine of Falaise, whose exploits are recorded with pride by her countrymen, by whom she is called La Grande Eperonniere. She had headed a party of valiant citizens, who defended one of their gates, and fought with such determination, as to keep her position ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... Wesley publishes a story of a man who was hanged for murdering another man, whom he afterwards met in one of the Spanish colonies of South America. I shall not here interrupt the tale of the Perrys by explaining how a hanged man met a murdered man, but the anecdote proves that to inflict capital punishment for murder without proof that murder has been committed is not only an illegal but an injudicious proceeding. Probably it was assumed that Harrison, if alive, would have given signs of life in the course of ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... lethargy, and told us again, as though we had never heard it, the story of how he had earned the Cross, how it had been given him by the hand of the Emperor, and of the innocent—and, indeed, foolish—sayings of his daughter when he returned with it on his bosom. He had another anecdote which he was very apt to give, by way of a rebuke, when the Major wearied us beyond endurance with dispraises of the English. This was an account of the braves gens with whom he had been boarding. True enough, he was a man so simple and grateful by nature, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... C. Preston, of South Carolina, was not only one of the foremost orators in the Senate, but a delightful conversationalist, with an inexhaustible fund of reminiscence and anecdote. One of his colleagues in the House of Representatives, Mr. Warren R. Davis, of the Pendleton district, was equally famed as a story-teller, and when they met at a social board they monopolized the conversation, to the delight of the other guests, who listened ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... began with anecdote and joke, and the old seaman laughed till he cried, and went to bed vowing that there never was such a pleasant fellow on earth, and he ought to ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... gossiping and ever most welcome New Haven friend for the following anecdote of one of the men who, clothed in a little brief authority, 'go about ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... tells an amusing anecdote illustrative of his daring and somewhat foolhardy spirit, even in mature life. Mr. Douglas, then a judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, was one of a number of passengers who, on the crack steamboat "Andrew Jackson," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... to the tragic sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller, and to a long line of singers and musicians. Even Booker Washington, most practical of Americans, proves the point, the distinguishing qualities of his speeches being anecdote and vivid illustration. It is best, however, to consider members of the race who were entirely untaught in the schools. On one occasion Harriet Tubman, famous for her work in the Underground Railroad, was addressing an audience and describing a great battle in the Civil ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... of the north the wolf is black, and sometimes black and gray: others are quite white; but the black wolf is always the fiercest. The black is also found in the south of Europe, and particularly in the Pyrennees. Colonel Hamilton Smith relates an anecdote illustrative of its great size and weight. At a battue in the mountains near Madrid, one of these wolves, which came bounding through the high grass towards an English gentleman who was present, was so large that he mistook it for a donkey; ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... de Clem., i,18, 1 and 2—especially the anecdote of Vedius Pollio (mentioned also by ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... it! Scott says: "There are several instances, at least in tradition, of persons so much attached to particular tunes, as to require to hear them on their death-bed. Such an anecdote is mentioned by the late Mr. Riddel of Glenriddel, in his collection of Border tunes, respecting an air called the 'Dandling of the Bairns,' for which a certain Gallovidian laird is said to have evinced this strong mark of partiality. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... An anecdote relating to this usage is told of Shakespeare. The latter "stood godfather" to the child of a friend; and after the ceremonies of the christening, as the poet seemed much absorbed and serious, the father questioned him as to the cause of his melancholy. The sponsor ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... he needed them. The sequel is more serious. Losing all heart at his defeat, General Buller, although he had been officially informed that White had provisions for seventy days, sent a heliogram advising the surrender of the garrison. White's first reply, which deserves to live with the anecdote of Nelson's telescope at his blind eye, was to the effect that he believed the enemy had been tampering with Buller's messages. To this Buller despatched an amended message, which with Sir George White's reply, is ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... An anecdote here will fitly illustrate the affection and exaggerated reverence we felt for what we, to the great annoyance of the guards and citizens, insisted on calling "God's country." I had been reading ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... Bawcombe. He was born, we have seen, in 1800, and began following a flock as a boy and continued as shepherd on the same farm for a period of fifty-five years. The care of sheep was the one all-absorbing occupation of his life, and how much it was to him appears in this anecdote of his state of mind when he was deprived of it for a time. The flock was sold and Isaac was left without sheep, and with little to do except to wait from Michaelmas to Candlemas, when there would be sheep again at the farm. It ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... decided by someone else. But no; unless she chose they would both be shot. At last she chose Diego. Afterwards she went mad, and was constantly heard wailing: 'I have killed my grandson Emilio.' This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I., whose short reign was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though there were enough of these, than by a venality never surpassed. The grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber sold the public offices in the daylight; ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... diverted with this anecdote, which the teacher related in English so good that we certainly could not have supposed him a native but for the colour of his face and the foreign accent in his tone. Next day we walked out with this interesting man, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... Bullwigg's honor, and he could not compel that gentleman to drive until he was quite ready. General Bullwigg apostrophized the weather and the links. He spoke at some length of "My game," "My swing," "My wrist motion," "My notion of getting out of a bunker." He told an anecdote which reminded him of another. He touched briefly upon the manufacture of balls, the principle of imparting pure back-spin; the best seed for Northern greens, the best sand for Southern. And then, by way ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... intense absorption in its theme which characterize the work of the higher imagination. This is rather the product of fancy and wit. Wit, indeed, in the old sense of quickness in the perception of analogies is the staple of his mind. His resources in the way of figure, illustration, allusion and anecdote are wonderful. Age cannot wither him nor custom stale his infinite variety, and there is as much powder in his latest pyrotechnics as in the rockets which he sent up half a century ago. Yet, though the humorist in him rather ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... second of welcome encounter this workman with the bandit mustache and the muddy overalls seemed nearer than any one else to the credulous youth which she was seeking to fight beside her, and she told him, as a cheerful anecdote, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... human mind had been made, unawares, subservient to mere enjoyment. A man was a philosopher only that he might be prompt to discuss and always ready to take his share in the talk; and at a banquet a well-told anecdote was more heartily welcome than some profound idea that gave rise to a reflection or provoked a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 413 our author returns to the charge. He observes (as I have also observed) the often contradictory nature of our evidence. Here I may offer an anecdote. The most celebrated of living English philosophers heard that I was at one time writing a book on the 'ghostly' in history, anthropology, and society, old or new, savage or civilised. He kindly dictated a letter to me asking how I could give time and pains ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... One anecdote told of him displays a reckless and whimsical humor. Having need of money, Carlos asked of a merchant, named Grimaldo, a loan of fifteen hundred ducats. The money-lender readily consented, thanked the prince for the compliment, and, in the usual grandiloquent vein of Castilian courtesy, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... tongue is hung on the middle and works at both ends, she does tire one, and that's the truth." But she really was a good-natured, kind creature, ready to oblige in everything; and I believe that she thought that she was amusing you when she talked on in this way. Unfortunately she had no anecdote, for she had a very bad memory, and therefore there was nothing to be gained from her. By way of amusing me, she used to say, "Now, Tom, sit down here, and I'll tell you all about my bad leg." And then she would commence with the first symptoms, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... advantage, as, for example, once, when owing to a sudden alarm the camp was being hurriedly broken up, he left a sick friend behind in spite of his passionate entreaties, observing as he did so, that it is hard to be wise and compassionate at the same time. This anecdote has been preserved by the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... first, the change from the beaten track usually excited aversion: the youth felt like a child amid strangers; but in no single instance did this feeling continue. When utterly disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by the anecdote of Newton, where he attributes the difference between him and other men, mainly to his own patience; or of Mirabeau, when he ordered his servant, who had stated something to be impossible, never again to use that blockhead ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... the first used to take an active part in his son's education, and the following anecdote will show that he had at least a pupil who was anxious to learn. One day, when Charles was a very small boy, he came up to his father and showed him a book of logarithms, with the request, "Please explain." Mr. Dodgson told him that he was much too young to understand ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... life is dreadfully barren of those elements of the social picturesque which give piquancy to anecdote. And without anecdote, what is biography, of even history, which is only biography on a larger scale? Clio, though she take airs on herself, and pretend to be "philosophy teaching by example," is, after all, but a gossip who has borrowed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... extraordinary circumstance, my reappearance in these pages comes to an end. Let nobody laugh at the unique anecdote here related. You are welcome to be as merry as you please over everything else I have written. But when I write of ROBINSON CRUSOE, by the Lord it's serious—and I request you to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... The following anecdote is a case in point; it is too valuable to be lost, and too true to be doubted, for it was communicated to me by the same excellent lady to whom I was indebted for the last, [a relative ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... The earldom was one of the oldest in Ireland, but the marquisate did not go back farther than the last few years. Beaconsfield had given him a step in the peerage; no one knew why. A very curious man—most retiring—hated society. Then Lord Rosshill related an anecdote concerning an enormous water-jump that he and Lord Kilcarney had taken together; and he also spoke of the late Marquis's aversion to matrimony, and hinted that he had once refused a match which would ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... this precious book in Bedford jail, where he was confined on account of his religion. The following anecdote is related of him. A Quaker came to the jail, and thus ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... said nothing. His reticence was in such marked contrast to the volubility about him that he finally attracted universal attention, and more than one of the merry-makers near him asked if he had not some anecdote to add to the rest. But though he replied with sufficient politeness, it was evident that he had no intention of dropping his reserve, and it was not till the party had broken up and the room was nearly cleared that ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... much eloquence and penetration, in his well-known volume, by Professor Henry Jones. The narrative of Browning's life, in the earlier chapters, makes no pretence to biographical completeness. An immense mass of detail and anecdote bearing upon him is now available and within easy reach. I have attempted to sift out from this picturesque loose drift the really salient and relevant material. Much domestic incident, over which the brush would fain linger, will be missed; on the other ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... perspective view of her gun-decks, I thought her an equal match for any ship afloat, and so she certainly was, and nobly proved it afterwards. Her gallant commander, Captain Troubridge, was from the Emerald Isle; had a slight touch of the brogue, and was replete with anecdote; he was good-humoured and a gentleman, and he never punished a man unless he richly deserved it. My messmates were all young men, and generally speaking well informed, with the exception of the master, who was a countryman of mine, and desperately fond of doggerel verse ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... Chateau-neuf, one of the king's mignonnes, before he went to Poland, having espoused, par amourettes, the Florentine Antinotti, officer of the galleys at Marseilles, and detecting him in an intrigue, slew him stoutly with her own hand.' By the help of this anecdote, and of similar ones, which abound in Brantome, I make up a character in my head, and resuscitate a lady of Henry the Third's court." The "Chronicle" is the result of much reading and combination ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... women. Mis' Molly graciously consented, after many protestations of lack of skill and want of practice, to stand up opposite Homer Pettifoot, Mary B.'s husband, a tall man, with a slight stoop, a bald crown, and full, dreamy eyes,—a man of much imagination and a large fund of anecdote. Two other couples completed the set; others were restrained by bashfulness or religious scruples, which did not yield until later ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... first time when he himself was a little boy, from being in the habit of playing with B.'s dogs. Byron wrote to him to school to bid him mind his prosody. Gave me two or three of his letters to him. Saw a good deal of B. at Hastings; mentioned the anecdote about the ink-bottle striking one of the lead Muses. These Muses had been brought from Holland; and there were, I think, only eight of them arrived safe. Fletcher had brought B. a large jar of ink, and, not thinking it was full, B. had thrust his pen ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... This anecdote is from Heckewelder. In his account of the Indian Nations, he describes an Indian hunter as addressing a bear in nearly these words. "I was present," he says, "at the delivery of this curious invective; when the hunter had despatched the bear, I asked him how he thought that poor ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... an interesting anecdote of a sparrowhawk at Burton. "In May, 1844," he writes, "I received from Burton Park an adult male sparrowhawk in full breeding plumage, which had killed itself, or rather met its death, in a singular ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... accompaniment. Music, it appeared, was Mr Macalister's passion in life. As a young man he had been quite a celebrated performer at Penny Readings and Church Soirees, and had been told by a lady who had heard Sims Reeves that she preferred his rendering of "Tom Bowling" to that of the famous tenor. This anecdote was proudly related by his wife, and though Mr Macalister cried, "Hoots!" and rustled his paper in protest, it was easy to see that he was gratified by ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... other. But they had a habit of contradicting each other's statements, and opposing each other's opinions, which, though mutually understood and allowed for in private, was most trying to the bystanders in public. If one related an anecdote, the other would break in with half-a-dozen corrections of trivial details of no interest or importance to any one, the speakers included. For instance: Suppose the two dining in a strange house, and Mrs. Skratdj seated by the host, and contributing to the ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Another anecdote illustrates Albuquerque's personal admiration of warlike prowess. Manoel de Lacerda was wounded in the face by an arrow; but nevertheless he killed a mounted Turk, seized his horse, and continued to fight with ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens

... provocative of a wry smile from the invalid; there was her farewell shout to Rupert when he took the road, her husky singing as she worked about the house. Occasionally Mildred heard the stormy sound of Mrs. Samson's breathing as she polished the landing floor, or her voice raised in an anecdote too good to keep. Brooms knocked against the woodwork or swished on the bare floors, and still the clock, hardly noticed now, let out its warning that human life is short, or as it might be, over long. Later, but not on every ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... like amigo (friend)." His English was too limited for me to point out the many weak and absurd points of the story, as, for instance, why the Negrito should make the twigs break exactly three times, and why he should not shoot because he thinks he is seen. I only mention this anecdote to illustrate the credulity of the Filipinos. The next day, when we were out collecting in the morning, I suddenly saw him start when a bamboo snapped, so I called out, "Buenos diaz, Senor Negrite." ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker

... of my chief. What would he have said if he had known that I had in my pocket an interview and in my head an anecdote which were material for a most successful story? And he has never had either the interview or the story. Since then I have made my way in the line where he said I should fail. I have lost my innocent look and ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... Resurrection rig—This subject, though a grave one, has been treated by many with a degree of comicality calculated to excite considerable risibility. A late well known humorist has related the following anecdote: ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... of irreproachable habits, and of great tenderness in his domestic relations. Whatever be the religious judgments formed of such men, mine is one of mingled respect and regret. It reminds me of an anecdote related of old Dr. Bellamy, of Connecticut, the celebrated Hopkinsian divine, who was called into court to testify concerning one of his parishioners, against whom it was sought to be proved that he was a very irascible, violent, and profane man; and as this ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... could entertain the idea of marriage. Everybody is familiar with the pretty anecdote charmingly told by Berthold Auerbach. Mendelssohn's was a love-match. In April 1760, he undertook a trip to Hamburg, and there became affianced to a "blue-eyed maiden," Fromet Gugenheim. The story goes that the girl shrank back startled at Mendelssohn's proposal of marriage. She asked ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... redness of eyes?' This interrogative 'portion of divine scripture' is forcibly illustrated by an anecdote, related with most effective dryness by a friend of ours. An elderly gentleman, accustomed to 'indulge,' entered the bar-room of an inn in the pleasant city of H——, on the Hudson, where sat a grave Friend toasting his toes by the fire. Lifting a pair ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... anecdote I recollect of Joachim: an Accident, which happened in those Passau-Interim days, a year or two after that drawing of the sword on Alba. Kurfurst Joachim unfortunately once fell through a staircase, in that time; being, as I guess, a heavy man. It was in the Castle of Grimnitz, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... woman's intellect suffered from the habit of allowing her hair to grow so long. It was years since this trifle had recurred to his mind; it came he knew not how, and he clutched at it like the drowning man at a straw. Before he really understood what he was about, he had begun to narrate the anecdote, and suddenly, to his astonishment, he was rewarded with universal peals of laughter. The noise dispelled his anguish of nervousness; he drew a deep breath, grasped the table before him, and was able to speak as freely as if he had been on his ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... without the fierceness of expression common among these Indians; and as he detailed these devilish cruelties, he looked up into my face with the same air of earnest simplicity which a little child would wear in relating to its mother some anecdote of its ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... India Islands crumpled up a piece of paper in his hand and laid it on the table before the monarch, saying: "That, sir, is the island." The traveler touring the West Indies finds the story following him from place to place. Among the islands which claim to have given origin to the anecdote is Haiti, and however that may be, such description seems to apply admirably. Rugged irregular mountain ranges interspersed with valleys form the greater part of the surface, while in the southeast a great plain extends from the ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... to writing). He could cook risotto better than any one else he knew. He was dubbed a "hippopotamus in trousers," and for six years before he died he could not see his toes, he was so fat. Sir Arthur Sullivan relates an anecdote which shows that Rossini was conscious of his grossness. Once in Paris Sullivan introduced Chorley to Rossini, when the Italian said, "Je vois, avec plaisir, que monsieur n'a pas de ventre." Chorley indeed was noticeably slender. Rossini could write more ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... turned on the catastrophe of the burning ship and the likelihood of saving the crew. From this it grew to anecdote of wreck and adventure, and at last Gabbett said something which made the listener start from his indifferent efforts to ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... admirer, as was also, more emphatically, Fred St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke,—"Billy and Bully" these two blades were termed. There was rumor, at one time, of the Earl seriously resenting the attentions of Bolingbroke. The old King, too, showed her some courtesies; and the most oft-told anecdote of her is about His Majesty asking if she were not sorry the masquerades were over. She assured him she was surfeited with pageants,—there was but one she wished yet to see, and that was a coronation. She saw it not, for the King outlived her by a fortnight. Had she ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing

... of warmth, and will remain coiled up for hours in any snug retreat where they can find this very necessary element of their existence. The following anecdote well illustrates ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... paper beside his plate again and continued his story, and we all laughed heartily at the end of the anecdote. It was the only way, and the soldier's way. There was no hugging of grief when our best friend fell. A sigh, another ghost in one's ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... perceived that he took the world quietly, and his doing so undoubtedly had important bearings on his style. We give another anecdote, which illustrates this peculiarity of his mind as well as the superlative folly of duelling. Not long after his marriage, with all his indifference to his wife, he was persuaded into a fit of singular jealousy. He was intimate ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... at all what was sung to them, as long as it was sung with sensuous beauty of tone, and facility of execution; consequently sensuous beauty of tone and facility of execution were almost the only things that the teachers aimed at. This is illustrated by an anecdote concerning the famous teacher Porpora and his pupil Caffarelli, which, although doubtless exaggerated, nevertheless describes the situation graphically. Porpora, it is related, gave Caffarelli a page of exercises to which he confined him for five years. And at the end of that ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... consideration. According to one of them, Washington maintained a public ferry, which was customary among the planters, and the public paid regular tolls for its use. On one occasion General Stone, the authority for the previous anecdote, crossed the ferry and offered a moidore in payment. The ferryman objected to receiving it, on the ground that it was short weight, but Stone insisted, and it was finally accepted. On being given to Washington it was weighed, and being found three half-pence short, the ferryman was ordered ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... 1 The following anecdote is particularly illustrative of canine sagacity. It shews that the dog is sensible of unmerited injury, and will revenge it accordingly; it exhibits the dog also, as a reflective animal, and proves that, though he ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... and I must admit very pleasantly. Any one who had pretensions to music played or sang, Henry performed some of his compositions; one officer did some card tricks. They all had an anecdote of their experience from the past months, which they told with great relish. Henry whispered to Count Arco: "My sister-in-law sings. Why don't you ask her for a song?" I could ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... these characters, I am irresistibly reminded of an anecdote illustrating their nature. A friend of mine who had employed a rather ignorant fellow to guide him through some ruins in England, was astonished, as he entered a gloomy dungeon, at the sudden remark, in the hollow voice of one imparting a dire confidence, of: 'I doan't believe in hany GOD!' 'Don't ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... d'Albany. Massimo d'Azeglio, partly out of hatred to the Countess, who was rather severe and acrimonious upon his youthful free-and-easiness, partly out of a desire to amuse his readers, has introduced into his autobiography an anecdote told him by Mme. de Prie (the niece of Alfieri's famous Turin mistress, and the lady who took it upon herself to send him a priest without consulting the Countess), to the effect that she had watched Fabre making eyes, kissing his fingers, and generally exchanging signals with Mme. d'Albany ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... the contents of a book by 'hunting it with his finger,' or once turning over the pages. He was believed, moreover, to know the habitat of all the rare books in the world; and according to the well-known anecdote he replied to the Grand Duke, who asked for a particular volume: 'The only copy of this work is at Constantinople, in the Sultan's library, the seventh volume in the second book-case, on the right as you go in.' He has been despised as 'a man who lived on titles and indexes, ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... Day, Esq., an anecdote is related of Miss B——, afterwards Mrs. Day, shewing with what remarkable effect presence of mind and courage can tame the ferocity ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous

... This anecdote she gave us with much wealth of discreditable detail and scant regard for either her daughter's presence or for the blushes that suffused the poor child's cheeks. In every way she was a pattern of the class of women amongst ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... on the other side are often quite as amusing. Dr. Canas related to us a laughable anecdote of a countryman of his, with whom he happened to camp on his first arrival in San Francisco. None of the party could speak a word of English, and the person referred to, as ignorant as the rest, went out to purchase bread, which he procured by laying down some money ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was lying—of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but that we thought was only the ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... regard to the origin and transportation of boulders. He produced an enormous head of a deer, which had a curious horn in front between the two side ones; this is a common appendage to the antlers of the deer of that region. He told us an amusing anecdote of his having been present when Professor Owen was lecturing on this strange appearance, and described the wisdom of this provision, to enable the animal to clear its way in the snow in search of its food below it; but Dr. Rae was able ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... I do not remember how or why (but appositely) he repeated some verses, from a pretty little ballad about fairies, that had struck his fancy, and he wound up his talk with some acute observations on the characters of General Jackson and other public men. He told an anecdote, illustrating the old general's small acquaintance with astronomical science, and his force of will in compelling a whole dinner-party of better instructed people than himself to succumb to him in an argument about eclipses and the planetary system generally. ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... ways? his thoughts? Just whisper me a few; Tell me a curious anecdote or two, And write 'em quickly off, good ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... archpatrons thereof.' This amusing document, contains some fifty or sixty veritable accounts of balls of fire that fell into churchyards and upset the sporters, and sporters that quarrelled, and upset one another, and so forth: and among them is one anecdote containing an example of a rather different kind, which I cannot resist the temptation of quoting, as strongly illustrative of the fact, that this blinking of the question has not even ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... alone of the witnesses mentions this (Trial, vol. iii, p. 103). Cf. the anecdote of the Sire de Boissy related by P. Sala in his collection, Les hardiesses des grands rois et empereurs (Trial, vol. ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... An anecdote which I have heard in connection with the same correspondent, although I do not vouch for its accuracy, shows that "keeping the lid" on newspaper men had its humorous side. It likewise indicates the initiative and aggressiveness of many American correspondents, who, as a ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... growing system; it must be kept up to date by the addition of new material, picked up in the course of the day's work. Much material is gathered and saved that is never used, but the wise correspondent does not pass by an anecdote, a good simile, a clever appeal or forcible argument simply because he does not see at the moment how he can make use ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... must explain the joke. The evening before, a Russian princess had told us an anecdote of this gentleman. He had suffered frightfully from sea-sickness in crossing the Channel, and turned tail when he got near Italy, because he had heard some one speak of "crossing" the Alps. "Thank you; I've had quite enough crossings already," ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... Another anecdote will suffice to show the various situations with which the Liberator had to contend. At a public dinner given to Bolivar at Bogota a fervent admirer of his uttered an incautious toast: "Should at any time a Monarchical Government be established in Colombia, ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... probable not even near a spring branch that would float a cornstalk boat. Could you believe their assertions, a single lot which they have for sale would produce a fortune that would make a man comfortable all his old days. I must not omit an anecdote that applies well to those townmakers. A gentleman visited the fertile lands of Illinois. In the course of his journey he passed very many of those trifling towns. When about to turn toward his home he had occasion to enter a tavern for refreshment. Here they kept ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason

... earnestly, whether he was assisting his master's designs or carrying out his own fancies of monsters, old myths, and classic fairy stories. No doubt the two boys, Mariotto and Baccio, found little companionship in this abstracted young man always dreaming over his own ideas. If they told him an anecdote, he would look up vacantly at the end not having heard a word; at other times every little noise or burst of laughter would annoy him, and he would be immoderately angry with the ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)

... preserved. Mab's Cross is still extant. An old ruinous building is said to have been the place where the Lady Mabel was condemned to render penance, by walking hither from Haighhall barefooted and barelegged for the performance of her devotions. This relic, to which an anecdote so curious is annexed, is now unfortunately ruinous. Time and whitewash, says Mr. Roby, have altogether defaced the effigies of the knight and lady on the tomb. The particulars are preserved in Mr. Roby's Traditions of Lancashire, [Footnote: A very elegant work, 2 vols. 1829. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... summer and the summer visitors, Lorraine came to what she deemed her hour - the one great hour left - and, as a drowning man, caught at her straw. Two long perfect days they had spent on the sea, with an old fisherman, full of anecdote, and his young grandson to sail ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... has never failed to rise to the occasion. All that he does is witty and never in bad taste; always and in everything he displays the genius of Rivarol, the polished subtlety of the old French noble. It was he who told that delicious anecdote of a friend of Laffitte the banker. A national fund had been started to give back to Laffitte the mansion in which the Revolution of 1830 was brewed, and this friend appeared at the offices of the fund with, 'Here are five francs, give me a hundred sous change!'—A caricature was ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac

... an iota of historical or other evidence for that "Flanders mare" anecdote, which seems to have had a gratuitous as well as spontaneous origin in Bishop Burnet's seventeenth-century brain, to the effect that the King was the victim of a flattering portrait by Holbein, and cruelly undeceived by the actual looks of his bride. In the first place his agents wrote ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... pronounce French. He notices that in old pictures the sitters are always represented with half-closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty, and how some Spaniards still honour this expression in life, while German art prefers lips pouting as for a kiss. His lively sense of anecdote, to which he gives the rein in all his writings, ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... pint of port, and afterwards a pipe (never a cigar). When joked with by his friends about his liking for cold salt beef and new potatoes, he would answer humorously, 'All fine-natured men know what is good to eat.' Very genial evenings they were, with plenty of anecdote and wit." ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... of this anecdote be accurate, Helps must, for once, have been drawing upon his imagination. As Clerk of the Council, he had no more to do with forming Cabinets than with appointing bishops. Palmerston was never Colonial Secretary in his life; and among his faults as a Minister, which ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... anecdote of a man who was sued for the value of a bond which he had given payable one day after the day of judgment. The judge ruled, "This is the day of judgment, and I order that the bill ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... continent, from the defect of all popular or open judicatures. A similar defect of deliberative assemblies—such, at least, as represent any popular influences and debate with open doors—intercepts the very possibility of senatorial eloquence. [Footnote: The subject is amusingly illustrated by an anecdote of Goethe, recorded by himself in his autobiography. Some physiognomist, or phrenologist, had found out, in Goethe's structure of head, the sure promise of a great orator. "Strange infatuation of nature!" observes Goethe, on this assurance, "to endow me so richly and liberally ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... made the wretched man every now and then sit up as if a wasp had stung him. One story in particular which the false Mayor told—and which, it appeared, was to the knowledge of all the country round the real Mayor's stock anecdote—had an absurd effect upon him. He straightened himself, listened as if his life depended upon it, and when he heard the well-known ending, uttered, doubtless, in something of his old tone, he collapsed into himself like a man who had ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... princely profusion—and while the strangely met and sympathetically united friends ate and drank, delicious music was played on stringed instruments by unseen performers. When, at intervals, these pleasing sounds ceased, Sah-luma's conversation, brilliant, witty, refined, and sparkling with light anecdote and lighter jest, replaced with admirable sufficiency, the left-off harmonies,—and Theos, keenly alive to the sensuous enemy of his own emotions, felt that he had never before enjoyed such an astonishing, delightful, and altogether fairy-like feast. Its only fault was that it came to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... horse?" I said hastily, seeing him about to embark on an anecdote. It wasn't far short of eleven o'clock, and I was anxious ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... no intention, in this journal, of conforming to a very exact order of dates; and whenever there recurs to my memory a fact or an anecdote which seems to me deserving of mention, I shall jot it down, at whatever point of my narrative I may have then reached, fearing lest, should I defer it to its proper epoch, it might be forgotten. In pursuance of this plan I shall here relate, in passing, some ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... been for Jack Ballard I fear the conversation would have degenerated into a discussion of the merits and possibilities of Jerry's many "companies." But every time that that danger threatened the irrepressible Jack demolished it with an anecdote. He wasn't going to have Jerry's bud nipped so early, as his own had been, by the frost of finance. By the time we had reached the roast, and the champagne, the plutocrats seemed to realize that the occasion was a birthday party and ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... it, we know of but one certain course, which is best explained in a brief anecdote. An English gentleman, who was in all the agonies of a rough and tedious passage from Folkestone to Boulogne, was especially irritated by the aggravating nonchalance of a fellow-passenger, who perpetrated all manner of bilious feats, in eating, drinking, and smoking, unharmed. English ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... anecdote of his career might she relate; for his character, under the pressure of this trial, which was as searching and severe a test of her faith as of his, seemed to illustrate itself in manifold heroic ways, all ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... heard this anecdote of my cousin and his friend, I thought that there could be no more romances written on the same kind of plot as Caleb Williams; the principal interest of which, to the superficial reader, consists in the alternation of hope and fear, that the hero may, or may not, escape his pursuer. ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... to Doc Tomlinson, "you run the drug store—ain't you got no anecdote for this?" Doc Tomlinson could only shake his head mournfully. A ring of bearded, beweaponed men gathered about the little sufferer, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... Ark; don't prove its electrical properties by tearing up paper into little bits and attracting them with the mouth-piece of your pipe rubbed on your sleeve. Don't insist philologically that when every shepherd 'tells his tale' he is not relating an anecdote but simply keeping tally of ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... exclusively moral or religious, briefer and less adorned than an allegory, with its lesson more immediately discernible, given, as it were, at a stroke. Any comparison, analogy, instance, example, tale, anecdote, or the like which serves to let in light upon a subject may be called an illustration, this word in its widest use including all the rest. Compare ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... heard him converse, he told one of the stories which best illustrated his peculiar talent for pointing a moral with an anecdote. Speaking of England's assistance to the South, and how she would one day find she had aided it but little and only injured herself, he said: "Yes, that reminds me of a barber in Sangamon County. He was about going to bed when a stranger came along and said he must have a shave. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... that each tribe must defend every one of its members, at all hazards. Of course, Mohammed was very desirous to gain over members of the great families, but he felt bound to take equal pains with the poor and helpless, as appears from the following anecdote: "The prophet was engaged in deep converse with the chief Walid, for he greatly desired his conversion. Then a blind man passed that way, and asked to hear the Koran. But Mohammed was displeased with the interruption, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... Story," which follows, is likewise, Mr. Lang believes, "probably based on some real story of the kind, some anecdote of premonitions. There are scores in the records of the Society for Psychical ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... lives in the old-fashioned vivacious history-books (which if they die out, as they show some signs of doing, will carry with them half the historic sense of the nation) as the hero of an anecdote of an unsuccessful attempt made upon his political virtue by a minister of the Crown, as a rare type of an inflexible patriot, and as the last member of the House of Commons who was content to take wages from, instead of contributing to the ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... A slight anecdote, which is connected with the month of January 1598, must not be omitted here. It gives us an impression of the personal habits of Raleigh at this stage of his career. It was the custom of the Queen to go to bed early, and one winter's evening the Earl of Southampton, Raleigh, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... pamphlets. Pope as Aesop's toad bursting with spleen (p. 12) had been used in Codrus (1728), p. 12, attributed by Pope to Curll and Mrs. Thomas. Cibber's prevention of Pope from peopling the isle with Calibans (p. 9) is a reference, of course, to Cibber's famous anecdote about rescuing Pope in the bawdy-house; but in Mr. Taste, The Poetical Fop (1732) where Pope figures as the monkey-like poetaster Taste, the servant-maid who was to have married him is delighted the marriage is broken off, "for fear our children ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted

... gathering a train, then shaking it off again. Sometimes and her friends, finding the heat intolerable, and wanting space for talk, would overflow into the great central hall, with its cool palms and statues; and there David would listen to torrents of French artistic theory, anecdote, and blague, till his head whirled, and French cleverness—conveyed to him in what, to the foreigner, is the most exquisite and the most tantalising of all tongues—seemed to ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and the second that Johnson the author is dead, and that our great hero only lives as a brilliant conversationalist in the pages of Boswell and others. Boswell's Life of Johnson is the greatest biography in the English language; we all admit that. It is crowded with incident and anecdote. Neither Walter Scott nor Rousseau, each of whom has had an equal number of pages devoted to his personality, lives so distinctly for future ages as does Johnson in the pages of Boswell. Understanding all this, ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter

... region, after a week's wet waiting, he, on ocular survey of the ground about, was heard to say, "This cannot be done, then!" "Had never meant to do it," sneers Schmettau, "and only wanted some excuse." Which is very likely. Schmettau gives an Anecdote of him here: In regard to a certain Hill, the Key of the Austrian position, which the King was continually reconnoitring, and lamenting the enormous height of, "Impossible, so high!" One of the Adjutants took his theodolite, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... attention to the plot of the piece, provided only that their favourite singers were taking part. Very often in that classic period the performers themselves knew nothing and cared less about the dramatic meaning of the works in which they appeared, and a venerable anecdote is current concerning a certain supper party, the guests at which had all identified themselves with one or other of the principal parts in 'Il Trovatore'. A question being asked as to the plot of the then popular piece, it was found that not one of the company ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... feel inclined to assist you before, I do now, just for the laugh I shall have at her when I come back, and if she wants any more assistance for the sake of her relations, I shall remind her of this anecdote; but she's a good woman and a good wife to boot, only too fond of her sisters." At dusk he equipped us both in sailor's jackets and trowsers, and desired us to follow him boldly. He passed the guard, who knew him well. "What, to sea already?" said one. "You have quarrelled with your wife." At ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... recorded. and the possession of a compass by the Jaredites when they sailed across the ocean (Alma xxxvii. 38), long before the invention of such an instrument. The ease with which such an error could be explained is shown in the anecdote related of a Utah Mormon who, when told that the compass was not known in Bible times, responded by quoting Acts xxviii. 13, where Paul says, "And from thence we fetched a compass." When Nephi and his family landed ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... An interesting anecdote is told in connection with the travels and cooeperation of Mlle. de Scudery and her brother; once, on the way to Paris, while stopping over night at Lyons, they were discussing the fate of one of their heroes, one proposing death and ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... he chose him to assist in the capture of the conspirators in the attempt upon his life. Cheerful and lively, his merry laugh might be heard in the midst of a knot of his admirers, to whom he was relating some amusing anecdote, while his shrewd remarks were the result of keen observation, and proved his intellect to be by no means ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... most collections. We sometimes see persons making themselves ridiculous by a pretended display of knowledge on matters of horticulture and botany, giving or pretending to give the botanical name of every plant one may happen to mention. The following anecdote will apply to such: Mr. Sidney Smith, the famous English writer, was once visiting the conservatory of a young lady who was proud of her plants and flowers, and used (not very accurately) a profusion of botanical names. "Madam," he said, "have you the Psoriasis septennis?" ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan

... cause to remember it before midnight. On they pushed past the picket guard and on to a side road which it was said would bring them around to the north side of Maasin. Both were in fairly good humor by this time, and the major told many an anecdote of army life which made Ben laugh outright. The major saw that his companion was indeed "blue," and was bound to dispel the blues if ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... year, and their financial duties were separately administered. Musa ibn Isa, however, held the appointment of Governor of Egypt on three separate occasions, and of his third period Said ibn Batrik tells the following anecdote: ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... when Caecilius, struck by the excellence of the style, invited his visitor to join him at table; and having listened to the rest of the play with admiration, at once pronounced a verdict in his favour. This anecdote, whatever be its pretensions to historical accuracy, represents, at all events, the conception entertained of Caecilius's position and influence as introducer of dramatic poets to the Roman public. The date of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... all the advantages of an author drawing from original sources so completely as Polybius. The compass of his task is completely clear and present to him at every moment; and his eye is fixed throughout on the real historical connection of events. The legend, the anecdote, the mass of worthless chronicle-notices are thrown aside; the description of countries and peoples, the representation of political and mercantile relations—all the facts of so infinite importance, which escape the annalist because they do not admit ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen



Words linked to "Anecdote" :   anecdotical, anecdotal, anecdotic, report, anecdotist, account



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