|
|
|
More "Circumlocution" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hofrath, after much quite extraneous matter, began dilating largely on the "agitation and attention" which the Philosophy of Clothes was exciting in its own German Republic of Letters; on the deep significance and tendency of his Friend's Volume; and then, at length, with great circumlocution, hinted at the practicability of conveying "some knowledge of it, and of him, to England, and through England to the distant West:" a work on Professor Teufelsdrockh "were undoubtedly welcome to the Family, the National, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... sagacity and experience, that when one friend has a piece of disagreeable intelligence to disclose to another, it is better to describe it directly, and in simple terms, than to introduce it with that kind of periphrasis and circumlocution, which oftener tends to excite a vague and impatient horror in the reader, than to prepare him to bear his misfortune with decency and fortitude. There are however no rules of this kind that do not admit of exceptions, and I am too apprehensive that the subject of my present letter ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... illiterate though it was, the letter had a certain noble simplicity. "Tres gentil," I remarked as I returned it to Jeanne, and thought the matter at an end. But Jeanne had not done, and, with much circumlocution and many hesitations, she at last preferred a simple request. I was going to visit the battlefield of the Marne—yes? I assented. Well, perhaps, perhaps Monsieur would visit Paul's grave, and perhaps if he found it he would take a photograph. "Why, certainly," ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula jungere" is "to tip him a kiss;" "pingue ingenium" is a circumlocution for "a blockhead;" "anilia instrumenta" are "his old woman's accoutrements;" and "repetito munere Bacchi" is conveyed to the sense of the reader as, "they return again to their bottle, and take the other glass." These are but a specimen of the blemishes which disfigure the most literal ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... pardon for being obliged to adopt a foreign word. And when, in a decree of the senate, the word emblaema (emblem) was read, he proposed to have it changed, and that a Latin word should be substituted in its room; or, if no proper one could be found, to express the thing by circumlocution. A soldier (236) who was examined as a witness upon a trial, in Greek [366], he would not allow to reply, except ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... and circumlocution, the nephew made up his mind to chill his uncle's hopes of the crown, and to speak a decided opinion in behalf of the man of his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... read. We have great fleets in the Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African ports. The Moors have a small opinion of England, France, and America, and put their representatives to a deal of red-tape circumlocution before they grant them their common rights, let alone a favor. But the moment the Spanish minister makes a demand, it is acceded to at once, whether it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... without circumlocution, why the Miller's Wife for while had left her husband's side; but Mr Horne is intolerant of the indelicate, and thus elegantly paraphrases the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... priest more and more with every fresh word I said to him. The idea of a dueling-party and a dead man seemed to scare him out of his senses. He bowed, fidgeted, cast his eyes up to heaven, and piteously shrugging his shoulders, told me, with rapid Italian circumlocution, that he had not the faintest idea of what I was talking about. This was my first failure. I confess I was weak enough to feel a little dispirited when I rejoined Monkton ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... — N. phrase, expression, set phrase; sentence, paragraph; figure of speech &c 521; idiom, idiotism^; turn of expression; style. paraphrase &c (synonym) 522; periphrase &c (circumlocution) 573; motto &c (proverb) 496 [Obs.]. phraseology &c 569. V. express, phrase; word, word it; give words to, give expression to; voice; arrange in words, clothe in words, put into words, express by words; couch in terms; find words to express; speak by the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Karl, a little vexed at his brother's circumlocution, "you quite try one's patience. Pray, Ossaroo, do you proceed, and relieve me by giving me an account of your late troubles. Never mind Caspar; let him laugh away. Go on, Ossaroo!" Ossaroo, thus appealed to, commenced his narration ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... intending travellers to this, the lordliest of Tuscan hill-towns, it will be well to state at once and without circumlocution what does not appear upon the time-tables of the line from Empoli to Rome. Montepulciano has a station; but this railway station is at the distance of at least an hour and a half's drive from the mountain upon which ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the various uses of gold, without having learned its name; his ideas of this metal would be perfectly distinct; but whenever he wished to speak of gold, he would be obliged to use a vast deal of circumlocution to make himself understood; and if he were to enumerate all the properties of the metal every time he wanted to recal the general idea, his conversation would be intolerably tedious to others, and to himself ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Alfred deemed it most kind and wise to tell her of it himself; but he dreaded it worse than death. He expected she would swoon; he even feared it might kill her. But love made her stronger than he thought. When, after much cautious circumlocution, he arrived at the crisis of the story, she pressed her hand hard upon her forehead, and seemed stupefied. Then she threw herself into his arms, and they wept, wept, wept, till their heads seemed cracking with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... need of circumlocution and feminine wiles when you want anything of me, Princess. You have but to speak, and, as the Frenchman said, 'If it is possible, it shall be done: if it is impossible, I can only regret that I can't do it.' What do you want ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... public business took a literary form. France went to ruin in spite of this array of documents; dissertations stood in place of action; a million of reports were written every year; bureaucracy was enthroned! Records, statistics, documents, failing which France would have been ruined, circumlocution, without which there could be no advance, increased, multiplied, and grew majestic. From that day forth bureaucracy used to its own profit the mistrust that stands between receipts and expenditures; it degraded the administration for the benefit of the administrators; in short, it spun those lilliputian ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... piercing glance on him, and seemed to read in the depths of his soul. "Is the matter settled?" he asked. "Pray, my friend, tell me the truth without circumlocution. It is better for me to know it at once than allow this incertitude longer to gnaw at my heart. Scharnhorst, I implore you, tell me the truth! Has the commander of the Silesian ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... of his shortcoming comments on Bacon's "Essays," uses preparedness. Albeit that brevity is a cardinal virtue in writing, a circumlocution would, we think, be better than a gawky word like this, so unsteady on its long legs. In favor of indebtedness over others of like coinage, this is to be said—that it imports that which in one form or other comes home to ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... not only useful, but absolutely necessary, that the excess of honour and admiration with which our existing stock of inventions is regarded be in the very entrance and threshold of the work, and that frankly and without circumlocution, stripped off, and men be duly warned not to exaggerate or make too much of them. For let a man look carefully into all that variety of books with which the arts and sciences abound, he will find everywhere endless repetitions of the same thing, varying ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... must own it to be my opinion, that LOCKE was betrayed into this question by the schoolmen, who, making use of undefined terms, draw out their disputes to a tedious length, without ever touching the point in question. A like ambiguity and circumlocution seem to run through that philosopher's reasonings on this as well as ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... and she in great delight at the sight of her visiters. There was no room for silence here—or at least no silence in the room, for Mrs. Ling was never at a loss for words. And there was no need of much circumlocution in presenting the turkey,—nothing but pleasure could come of it, let it enter on which foot it would; and the train of potatoes, and tea, and bread, and other things, fairly made Mrs. Ling's eyes shine,—though she talked away as fast as ever. The children were ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... neglect what I believe to be duty," she said. She wished that, by some circumlocution or some tenderness in the tone, she could have softened the words that she spoke, but all her forces had to be rallied to utter the decision, and there was no power left to qualify the bare words which sounded to ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... her at once, or as soon as possible." And at this opportune moment Dora came down the stairs. Theodore advanced to meet her, and feeling almost certain of the character with which he had to deal, came to the point at once without hesitation or circumlocution. ...
— Three People • Pansy
... third person a circumlocution in English is necessary in translation (as "let", "must", "are to", "is ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... patrols had brought in a host of Republican cattle; and when almost simultaneously with this announcement two proclamations were issued from Lennox Street, it was more than hoped, it was assumed, that the meat ordinance was to be relaxed. But it was not so. The first of these monuments to circumlocution had a final rap at the canteen. There were a few bars and canteens outside the barriers of the town; the Colonel said they should be closed, and closed they were—the proprietors, strange to say, assenting with a will. This alacrity was not consistent with their earlier diatribes against ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... day, into the smoking-room, and there, with much tact and circumlocution, gave him to understand that she thought Hadria was becoming more sensible; that she was growing more like other people, less opinionated, wiser, and better ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... was to escape the bother of personally superintending an insignificant account. His circumlocution was a suave way of stating that he had done all that could be expected of a neighbor and benevolent friend, and that the ordinary relation of broker and customer ought now be established. As for Littleton, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... anxiety to make these markings legible and intelligible. The popular newspaper, the popular member of Parliament, and the popular novelist,—the name of Charles Dickens will of course present itself to the reader who remembers the Circumlocution office,—have had it impressed on their several minds,—and have endeavoured to impress the same idea on the minds of the public generally,—that the normal Government clerk is quite indifferent to his work. No greater mistake was ever made, or one showing less observation ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... not at hand with a well-filled purse, I would cease to serve you; and you would no longer be enthusiastic on the subject of Austrian dominion, if Austria's money should cease to flow into your coffers. And now, my dear count, I believe we understand each other; and, without further circumlocution, what do you require of me—what have ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... part in what is grotesque and malicious. One day they arrived, attended by a Gypsy jockey whom I had never previously seen. We had scarcely been seated a minute, when this fellow, rising, took me to the window, and without any preamble or circumlocution, said - 'Don Jorge, you shall lend me two barias' (ounces of gold). 'Not to your whole race, my excellent friend,' said I; 'are you frantic? Sit down and be discreet.' He obeyed me literally, sat down, and when the rest departed, followed with them. ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... about his person: he had half a million of eager testimonies to this idea. Who was to tell him the truth?—Only in the last years of his life did trembling courtiers dare whisper to him, after much circumlocution, that a certain battle had been fought at a place called Blenheim, and that Eugene and Marlborough had stopped ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had been cleared and cheroots produced, without any circumlocution or preface, Shafto plunged into his subject and laid his information and suspicions before his friend who, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... has always had poor luck in South Africa, and never worse than on that occasion. Through no bad faith, but simply through preoccupation and delay, the promises made were not instantly fulfilled. Simple primitive men do not understand the ways of our circumlocution offices, and they ascribe to duplicity what is really red tape and stupidity. If the Transvaalers had waited they would have had their Volksraad and all that they wanted. But the British Government had some other local matters to set right, the rooting out of Sekukuni and the breaking of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of speech, as he seemed to be still in love with Socrates. "You are sober, Alcibiades," said Socrates, "or you would never have gone about to hide the purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is only an ingenious circumlocution, the point of which comes in by the way at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you and you only ought to love Agathon. But the plot of this satyric or Selinic drama has been detected, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... his stories with imperturbable sang froid, in a dry manner, and with perfect naturalness and simplicity. He spoke as a man of the world, without circumlocution; his adventures were numerous and perhaps singular, but only such as might have been expected to happen to a man of so much experience. A smile never traversed his face as he related the least credible of his ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... Rosanette. She thanked him for having risked his life on her behalf. Frederick did not at first understand what she meant; finally, after a considerable amount of circumlocution, while appealing to his friendship, relying on his delicacy, as she put it, and going on her knees to him on account of the pressing necessity of the case, as she wanted bread, she asked him for a loan ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... recent Cartoon representing the "Barnacles on American Commerce," moves to refer us to the House Committee on Commerce and Manufactures. PUNCHINELLO never did love the ways of the Washington Circumlocution Office, but if there is one thing which he dislikes more than anything else, 'tis the idea of being pigeonholed by the Committee on Commerce. The uses to which valuable information is put by that august body of traffickers in public credulity, are not for us. That we ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... he turned to the others, "and as they're both dead it's no contravention of the club etiquette against talking of women, to speak of her. I can't very well give the instance—the sign—that Rulledge is seeking without speaking of her, unless I use a great deal of circumlocution." We all urged him to go on, and he went on. "I had the facts I'm going to give, from Mrs. Ormond. You know that the Ormonds left New York ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... wrangle with the administration on the constitutional points involved. He denied the right of Congress to pass such an act, and of the Executive to carry it out within the limits of a sovereign state; averred—with much circumlocution and turgid bombast—that such attempt would be an infringement of the State Rights of Georgia, which he could ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... received an unusual visitor. It was a leader of the workingmen of Altona, who told him, without further circumlocution, that the Socialists had kept their eye upon him, had found out where he was living, and now sent him, the Altona man, to see if anything ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... satire on Ipswich; he meant it as a satire on England. The Eatanswill election is not a joke against Eatanswill; it is a joke against elections. If the satire is merely local, it practically loses its point; just as the "Circumlocution Office" would lose its point if it were not supposed to be a true sketch of all Government offices; just as the Lord Chancellor in "Bleak House" would lose his point if he were not supposed to be symbolic and representative of all ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... that the drinking of wine is forbidden by the tenets of their religion; but in respect of champagne, they understand how to evade this commandment by christening it by the harmless name of "sparkling lemonade," a circumlocution which of course did not in the slightest counteract its exhilarating effects. The Indians who were less proof against the effects of alcohol were much more quickly intoxicated than their new European friends; and under the influence of the potent liquor universal ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... the princess, with triumphant joy and cruel mildness, as she watched the growing surprise of her niece, "confess that I have astonished you a little. You were right in giving to our interview the turn it has taken. I should have needed all sorts of circumlocution to say to you, 'Niece, to-morrow you will be as poor as you are rich to day.' But now I can tell you the fact quite ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... his head deprecatingly. Finally, and after much circumlocution, I gathered that I was not expected at No. 231. My instructions were simply to be in waiting at the Worth Monument in Madison Square at half-after eight; for the rest Red-Fez would hold himself responsible. And ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... becomes important to increase them unceasingly: to interdict to slavery the entrance into a new territory is almost iniquitous. Such are the theories proclaimed by the governors, by the legislators of the cotton States; they propose them openly, without scruple and without circumlocution, under the name of political—what do I say? of moral and Christian axioms. For these theories they take fire, they become excited; they feel that enthusiasm which was inspired in other times by the love of liberty. ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... point, but in vain. Brian would not even allow him to feel his pulse. But the doctor knew very well what was amiss, and told Mrs. Wendover, with delicate circumlocution, that her husband was suffering from an imprudent use of ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Everard is committed for trial on the charge of murder. His best witness, Granfer, who had seen and spoken with him in the village at the moment of the alleged murder, greatly discredited his evidence by his circumlocution and stupidity, purposely affected to set the court in a roar. He admitted that Everard gave him money and tobacco. Judkins swore that at three o'clock Lee told him Everard had asked Alma to meet him at dusk that evening in the wood, and that he—Lee—meant ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... welcome, the crathur being sick and crazy, and she stayed with them for three or four days. By that time, finding herself recovered, she resumed her journey, setting off early in the morning with the abruptness and absence of circumlocution which, as a rule, distinguished her proceedings. A friendly nod and grimace she made serve for announcement of departure and leavetaking all in one. As her hostesses watched her out of sight down the ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... hours after they were due my missing bearers made their appearance. Arrived at Ghazeepore, I addressed a complaint to the postmaster-general. Thereupon two sides of a large sheet of paper were spread for me with base official circumlocution, through the darkness of which I groped out, after some labor, the audacious libel that the blame, if there were any, rested entirely with myself. This stuff, signed by the functionary aforesaid, but doubtless concocted without his privity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... also apologized, though with less circumlocution than the worthy Corporal; and nothing further occurred to disturb either the harmony of the company, or the equanimity of Mr. Tickels, until Mr. Goldworthy, with a countenance full of astonishment and alarm, ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... continued to thump and shake, demanding instant admission and inquiring if they were going to let the audience pull the house down. Another round of applause had broken out, directed perceptibly to some apology, some solemn circumlocution, of Selah Tarrant's; this covered the sound of the agent's voice, as well as that of a confused and divided response, proceeding from the parlour. For a minute nothing definite was audible; the door remained closed, and Matthias Pardon reappeared ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... the most influential of the Rationalistic teachers of England. He has not employed himself, like Kingsley and others of the Broad Church, in publishing his theological sentiments in the form of religious novels, but has had the commendable frankness to state his opinions without circumlocution, and to furnish us with his creed in a ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Callard; adding to Johnson, "We are in luck's way; the English adviser does his best to lessen the inconveniences of the Circumlocution Office." ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... he was to his master's tricks of circumlocution, the bravo was so far from expecting this question, that at first he stood mute, and only after a few moments' pause was able ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... languages into Active and Passive, seems to be useless in Slavic; for their being active or passive has no influence upon their flexion; and the forms of the Latin Passive and Deponent must in Slavic be expressed by a circumlocution. A division of more importance and springing from the peculiarity of the language itself, is that into verbs Perfect and Imperfect. Neither the Greek, nor the Latin, nor the German, nor any of the languages derived from them, admits ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... external obedience all alongst, till we arrive at the inward fountain of Christ dwelling in us by faith, and then have ye found true religion indeed. Now, ye may think possibly, we have used too much circumlocution: what is all this to the present purpose? Yes, very much. Ye shall find the Lord rejecting this people's public worship and solemn ordinances upon these three grounds,—either they did not join with ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... informed them that her name was Mrs. Russell; that she had been captured, along with her daughter, by the Carlists; that she had escaped, hoping to get help to rescue her daughter. All this Russell stated, not without much circumlocution and contradiction. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... reports, and confidential and anonymous notes. The hatred of the revolution pervaded every line, every word. The writers did not dare to propose plainly the revocation of the Charter, and the abolition of the new institutions; but they declared without any circumlocution, that the dynasty of the Bourbons would never be secure with the existing laws; and that it was necessary, to distrust and get rid of the men of the revolution. More effectually to know and persecute these, M. de Blacas had caused to be disinterred from the archives of the cabinet, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... thus far, of his life. Visiting, three weeks later, the home of his relative, General Mitchell, in Columbus, he was serenaded by the Hayes Club of the capital city, and, in response to their calls, foreshadowed the great issues of the approaching campaign. Without circumlocution, he said: ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... understood. You comprehend their idea and their subject at first glance. The most ignorant of men and the least versed in Pagan lore, take their meaning with half a look and give their works a title. In them we find no beating about the bush, no circumlocution, no hidden meanings, no confusion; the painter expresses what he means, does it quickly and does it well, without exaggerating his terms or overloading the scene. His principal personages stand out boldly, yet the accessories ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... like a—having never been called to—but what of that, d'ye see? perhaps I may know as much as—facts are facts, as the saying is.—I shall tell, repeat, and relate a plain story—matters of fact, d'ye see, without rhetoric, oratory, ornament, or embellishment; without repetition, tautology, circumlocution, or going about the bush; facts which I shall aver, partly on the testimony of my own knowledge, and partly from the information of responsible evidences of good repute and credit, any circumstance known to the contrary notwithstanding.—For as the law saith, if so be as ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... with more Variety than ours, both plainly, and by Proverbes and Metaphors: for example, when we would be rid of one, we use to say, Be going, trudge, packe, bee faring hence, away shift; and by Circumlocution, Rather your Roome than your Companie, lets see your backe, come againe when I bid you, when you are called, sent for, intreated, willed, desired, invited; spare us your place, another in your stead, a ship of salt for you, save your ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... a Sunday paper they are seldom long. Rachel was soon through the first, her blood boiling; the second she could not finish for her tears; the third dried her eyes with the fires of fierce resentment. It was not so much what they said; it was what they were obviously afraid to say. It was their circumlocution, their innuendo, their mild surprise, their perfunctory congratulations, their assumption of chivalry and their lack of its essence, that wounded and stung the subject of these effusions. As she raised her flushed face from the ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... man honestly desirous of arriving at the truth. Still the King did not like to propose directly to his brother in law the simple choice, apostasy or dismissal: but, three days after the conference, Barillon waited on the Treasurer, and, with much circumlocution and many expressions of friendly concern, broke the unpleasant truth. "Do you mean," said Rochester, bewildered by the involved and ceremonious phrases in which the intimation was made, "that, if I do not turn Catholic, the consequence will be that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... something nearly approaching a habit; and as it did so, the whispers as rapidly changed into plain, open speech, and the words which were interchanged lost their original air of confidential mysteriousness, until, finally, people told each other without very much circumlocution that there was, in their opinion, more in the strange deaths of Tiahuana and Motahuana than met the eye. And if they were asked to express themselves more plainly they reminded each other that the two priests, who had died under such really remarkable circumstances, were the men who were ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... word-divider; and he often carries this propensity so far as to divide words where there is no corresponding division of thoughts or of things. This is a very convenient practice, in so far as the ordinary business of life is concerned: for it saves much circumlocution, much expenditure of sound. But it runs the risk of making great havoc with scientific thinking; and there cannot be a doubt that it has helped to confirm psychology in its worst errors, by leading the unwary thinker to suppose that he has got before him a complete fact or thought, when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... received by the consul-general and his English wife in full dress. Madame de Vlassow was radiant with smiles as she served us tea by the side of her steaming silver samovar. She could not wait for the circumlocution of diplomacy, but said: "It is all right, gentlemen. General Kuropatkine has just telegraphed permission for you to proceed to Askabad." This precipitate remark evidently disconcerted the consul, who could only nod his head and ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... engage me in her cause, I had vowed, heart and soul, to be her champion. Having complimented me upon the high character she had heard of my prowess, understanding, and principles, she informed me, with little circumlocution, that various unhappy family circumstances had rendered it necessary for her to seek friends amongst strangers; that she was a novice of the Convent of St. Anne, but on the eve of profession, and that having long been under an engagement of marriage with a young gentleman of family, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... from Mr. Bishopriggs any clearer description of the man who had been with Anne at the inn than this, Blanche approached the main object of the interview. Too anxious to waste time in circumlocution, she turned the conversation at once to the delicate and doubtful subject of the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... fastidious commentaries which certain unbelievers compel a man to wind about a tale, swaddling clothes about an infant when it should run about stark naked. May the great devil give them a clyster with his red-hot three-pronged fork. I am going on with my story now without further circumlocution. ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... of pure mathematics. For this word location, see Bailey, Johnson, Sheridan, Walker, &c. But if dictionaries are to be the arbiters of language, in which of them shall we find neologism? No matter. It is a good word, well sounding, obvious, and expresses an idea, which would otherwise require circumlocution. The reviewer was justifiable, therefore, in using it; although he noted at the same time, as unauthoritative, centrality, grade, sparse; all which have been long used in common speech and writing. I am a friend to neology. It is the only way to give to a language copiousness ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... consequently, a widespread and well justified mistrust of novel schemes for the industrial regeneration of Ireland. I confess to having had my ingenuity severely taxed on some occasions to find a sympathetic circumlocution wherewith to show cause for declining to join a new movement, my real reason being an inward conviction that nothing except resolutions would be moved. In the complex problem of building up the economic and social life of a people with such a history as ours, we must resist the temptation to multiply ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... was fairly startled. The embarrassment of any truth is apt to be in its eternal abruptness, which no deviousness of tact or circumlocution of diplomacy has ever yet surmounted. Whatever had been in her heart, or mind, she was unprepared for this directness. The bolt had dropped from the sky; they were alone; there was nothing between the stars and the earth but ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... flower of the family taking an early breakfast at 11 A. M., in his cosey apartments on Thirty-fourth Street. With the least possible circumlocution she confronted him with what rumor had reported of his pursuits, and was pleased, but not too much pleased, when he gave her an exact account of his relations with Mademoiselle Zabriski, neither concealing nor qualifying anything. As a confession, it was unique, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... of course; that goes without saying. Whatever you care to tell me about your son will be mentioned to no one. Pray proceed, without further circumlocution, for my ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... He has a way of getting right at the heart of things with everyone except Bolum. For Isaac, he regards circumlocution as necessary, taking the ground that with him the quantity and not the quality of the words counts. So when he had silenced the company, and with a sweep of his cane had driven them into close order about the walls, he said: "Mr. Thomas is anxious ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... medium, for there is such a thing as being too systematic. There are men and women, for instance, who put away things so carefully that they can never find them again. It is too much like the "red tape" formality at Washington, and Mr. Dickens' "Circumlocution Office,"—all theory and ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum
... another person what to talk about. Advice on that subject is valueless. There are some things we may do, however, to make ourselves agreeable in conversation. We may study the art of expressing ourselves clearly,—saying what we wish to say without circumlocution. Some people seem to begin in the middle of a subject and talk ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... take the place of these pronouns. Such at least seems to be the usage of the ko[u]dan writers, and in the present book the example has been followed, as far as possible. In a few instances the use of a pronoun will relieve the strain of a lengthy sentence or involved circumlocution in the western tongue. At times the closer style can be abandoned—as in the direct narration of the Tale of the Baryufu Kwannon. So also with the translations of the gidayu and the ko[u]dan attached. These are for recitation. In the original the pronoun ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... objects—because' (p. 426)—'we have no other convenient and compact mode of speaking. Most attributes, and nearly all large bundles of attributes, have no names of their own. We can only name them by a circumlocution. We are accustomed to speak of attributes, not by names given to themselves, but by means of the names which they give to the objects they are attributes of.' 'All our ordinary judgments' (p. 428) 'are in Comprehension only; Extension not being thought ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... talking both scientifically and lovingly about trees and plants, of which there is every variety capable of English cultivation. Positively, the Garden of Eden cannot have been more beautiful than this private garden of Blenheim. It contains three hundred acres, and by the artful circumlocution of the paths, and the undulations, and the skilfully interposed clumps of trees, is made to appear limitless. The sylvan delights of a whole country are compressed into this space, as whole fields of ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... feared him; and promised to put us in possession of the entire facts this morning. When we returned at the hour appointed, he had absconded, having received his discharge. We then went to his house and saw his wife, who asserted, after some circumlocution, that you had been concerned in speculations with her husband, that at your request she had burnt most of the letters you had written to herself and her husband, and that all were in a disguised hand—like these few which she had preserved. You will admit ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... benumbed; he can only mutter, "If this is madness, there is method in it." What little portable wisdom was given to him in the first Act is soon withdrawn—he stammers in his deceit, and the old indirectness having no material of thought to work upon becomes a circumlocution of truisms. As the play proceeds he is made, as if with a second intention, more and more the antithesis, as he is the antipathy, of the prince. It is the careful portrait of what Hamlet would hate—a remnant of senile craft in the method with ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... of circumlocution, and in a matter-of-fact way, as if all respect for the peculiar genius of the house of Pole had vanished: "I sent for you to talk a word or two about this woman, who, I see, troubles you a little. I'm sorry she's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to New York, he wrote three pamphlets which were marvels of circumlocution, as far as reform was concerned, and masterpieces of political writing, as far as his own interests were concerned. He had borrowed freely, and without credit, from the speeches of every orator from Everett to Choate, and when he delivered the manuscripts to Mirabelle, and went off on his solitary ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... peace of Europe, and the name of Napoleon II. as a possible and perhaps the best solution of the problems involved in our future. All this was expressed in guarded but sufficiently definite terms, equally without passion or circumlocution, and with a marked intention of ascertaining to what extent I should admit or reject the prospects on which he enlarged. I was unprepared, both for the visit and the conversation; but I stood on no reserve, not expecting to convert M. Manuel to my own views, and with no desire to conceal mine ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Annie that he loved her. He spoke without any circumlocution, merely taking her hand one evening, when they happened to be alone together, and telling ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... softening of the cruelties of the criminal code, and the fair administration of law for all orders and conditions of men and women. He has had no respect for ermine, lawn, or epaulets, in his assaults upon the monopolies and sinecures of Church and State, circumlocution offices, nepotism, patronage, purchase, and routine, in army or navy. He wants the established religion to be religious, not a cover for aristocratic preferments and dog-in-the-manger laziness,—and government administered for the whole people, and not merely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Government got the best of the bargain. But long before this occurred, I had fulfilled my promise to Robert; for as soon as my patient recovered strength of memory enough to make his answer trustworthy, I asked, without any circumlocution,— ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... feel no other love than that which he cherishes for his own worthy person, and the purses of all others. Let him explain now, quickly and without circumlocution, if he really wishes my pardon, why, after going to Nurnberg to marry a bag of gold, containing a few millions, he has now returned ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... of his sins of omission and commission alike, were permissible in the Chapel-Room and in the presence of her late companions. The subject, unhappily, had called for too frequent mention, by now, for any circumlocution to be incumbent in the discussion of it. But here, in the brooding quiet of this bedchamber, and in Lady Calmady's presence, all that was changed. Trenchant statements of opinion, words of blame, were proscribed. The sinner, if spoken of at all, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... pleased with this circumlocution of "nothing" that he burst out laughing, and, wishing ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... your mind, Elizabeth, something surely," he said, "and it is nothing which can give me pleasure, else you would not use so much circumlocution; but ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... 'Skimmer of the Seas' thus spoke, he drew, with the calmness of a man who saw no use in circumlocution, a heavy bag of gold from beneath his frock, and deposited it, without a second look at the treasure, on the table. When this offering was made, he turned aside, less by design than by a careless movement of the body, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... each particular case, before the production of living matter in any other way could be admitted by careful reasoners. It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the contrary doctrine—that living matter may be produced by not ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Registry of the United Kingdom at Somerset House, wherein is filed the original Will of Charles Dickens. The search for this interesting document pursued by a stranger under pressure of time, strongly reminds one of the "Circumlocution Office" so graphically described in Bleak House. But we are enthusiastic, and at length obtain a clue to it in a folio volume (Letter D), containing the names of testators who died in the year 1870, where ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... ready reckoners are retarded by it. Instead of learning to jump at once to the conclusion, lightning-like, by a sort of intuitional process, which is of the very essence of an expert accountant, they learn laboriously to stay their march by a cumbersome and confusing circumlocution of words. And the expenditure of time and toil needed to acquire these formulas of expression, which nine times out of ten are to those young minds the mere dicta magistri, is justified on the ground that the children, if not learning arithmetic, ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... Tribune, and thenceforth until his death Mr. Greeley was well known at the National Capital. He was a man of intense convictions and indomitable industry, and he wielded an incisive, ready pen, which went straight to the point without circumlocution or needless use of words. Although he was a somewhat erratic champion of Fourierism, vegetarianism, temperance, anti-hanging, and abolition, there was a "method in his madness," and his heretical views were evidently the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... a little English, and most of them can. I might offer my man a cigar, and praise his show a bit, and then tell him how I want to tell the world all about him; how I want to see how they live, not so briefly, you understand. The circumlocution office is as much in vogue in the Orient as, according to our mutual friend Dickens, it is in old England. Well, when he fully understands that I admire their life and manners, and want to live it as well as write it, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... with consummate skill in the interest of Austria against Prussia and against German confidence in the sincerity and trustworthiness of the Prussian government, the reaction had by arrests, prosecutions, circumlocution-office delays, banishments, and an elaborate system of espionage, for the most part silenced opposition and saved, not the state, but, at any rate, the status quo. This "success" had incidentally cost Germany the presence and service of some of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy in the head, that patriarch was the word for him." Painters implored him to be a model for some patriarch they designed to paint. Philanthropists looked on him as famous capital for a platform. He had once been town agent in the Circumlocution Office, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... army of the people, I answered these interrogatories by propounding the question, who the gentleman was to whom I had the honour of addressing myself, and under what authority I was considered amenable to his inquisition. "Answer my enquiries, Sir," he replied, "without the impertinency of idle circumlocution, otherwise I shall consider you as a spy, and my provost-marshal shall instantly perform on your person the duties of his office!" I now resorted to my letters; I had no other alternative between existence and annihilation. Explaining, therefore, who I was, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... not think for the orchestra, his thoughts took always the form of the pianoforte language; his thinking became paralysed when he made use of another medium of expression. Still, there have been critics who thought differently. The Polish composer Sowinski declared without circumlocution that Chopin "wrote admirably for the orchestra." Other countrymen of his dwelt at greater length, and with no less enthusiasm, on what is generally considered a weak point in the master's equipment. A Paris ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... therefore, confusion and circumlocution, and for the sake of greater precision of expression than I can otherwise obtain, I have deliberately considered the subject with two friends, and with their assistance and concurrence in framing ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... walking-dress, was almost as expensively equipped. Mrs. Bulstrode was a feminine smaller edition of her brother, and had none of her husband's low-toned pallor. She had a good honest glance and used no circumlocution. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... definite shape; and had, henceforward, a right to be considered and a claim to be refuted, in each particular case, before the production of living matter in any other way could be admitted by careful reasoners. It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the contrary doctrine—that living matter may be produced by not living matter—the hypothesis ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... predicate them by means of words which are names of concrete objects—because' (p. 426)—'we have no other convenient and compact mode of speaking. Most attributes, and nearly all large bundles of attributes, have no names of their own. We can only name them by a circumlocution. We are accustomed to speak of attributes, not by names given to themselves, but by means of the names which they give to the objects they are attributes of.' 'All our ordinary judgments' (p. 428) 'are in Comprehension only; Extension not being thought of. But we may, if we ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... moved corresponds in meaning not with [Greek: tetupha] and momordi, but with [Greek: etupsa] and vixi. Its sense is that of [Greek: etupsa], and not that of [Greek: tetupha]. The notion given by [Greek: tetupha] we express by the circumlocution I have beaten. We have no such form as bebeat or memove. In the Moeso-Gothic, however, there was a true reduplicate form; in other words, a perfect tense as well as an aorist. It is by the possession of this form that the verbs of the ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... interrogatories by propounding the question, who the gentleman was to whom I had the honour of addressing myself, and under what authority I was considered amenable to his inquisition. "Answer my enquiries, Sir," he replied, "without the impertinency of idle circumlocution, otherwise I shall consider you as a spy, and my provost-marshal shall instantly perform on your person the duties of his office!" I now resorted to my letters; I had no other alternative between existence and annihilation. Explaining, therefore, who I was, and by whom employed, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... again a year later, other meetings were held at Casco Bay with the chiefs of the various Abenaki tribes, in which, after prodigious circumlocution, the Boston treaty was ratified, and the war ended.[272] This time the Massachusetts Assembly, taught wisdom by experience, furnished a guarantee of peace by providing for government trading-houses in the Indian country, where goods were supplied, through responsible hands, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... By no means; but heavenly Clouds, great divinities to idle men; who supply us with thought and argument, and intelligence and humbug, and circumlocution, and ability to hoax, ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... never required commentators to make them understood. You comprehend their idea and their subject at first glance. The most ignorant of men and the least versed in Pagan lore, take their meaning with half a look and give their works a title. In them we find no beating about the bush, no circumlocution, no hidden meanings, no confusion; the painter expresses what he means, does it quickly and does it well, without exaggerating his terms or overloading the scene. His principal personages stand out boldly, yet the accessories do not cry aloud, "Look at me!" The picture of Narcissus represents Narcissus ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... to the peace of Europe, and the name of Napoleon II. as a possible and perhaps the best solution of the problems involved in our future. All this was expressed in guarded but sufficiently definite terms, equally without passion or circumlocution, and with a marked intention of ascertaining to what extent I should admit or reject the prospects on which he enlarged. I was unprepared, both for the visit and the conversation; but I stood on no reserve, ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, who entered into a long wrangle with the administration on the constitutional points involved. He denied the right of Congress to pass such an act, and of the Executive to carry it out within the limits of a sovereign state; averred—with much circumlocution and turgid bombast—that such attempt would be an infringement of the State Rights of Georgia, which he could ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... intelligent, but crossed every now and then by gleams of vacancy; a man of large reading, and of tact to make it subserve his interests. A voluminous writer on certain medical subjects, he had so saturated himself with circumlocution, that it distilled from his very tongue: he talked like an Article, a Quarterly one; and so gained two advantages: 1st, he rarely irritated a fellow-creature; for if he began a sentence hot, what with its length, and what with its windiness, he ended it cool: item, stabs by polysyllables ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... blank verse since his time, and, as those who imitate never fail to exaggerate, his influence has in some respects been mischievous. Thomson was well-nigh ruined by him. In him a leaf cannot fall without a Latinism, and there is circumlocution in the crow of a cock. Cowper was only saved by mixing equal proportions of Dryden in his verse, thus hitting upon a kind of cross between prose and poetry. In judging Milton, however, we should not forget that in verse the music makes a part of the meaning, and that no one before or since has ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... the Mohammedan Indians were not in this respect far behind them. It is true that the drinking of wine is forbidden by the tenets of their religion; but in respect of champagne, they understand how to evade this commandment by christening it by the harmless name of "sparkling lemonade," a circumlocution which of course did not in the slightest counteract its exhilarating effects. The Indians who were less proof against the effects of alcohol were much more quickly intoxicated than their new European friends; and under the influence of ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... father of So-and-so," as soon as he has children, for him who had no children (among persons of influence) his relatives and acquaintances assembled at a banquet, and gave him a new name there, which they designated as Pamagat. That was usually a name of excellence by some circumlocution or metaphor, based on their own old name. Thus if one was called by his own name, Bacal, which signifies "iron," the new name given him would be Dimatanassan, signifying "not to spoil with time." If it were Bayani, which signifies "valiant" ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... temper before he returns to work. I do not care how much or how well he works, this fellow is an evil feature in other people's lives. They would be happier if he were dead. They could easier do without his services in the Circumlocution Office, than they can tolerate his fractious spirits. He poisons life at the well-head. It is better to be beggared out of hand by a scapegrace nephew, than daily hag-ridden ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fact to one of the circle that he was in danger of becoming a bore; the head of the family was finally deputed to convey the fact as delicately as possible to the erring brother. He did so, with much tender circumlocution. The offender was deeply mortified, but endeavoured to thank his elderly relative for discharging so painful a task. He promised amendment. He sate glum and tongue-tied for several weeks in the midst of cheerful gatherings. Very gradually the old habit prevailed. Within ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... inconsistency of his instructions in relation to phrases of this kind. First he copies Lowth's doctrine, literally and anonymously, from the Doctor's 17th page, thus: "When the thing to which another is said to belong, is expressed by a circumlocution, or by many terms, the sign of the possessive case is commonly added to the last term: as, 'The king of Great Britain's dominions.'"—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 45. Afterwards he condemns this: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Pauline's room, where she found her lying on the sofa, a book open in her hand, but evidently lost in a world of dreamy and pleasant revery. With very little circumlocution, for Mrs. Grey was too much excited to choose her words carefully, she repeated to Pauline her conversation with her father; whereupon Pauline rose, and sitting up, her color changing, but her eye clear and ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... journal with so many violations of correct writing. With the exception of two or three articles, the whole number abounds with school-boy violations of the English language. Redundancy and the want of appropriateness in the use of words are the most common errors. Circumlocution and want of precision are common; and in many sentences all these and other violations occur, rendering it almost impossible to guess at the meaning. Independent of "inflexibly in advance" on the cover, the first sentence in the announcement on ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... I believe to be duty," she said. She wished that, by some circumlocution or some tenderness in the tone, she could have softened the words that she spoke, but all her forces had to be rallied to utter the decision, and there was no power left to qualify the bare words which sounded to Millard hard and cruel. A suspicion crossed his mind that Phillida wished ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... passing on to the bad state of the bullocks and enlarging on the chance of a rainy winter. You have just decided that he has nothing more to say and are preparing to leave him, when he makes his request with as much circumlocution as possible. To have come straight to the point would have been contrary to all his ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... self-control gave way to the exceeding bitter cry: "We must strike them! We must never let them pass us again!" On the thirtieth he was horrified at getting from Beauregard (who was then between Richmond and Petersburg) a telegram which showed that the Confederate Government was busy with the circumlocution office in Richmond while the enemy was thundering at the gate. "War Department must determine when and what troops to order from here." Lee immediately answered: "If you cannot determine what troops you can spare, the Department cannot. The result of your delay will be ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... dying a natural death, suddenly revived, and it was with a degree of impatience, which I could scarcely restrain, that I awaited the conclusion of Mrs. Coleman's rambling account. After a great deal of circumlocution, of which I will mercifully spare the reader the infliction, the following facts were elicited:—About an hour before our arrival, Mr. Vernor, accompanied by his ward, had called to see Mr. Coleman, and, finding he was from home, had asked for a few minutes' conversation with the lady of the house. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... should believe that there was something dazzling about his person: he had half a million of eager testimonies to this idea. Who was to tell him the truth?—Only in the last years of his life did trembling courtiers dare whisper to him, after much circumlocution, that a certain battle had been fought at a place called Blenheim, and that Eugene and Marlborough had stopped his long ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proceed to the investigation of the laws by which the excitability is acted on; but I must first define some terms which it will be necessary to use, to avoid circumlocution, and at the same time to give us more distinct ideas ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... use of words and phrases is that which is termed circumlocution, a going around the bush when there is no occasion for it,—save ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... immediately to a house which I found belonged to a Mr Hans Ringer, an attorney, who had charge of several plantations in that flourishing neighbourhood. The doctor and he, it was evident, were on most intimate terms, for on our arrival, without any circumlocution, the ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... then, was a mysterious 'Court of Chance,' where things dragged on for years, a political circumlocution office, hopelessly bound by its own interminable seals, ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... more clear! more natural! more agreeable to the true spirit of simplicity! Here are no tropes,—no figurative expressions,—not even so much as an invocation to the Muse. He does not detain his readers by any needless circumlocution; by unnecessarily informing them, what he is going to sing; or still more unnecessarily enumerating what he is not going to sing: but according to ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... outspokenness; for he seemed to be still in love with Socrates. You are sober, Alcibiades, said Socrates, or you would never have gone so far about to hide the purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is only an ingenious circumlocution, of which the point comes in by the way at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you and you only ought to love Agathon. ...
— Symposium • Plato
... array of documents; dissertations stood in place of action; a million of reports were written every year; bureaucracy was enthroned! Records, statistics, documents, failing which France would have been ruined, circumlocution, without which there could be no advance, increased, multiplied, and grew majestic. From that day forth bureaucracy used to its own profit the mistrust that stands between receipts and expenditures; it degraded the administration for the benefit of the administrators; ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... God.[8] The Mal'akh Yahweh (or Elohim) appears to Abraham, Hagar, Moses, Gideon, &c., and leads the Israelites in the Pillar of Cloud.[9] The phrase Mal'akh Yahweh may have been originally a courtly circumlocution for the Divine King; but it readily became a means of avoiding crude anthropomorphism, and later on, when the angels were classified, the Mal'akh Yahweh came to mean an angel of distinguished rank.[10] The identification ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... Pentateuch is sometimes such as Addison would not have ventured to imitate; and Addison, the standard of moral purity in his own age, used many phrases which are now proscribed. Whether a thing shall be designated by a plain noun substantive or by a circumlocution is mere matter of fashion. Morality is not at all interested in the question. But morality is deeply interested in this, that what is immoral shall not be presented to the imagination of the young and susceptible ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... stories with imperturbable sang froid, in a dry manner, and with perfect naturalness and simplicity. He spoke as a man of the world, without circumlocution; his adventures were numerous and perhaps singular, but only such as might have been expected to happen to a man of so much experience. A smile never traversed his face as he related the least credible of his tales, which the less intimate of his acquaintance began in time to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... something. If we are only here to make speeches, and not to arrive at conclusions, our mission is useless. The greater portion of the debate hitherto has been made up of set speeches, all like the circumlocution office in one of Dickens' novels, showing "how not to do it." I am not in favor of pursuing this course any longer. Let us talk the subject over like business men, in a sensible way, and then come ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Sheridan, Walker, &c. But if dictionaries are to be the arbiters of language, in which of them shall we find neologism? No matter. It is a good word, well sounding, obvious, and expresses an idea, which would otherwise require circumlocution. The reviewer was justifiable, therefore, in using it; although he noted at the same time, as unauthoritative, centrality, grade, sparse; all which have been long used in common speech and writing. I am a friend to neology. It is the only way to give ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... are propounded by the Talmud, or arise out of a consideration of the Talmud, Rashi cites previous explanations or parallel texts. But this is exceptional. As a rule he finds with marvellous [marvelous sic] nicety and without circumlocution the exact word, the fitting expression, the necessary turn. One or two words suffice for him to sum up an observation, to anticipate a question, to forestall an unexpressed objection, to refute a false interpretation, or to throw light upon the true meaning of word or phrase. This is expressed ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... elder, without any circumlocution, "laces have been missed from your department, and suspicion rests on you. I hope ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... to stay in! They were in pretty good order, to do their mother justice, and she in great delight at the sight of her visiters. There was no room for silence here—or at least no silence in the room, for Mrs. Ling was never at a loss for words. And there was no need of much circumlocution in presenting the turkey,—nothing but pleasure could come of it, let it enter on which foot it would; and the train of potatoes, and tea, and bread, and other things, fairly made Mrs. Ling's eyes shine,—though ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... seemed waiting for the other to speak. As the empress perceived, after a while, that the lips of the pale countess did not move, she resolved to break the irksome silence herself. In her own frank way, scorning all circumlocution, she went at once to the subject ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... found Cousin impatiently waiting for me to come in. He had changed and his bearing puzzled me. He was given to laughing loudly at the horse-play of the men, yet his eyes never laughed. I took him outside the camp and without any circumlocution related the facts ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... Burns. "I don't really mean to be, but the only way I can find out the things I need to know is to ask straight questions. I never could stand circumlocution. If you want that, Cooly; if you want what are called 'tactful' methods, you'll have to go to some other man. What I mean by asking you that one is to prove to you that though you may have something to do, you have no job to work at. As it happens you haven't even what most other rich men have, ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... with whips, and the Dean holds the string. Will Hancock declares, you are out of your compass, To encroach on his art by writing of bombast; And has taken just now a firm resolution To answer your style without circumlocution. Lady Betty[2] presents you her service most humble, And is not afraid your worship will grumble, That she make of your verses a hoop for Miss Tam.[3] Which is all at present; ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... some means or other. He knew the engineer-officer by reputation; he knew with what impatience that determined man chafed under his restraint. On this day he did not, therefore, hesitate to accost him, saying, without circumlocution, "Have you had enough ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... in his usual loquacious manner; and after a great many words and circumlocution, the fact was discovered that he and his friends had spent the last five years in California, not having visited a ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... folk in the city even for foreigners. And there were camels, but I cut him short for I thought I could judge for myself, if there was such a place, and, if not, I was wasting my time as well as a pint of good whiskey. So I got him to speak of the way, and after more circumlocution than I needed and more talk of the city he pointed to a tiny track on the black earth just beside us, a little twisty way you ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... observation of sagacity and experience, that when one friend has a piece of disagreeable intelligence to disclose to another, it is better to describe it directly, and in simple terms, than to introduce it with that kind of periphrasis and circumlocution, which oftener tends to excite a vague and impatient horror in the reader, than to prepare him to bear his misfortune with decency and fortitude. There are however no rules of this kind that do not admit of exceptions, and I am too apprehensive that the subject of my present letter ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... the Circumlocution Office!" exclaimed the President. "I'm surprised at you, Huntingdon! You know what the budget and red tape of Washington does to a temperament like Miss Allen's. On the other hand, here is my friend, who would ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... always requires large quantities," exclaimed Thugut, laughing. "But speak now rapidly, briefly, and plainly. No circumlocution, no tirades! Tell me the naked truth. What fun has ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... fate—clear, express, and emphatic—is fully set forth. The Koran resorts to no euphemism or circumlocution in declaring it. Thus, in Sura lxxiv. 3, 4, we read: "Thus doth God cause to err whom he pleases, and directeth whom he pleases." Again, Sura xx. 4, says: "The fate of every man have we bound round ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... despatched did Mr. Gammon give a sign that it might now be well to inform Mrs. Clover of what had happened. He nodded gravely to Mrs. Bubb, who with unaffected nervousness, causing her to ramble and stumble for many minutes in mazes of circumlocution, at length conveyed the fact to her anxious listener that Polly Sparkes had said something or other which implied a knowledge of Mr. Clover's whereabouts. Committed to this central fact, and urged by Mrs. Clover's growing impatience, the good woman came ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... was not the sort of man to beat about the bush; if he had anything to say he generally said it without any circumlocution, and he did so now. Selecting with care a cigar for himself, lighting it, and pouring out a couple of tumblers of sangaree, he settled himself in his chair, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... remained, what was necessary? With a view of getting some light on this delicate subject we paid a visit the next evening to our former friends and schoolmates, whose advice was conveyed with a masterly circumlocution that impressed us both. There are some things that may not be discussed directly, and the conduct of life at a modern university—which is a reflection of life in the greater world—is one of these. Perry Blackwood and Ham did most of the talking, while Ralph, characteristically, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bring him to the cottage of the old lady, and her voice in very friendly tenor commanded him to enter. Without useless circumlocution, yet without bluntness, the old man broached the subject; and, without urging any of the isolated facts of which he was possessed, and by which his suspicions were awakened, he dwelt simply upon the dangers which ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... afterwards sent as a suitor to visit the parents Of the elected bride. Arrayed in his finest apparel, Soon after dinner on Sunday he sought the respectable burgher, When some friendly words were exchanged upon general subjects, He knowing how to direct the discourse as suited his purpose. After much circumlocution he finally mentioned the daughter, Praising her highly; and praising the man and the house that had sent him. Persons of tact perceived his intent, and the politic envoy Readily saw how their minds were ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... not,' replied he; 'I wish to be fair. I cannot express my idea of the meaning of transcendentalism without tedious circumlocution, and I begin to despair of proving my position by quotations. It is not on any particular passage that I rest my case. You have read this work, and will understand me when I say that it is to its general intent and spirit that I ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... France besides its fortuitous inventor may have been acquainted, and which may have had nothing to recommend it to those who so readily adopted it, save novelty and the recognized need of some more convenient name than "Lutherans," "Christaudins," or the awkward circumlocution, "those of the religion." Be this as it may, not a week had passed after the conspiracy of Amboise before the word was in everybody's mouth. Few knew ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... not literally proper. What is not correct, must be incorrect; and that which is not incorrect, must be correct: what is not right, must be wrong; and that which is not wrong, must be right. To avoid that circumlocution which must otherwise take place, our best speakers and writers, however, frequently compare adjectives which do not literally admit of comparison: "The most established practice;" "The most uncertain method;" "Irving, as ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... undisciplined imagination! My stepfather should die. I had sentenced him in the name of my inalienable right as an avenging son; but could I not condemn him to die by his own hand? Had I not that in my possession which would drive him to suicide? If I went to him without any more reserves or circumlocution, and if I said to him, "I hold the proof that you are the murderer of my father. I give you the choice—either you will kill yourself, or I denounce you to my mother," what would his answer be? He, who loved his wife with that ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... what business brought him thither; offering him such counsel and aid as he might be able to afford him. Mitridanes hesitated a while to reply: but at last he resolved to trust him, and when with no little circumlocution he had demanded of him fidelity, counsel and aid, he fully discovered to him who he was, and the purpose and motive of his coming thither. Now, albeit to hear Mitridanes thus unfold his horrid design caused Nathan no ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Sunday paper they are seldom long. Rachel was soon through the first, her blood boiling; the second she could not finish for her tears; the third dried her eyes with the fires of fierce resentment. It was not so much what they said; it was what they were obviously afraid to say. It was their circumlocution, their innuendo, their mild surprise, their perfunctory congratulations, their assumption of chivalry and their lack of its essence, that wounded and stung the subject of these effusions. As she raised her flushed face from the last of them, Mr. Steel stood before her once more, the incarnation ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... heart proceeds from faith unfeigned. So then, we must go up in our searching from external obedience all alongst, till we arrive at the inward fountain of Christ dwelling in us by faith, and then have ye found true religion indeed. Now, ye may think possibly, we have used too much circumlocution: what is all this to the present purpose? Yes, very much. Ye shall find the Lord rejecting this people's public worship and solemn ordinances upon these three grounds,—either they did not join with them the observation of weightier commands, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... stages of civilization comprehends objects more by line than by color or light. The figure is not studied in itself, but in its sun-shadow or silhouette. The Egyptian hieroglyph represented objects by outlines or arbitrary marks and conveyed a simple meaning without circumlocution. The Egyptian painting was substantially an enlargement of the hieroglyph. There was no attempt to place objects in the setting which they hold in nature. Perspective and light-and-shade were disregarded. Objects, of whatever nature, were shown in flat profile. ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... must put away his notions of refinement and delicacy. He must be prepared to be entertained by blows, licentious assaults, a tub of hog's blood thrown by a clergyman, coarse practical jokes, foul talk, all put before him without disguise or circumlocution. As he follows Parson Adams, Joseph, and Fanny in their journey, he must always be ready for a ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... after praising our recent Cartoon representing the "Barnacles on American Commerce," moves to refer us to the House Committee on Commerce and Manufactures. PUNCHINELLO never did love the ways of the Washington Circumlocution Office, but if there is one thing which he dislikes more than anything else, 'tis the idea of being pigeonholed by the Committee on Commerce. The uses to which valuable information is put by that august body of traffickers in public credulity, are not for us. That we might penetrate ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... meaning never felt before! He laid his finger how gently yet how powerfully on some inner place in the hearer's heart, and told him things about himself he had never known till then. Subtlest truths, which would have taken philosophers pages of circumlocution and big words to state, were dropped out by the way in a sentence or two of the most transparent Saxon." Of greater interest to the general reader are The Idea of a University, discourses delivered at ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... shameless in its avowal of his cowardice, and prepares Eli for the worst. But note how he speaks gently and with a certain dignity, crushing down his anxiety,—'How went the matter, my son?' Then, with no merciful circumlocution or veiling, out comes the whole ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... right, not being much of a snap-shot at dialect; and his is an undefined, unclassifiable mixture. Eastern farm-hand and Western ranchman, prospector, who knows what? His real language is in his eye and his rare, pure smile. And just as his countenance expresses his thoughts without circumlocution or attempt at effect, so his body informs his clothing. Wind and rain have moulded his hat to his head, his shoes grip the ground like paws; his buckskins have a surface like a cast after Rodin. They ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... three weeks later, the home of his relative, General Mitchell, in Columbus, he was serenaded by the Hayes Club of the capital city, and, in response to their calls, foreshadowed the great issues of the approaching campaign. Without circumlocution, he said: ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... elements, and at intervals a shrill piercing word or two from Obed, in the altered tone of which I had some difficulty in recognising his pipe, which rose clear and distinct above the roar of the sea and wind, and was always answered by a prompt, sharp, "ay, ay, sir," from the men. There was no circumlocution, nor calculating, nor guessing now, but all hands seemed to be doing their duty energetically and well. "Come, the vagabonds are sailors after all, we shan't be swamped this turn;" and I resumed my place on the companion ladder, with more ease of mind, and a vast deal more composure, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... simultaneously with this announcement two proclamations were issued from Lennox Street, it was more than hoped, it was assumed, that the meat ordinance was to be relaxed. But it was not so. The first of these monuments to circumlocution had a final rap at the canteen. There were a few bars and canteens outside the barriers of the town; the Colonel said they should be closed, and closed they were—the proprietors, strange to say, ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... my sea manners. I should have used more circumlocution, but they don't put much polish on ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... correctly, and his wife went the next day to Andrew's, as usual; and, seating herself by his bedside, said, without circumlocution, "I have something to say to you, Andrew. Are you inclined ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... head, and his face had become puckered with wrinkles, through anxiety to make these markings legible and intelligible. The popular newspaper, the popular member of Parliament, and the popular novelist,—the name of Charles Dickens will of course present itself to the reader who remembers the Circumlocution office,—have had it impressed on their several minds,—and have endeavoured to impress the same idea on the minds of the public generally,—that the normal Government clerk is quite indifferent to his work. No greater mistake was ever made, or one showing less observation of human nature. It is ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... continual realization of the presence of the great tempter, I have been led to question very much the policy, not to say the lawfulness, of excluding that terrible foe as we do from our general discourse. It seems to be regarded a manifest impropriety to name him, except with the most studied circumlocution, as though we were afraid of treating him irreverently; and he who is seldom named will not often be thought of. Assuredly it is a great help to him in his countless devices to be so kept out of sight. We are prone ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... the ill news to her. When Mademoiselle de Chausseraye arrived at Madame l'Argenton's house, Madame d'Argenton was out she had gone to supper with the Princesse de Rohan. Mademoiselle de Chausseraye waited until she returned, and then broke the matter to her gently, and after much preamble and circumlocution, as though she were about to announce the death of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... arrived the evening before, with an old aunt, to remain for the whole spring! Monsieur de Langevy, who was not addicted to circumlocution in his mode of talk, told his son point-blank, that his cousin was a pretty girl, and what was more, a considerable heiress—so that it was his duty—his, Hector de Langevy—the owner of a great name and a very small fortune, to marry the said cousin—or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... Minister was looking over his tortoiseshell. spectacles at somebody behind him, Mr. Lavender turned and went out. In the corridor he thought, "What terseness! How different from the days when Dickens wrote his 'Circumlocution Office'! Punch!" And opening the wrong door, he found himself in the presence of six little girls in brown frocks, sitting against the walls with their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... personage, or a personage of a status, of which it is awkward to speak; the French Academie, in its modesty, having omitted to supply a definition out of regard for the age of its forty members. Whenever a new word comes to supply the place of an unwieldy circumlocution, its fortune is assured; the word lorette has passed into the language of every class of society, even where the lorette herself will never gain an entrance. It was only invented in 1840, and derived beyond a doubt from ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... sharpened the young knight's desire; therefore his imperial patron had treated him as if he were ignorant of what was passing in his mind. Without circumlocution, he commanded him, at the head of several bodies of Frank, Swabian, and Swiss troopers, whom he placed at his orders, to attack the brothers Siebenburg and their allies, and destroy their castle. If possible, he was to bring them alive before the imperial judgment ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... considered as media of communication, is their cumbrousness. There is certainly a great deal of verbiage and tautology about them. The paucity of terms leads not only to the use of figures and metaphors, but is the cause of circumlocution. This day ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... what had passed betwixt his parents and him on her account. It was with great difficulty that this boon was obtained; and Alice Bridgenorth showed no slight degree of displeasure, when she discovered, after much circumlocution, and many efforts to give an air of importance to what he had to communicate, that all amounted but to this, that Lady Peveril continued to retain a favourable opinion of her father, Major Bridgenorth, which Julian would fain have represented ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... sat poring over his law book, Captain Morton came in and after the Captain's usual circumlocution ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... consider'ble ob a story, Massa Jack, de circumlocution ob which would take a heap ob time tellin'," he began soberly. "But it happened 'bout dis away. When de Yankees come snoopin' long de East Sho'—I reck'n maybe it des a yeah after dat time when we done ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... person of few words, and will therefore state without circumlocution that I am willing to become that agent. I speak Russ, Manchu, and the Tartar or broken Turkish of the Russian steppes, and have also some knowledge of Chinese, which I might easily improve at Kiachta, half of the inhabitants of which town are Chinamen. I am therefore not altogether unqualified for ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... to dare Fate in its blindest manifestations. The world has come to run so much by rote and gravitation that you can enter upon hardly any footpath of chance in which you do not find signboards informing you of what you may expect at its end. I am like the clerk in the Circumlocution Office who always complained bitterly when any one came in to ask information. 'He wanted to know, you know!' was the kick he made to his fellow-clerks. Well, I don't want to know, I don't want to reason, I don't want to guess—I want to bet ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... depraved of men. Principles which the most hardened ruffian would scarcely hint to his most trusted accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of some palliating sophism, even to his own mind, are professed without the slightest circumlocution, and assumed as the fundamental ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... retarded by it. Instead of learning to jump at once to the conclusion, lightning-like, by a sort of intuitional process, which is of the very essence of an expert accountant, they learn laboriously to stay their march by a cumbersome and confusing circumlocution of words. And the expenditure of time and toil needed to acquire these formulas of expression, which nine times out of ten are to those young minds the mere dicta magistri, is justified on the ground that the children, if not learning arithmetic, ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... head deprecatingly. Finally, and after much circumlocution, I gathered that I was not expected at No. 231. My instructions were simply to be in waiting at the Worth Monument in Madison Square at half-after eight; for the rest Red-Fez would hold himself responsible. And ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... appeared in court to answer to the charge of letting his automobile engine run when no one was in the car. He was fined a franc, which he would take from his pocket then and there, but must wait many days to pay, until circumlocution had its round, six weeks after the engine had been at fault. I was assessed two sous duty on a tooth-brush. I reached ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... there was a laugh at his plainness of speech, as he seemed to be still in love with Socrates. "You are sober, Alcibiades," said Socrates, "or you would never have gone about to hide the purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is only an ingenious circumlocution, the point of which comes in by the way at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you and you only ought to love Agathon. But the plot of this satyric or Selinic drama has been detected, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... "miserabile carmen" is "a dismal ditty;" "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula jungere" is "to tip him a kiss;" "pingue ingenium" is a circumlocution for "a blockhead;" "anilia instrumenta" are "his old woman's accoutrements;" and "repetito munere Bacchi" is conveyed to the sense of the reader as, "they return again to their bottle, and take the other glass." These are but a specimen of the blemishes which disfigure the most literal of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... fool are you!' was on Dixon's lips, but he did not utter it, because he wanted to propitiate him; and after some more circumlocution, Guy succeeded in discovering that he had been gambling, and had lost an amount which, unless he could obtain immediate assistance, would become known, and lead to the loss of his character and situation. Guy ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enjoyed an excellent dinner by the bright fire in his comfortable dining-room, with a renewed appreciation of the excellent Mrs. Jessop. Then he summoned that lady in his presence, and with very little circumlocution broke to her the news of the promised invasion and the suggested panacea. Finding that Mrs. Jessop took the matter on the whole amiably, he felt considerably relieved in mind, and began placidly to smoke his pipe ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... awaited him. Mrs. de Tracy, strange to say, had a soft side towards this young man, the son of her family solicitor. Mark was invariably sent down by his father when there was any business to be transacted at Stoke Revel. The older man was fond of a good dinner, and hated circumlocution about affairs, and it was only when a death in the family, or some other crucial event, made his presence absolutely necessary that he came down himself. Mark was sacrificed instead, and many a wearisome hour had he spent in that ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... quite a conversation. Under the circumstances there could be no useless circumlocution in our exchange of ideas. It was religiously "boiled down," and ran ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
