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Circumstantial   Listen
adjective
circumstantial  adj.  
1.
Consisting in, or pertaining to, circumstances or particular incidents. "The usual character of human testimony is substantial truth under circumstantial variety."
2.
Incidental; relating to, but not essential. "We must therefore distinguish between the essentials in religious worship... and what is merely circumstantial."
3.
Abounding with circumstances; detailing or exhibiting all the circumstances; minute; particular. "Tedious and circumstantial recitals."
Circumstantial evidence (Law), evidence obtained from circumstances, which necessarily or usually attend facts of a particular nature, from which arises presumption. According to some authorities circumstantial is distinguished from positive evidence in that the latter is the testimony of eyewitnesses to a fact or the admission of a party; but the prevalent opinion now is that all such testimony is dependent on circumstances for its support. All testimony is more or less circumstantial..
Synonyms: See Minute.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Circumstantial" Quotes from Famous Books



... with reference to the Spanish American War: "If I had had a larger fleet I would have taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of his neck." Though the reason for Germany's attitude has never been proven by documents, circumstantial evidence points convincingly to the explanation. The quest for a colonial empire, upon which Bismarck had embarked rather reluctantly and late, had been taken up with feverish zeal by William II, his successor in the direction of German policy. Not content with the commercial ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... Evidence may be of two kinds—direct and indirect. This second, especially in legal matters, is termed circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence consists of facts that apply directly to the proposition under consideration. If a man sees a street car passenger take a wallet from another man's pocket and has him arrested at once and the wallet is found in his pocket, that constitutes ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... known to be moving that way. These inventions are worth nothing unless the names of corps or their commanding officers can be given, so their originators always take care to give such realistic touches. They give you "the lie circumstantial" or none at all. Possibly there may have been in this firing more method than we imagine, the idea being to mislead us by a pretended engagement with some force on the other side of Bulwaan. Another rational theory is that the gunners were simply expending a little ammunition in practice at range-finding ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... Marlowe had suspected nothing and walked into the trap, he would almost certainly have been hanged. Now how often may not a plan to throw the guilt of murder on an innocent person have been practised successfully? There are, I imagine, numbers of cases in which the accused, being found guilty on circumstantial evidence, have died protesting their innocence. I shall never approve again of a death-sentence imposed in a case decided upon ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... liked it, and since the strange case of the man in lower ten, I have been a bit squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can build up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely different people, only one of whom can be guilty, and your faith in circumstantial evidence dies of overcrowding. I never see a shivering, white-faced wretch in the prisoners' dock that I do not hark back with shuddering horror to the strange events on the Pullman car Ontario, between Washington and Pittsburg, on the night of ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... respecting the construction of the tabernacle, the disposition of it in the camp, the transportation of it from place to place in the wilderness, the order of the march, the summoning of the people when camp was to be broken, with all its minute and circumstantial directions, would be destitute of meaning if it had been written while the people were living in Palestine, scattered all over the land, dwelling in their own houses, ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... A very circumstantial narrative of these proceedings, copies of the minutes of the privy council, and other documents, will be found in the introduction to The Pilgrim's Progress.[278] One of these official papers affords an interesting ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... said Warren Hastings did move and carry it in Council, that the said Khan Jehan Khan should be restored to his office; and that restoration, not having been preceded, accompanied, or followed by any explanation or defence whatsoever, or even by a denial of the specific and circumstantial charge of collusion with the said Khan Jehan Khan, has confirmed the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Scandinavia were not to be courted but by the most assiduous attendance, seconded by such warlike achievements as the custom of the country had rendered necessary to make a man deserving of his mistress. On these accounts, we frequently find a lover accosting the object of his passion by a minute and circumstantial detail of his exploits, and all his accomplishments. "We fought with swords," says King Regner, in a beautiful ode composed by himself, in memory of the deeds of his former days, "that day wherein I saw ten thousand of my ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... at the point of her umbrella on the floor. Having no reason to disbelieve Wiggleswick's circumstantial though entirely fictitious story, and having by the smile put herself at a ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... in the earlier part of this note are obvious, yet the latter part is so circumstantial that we cannot well doubt its general accuracy. The building, however, was not pulled down "to the ground," though its interior may have been converted ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... shameful fabrications was continued for hours, and Madame, who had thoroughly prepared herself for it, brought one bit of circumstantial evidence after another to prove her suspicions. The wretched husband was worked to a fury of jealous anger not to be controlled. "I will search every cottage in Pittendurie," he said in a rage. "I will find Sophy, and then kill ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... white-robed negro. We saw him in profile as he passed along the road at some distance, but he was reading a paper with an expression so placid that I felt sure he had not seen us. On the seat beside him was a suitcase with the air of having been made in France; and circumstantial evidence said that Monny's wish ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... he left the house the real facts had already been made known at the "Duchess of Edinburgh." One of the morning papers had a full, circumstantial, and fairly true account of the whole matter. "It was not his lordship at all," said the good-natured landlady, coming out to him as he passed ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... bonniest craft ever lainched!" said Malcolm, ending a description of her behaviour and qualities rather too circumstantial for his ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... alibi might very easily discount all this circumstantial evidence, were it not for the fact that there could be no alibi for Bob McGraw, for beyond doubt he must have been in the neighborhood of Garlock that very day. Then there was the hat, with his name in it; also the report that one of the passengers who knew him had recognized ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... not put pygmies on pedestals. Hill will be remembered by his 'Notes on the Situation'; Stephens by his 'War between the States'; Toombs had no circumstantial superiority. He is immortal, as ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... shown—was Thomas Jones. The identity of this man and "Master Jones" who assumed command of the MAY-FLOWER—with the former mate of the FALCON, John Clarke, as his first officer—is abundantly certified by circumstantial evidence of the strongest kind, as is also the fact that he commanded the ship DISCOVERY ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... giving the colonel a circumstantial account of the pursuit, as he had heard it from Bob's lips, and the manner in which he had gone to work to secure the deserters after he had discovered their place of refuge. His description of Bryant's arrest amused the ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... Darwin and Karl Marx Why Darwin pleased the Profiteers also The Poetry and Purity of Materialism The Viceroys of the King of Kings Political Opportunism in Excelsis The Betrayal of Western Civilization Circumstantial Selection in Finance The Homeopathic Reaction against Darwinism Religion and Romance The Danger of Reaction A Touchstone for Dogma What to do with the Legends A Lesson from Science to the Churches The Religious Art of the Twentieth Century The Artist-Prophets Evolution in the Theatre My Own ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... signatures to the effective payments made by the magistrate to their parishioners on account of daily labor, and to certify similarly the value of materials employed in public works. Besides the above, they are continually called upon to draw up circumstantial reports, or declarations, required by the superior tribunals; they receive frequent injunctions to co-operate in the increase of the king's revenue and the encouragement of agriculture and industry; in a word, there is scarcely a thing to which their attention ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... received that one hearty flogging which might have saved him, and the curtain was at last rung down on a smug, grinning group of bookmakers, a deservedly ruined spendthrift, and a mob of indifferent lookers-on. So minutely circumstantial were the newspapers, that we may say that all England saw a gigantic robbery being committed, and no man, on the Turf or off, interfered by so much as a sign. Decidedly, the Ethics of the Turf offer an odd study for ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... and the mode of recording judicial and other official decisions and registering births, deaths, and marriages. In Books v. and vi. we consider two kinds of evidence which is in one way or other of inferior cogency, namely, 'circumstantial evidence,' in which the evidence if accepted still leaves room for a process of more or less doubtful inference; and 'makeshift evidence,' such evidence as must sometimes be accepted for want of the best, of which the most conspicuous ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... who for some unexplained reason had loaded his pistols on the evening before the alleged assault, professed to have seen the villain; and, on the other, that the details furnished by Harriet, and confirmed at a subsequent period by so hostile a witness as Eliza, are too circumstantial to ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... of negative testimony, and in corroboration of Mr. Lowell's and Mrs. Treat's circumstantial narratives, there remain to be mentioned the fact communicated to me by Mr. Hoar, that a townsman of his had at different times had two hummers' nests in his grounds, the male owners of which were constant in their attentions, and the following very interesting and surprising story received ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... wanderers, peculiar by reason of the very characteristic that would have resulted from the Hussite oath, made their first appearance in Europe at this very period,—between 1418 and 1427,—and in those very countries in which the Orphans ought first to have been seen. But the earliest circumstantial notice of a company of Gypsies relates to the one that visited Paris in 1427. Pasquier gave a particular account of them, and remarks, that, though they had a very bad name, and though he was with them a great deal, he "never lost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... relevant and material. Mr. Bishop is our star witness, and his testimony is to the point. It must be taken into consideration that we nave no direct evidence as to the murder of John Borg. We can bring no eye-witnesses into court. Whatever we have is circumstantial. It is incumbent upon us to show cause. To show cause it is necessary to go into the character of the accused. This we intend to do. We intend to show his adulterous and lustful nature, which has culminated in a dastardly deed and jeopardized his neck. We intend to show that the truth is not ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... propose, we will discard the interior points of this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts. Not the least usual error, in investigations such as this, is the limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral or circumstantial events. It is the mal-practice of the courts to confine evidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of truth, arises from the seemingly ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... we gather this circumstantial account of the Bridges erected at Staines from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various

... the thing that pleases me most in the stories of Paul Bourget that he has continued the admirable Balzacian tradition of mentioning the Paris streets and localities by their historic names, and of giving circumstantial colour and body to his inventions by thus placing them in a milieu which one can traverse any hour of the day, recalling the imaginary scenes as if they were not imaginary, and reviving the dramatic issues as if they were those ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... puzzled. The tale was well sustained, and certainly circumstantial. After all, the boy might have really seen something. How was the poor man to know—though the chaste and lofty diction might have supplied a hint—that the whole yarn was a free adaptation from the last Penny Dreadful lent us ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... much later foundation—about 818 years before the Christian era. If this opinion be correct, Rome and Carthage were founded nearly about the same period. The circumstances which led to and accompanied the foundation of Carthage, though related with circumstantial fulness by the ancient poets, are by no means ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... whom these pages are meant. Having no particular interest in the writer or his affairs, he does not care for the history of "the migrations from the blue bed to the brown" and the many Mistress Quicklyisms of circumstantial narrative. Yet all this may be pleasant reading to ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... and natural cause of such an effect. But you did not see the ball leave the gun, pass through the air, and enter the body of the slain; and your testimony to the fact of killing is, therefore, only inferential,—in other words, circumstantial. It is possible that no ball was in the gun; and we infer that there was, only because we cannot account for death on any other supposition." [Chief Justice Gibson, in Am. Law Journal, vol. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... there'd be more in this business than met the eye? Well, I'll be inquisitive to know what new developments have arisen! It's a strange fact, but it is a fact, that in affairs of this sort there's often evidence, circumstantial, strong, lying ready to be picked up. Next door, as it were—and as it is evidently in this case, for Blyth's a town that's not so ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... disparagement. I should unwillingly affirm that Cicero was but slightly versed in Homer, because in his Work De Gloria he ascribed those verses unto Ajax, which were delivered by Hector. Capital Truths are to be narrowly eyed, collateral Lapses and circumstantial deliveries not to be too strictly sifted. And if the substantial subject be well forged out, we need not examine the sparks which irregularly fly ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... fall, and we put our hands before our eyes and weep. This saint of God misjudged by those for whom he lives! Yet this is no solitary pathos. Were all hearts' history known, we should know how many died misjudged. All Jean Valjean does has been misinterpreted. We distrust more and more circumstantial evidence. It is hideous. No jury ought to convict a man on evidence of circumstances. Too many tragedies have been enacted because of such. Marius thought he was discerning and of a sensitive honor. He thought it evident ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... Gerald Morse, a pale-faced, anaemic-looking youth, declared, "rely upon two things, circumstantial evidence and motive. In the present case there is no circumstantial evidence, and as to motive, poor old Victor was too big a fool to have an enemy ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Willcox quite sure? Yes, Mr. Willcox had to be sure of just such things. So Mrs. Bainbridge drove out to Miss Langrais' tea at the golf club, and passed on the glad tidings with an addition of circumstantial detail. Mister Masters (people found that it was quite good fun to say this, with assorted intonations) had been sick for many months at—she thought—the New York Hospital. Sometimes his temperature had touched a hundred and fifteen degrees and sometimes ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... years behind the bars. And there was Thomas Bram, a prisoner hardly less remarkable, freed on parole after seventeen years' confinement. He had persistently asserted his innocence from the first, and nobody so far as I know doubted his assertion. The evidence against him was entirely circumstantial, and there was another man in the case who seemed, to judge by the reports of the trial, to have been at least as likely to be guilty. Bram's record in prison was wholly blameless, and though there was some opposition to freeing him, it sufficed only to obtain ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... In spite of circumstantial evidence, he reflected that those impassioned letters did not correspond in any way to this woman in the flesh. Never was woman more controlled, more adept in the lies of good breeding. He remembered the Chantelouve at-homes. She seemed attentive, made no contribution to the conversation, played ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... mere circumstantial evidence. The anonymous denouncer may have been prejudiced. Mrs. Cameron's evidence is not at firsthand. Perhaps other Highland gentlemen spelled 'who' as 'how.' Leslie was not condemned by his ecclesiastical superiors, but sent ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... is to caper in this style, Trying to make a foot-cloth of my banner. You ought to know the temper of our Isle, You've tested it in circumstantial manner. Down before SOULT and JUNOT you'd have gone But for that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various

... the particular to which we argue. For herein consists the essential distinction between an analogical and an inductive argument. Since, in an inductive argument, we draw a general conclusion, we have no concern with the circumstantial peculiarity of individual instances, but simply with their abstract agreement. Whereas, on the contrary, in an analogical argument, we draw a particular conclusion, we must enter into a consideration of the circumstantial ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... 51: A circumstantial account of the Queen's conversation with Lord Granville had appeared in the Times, and Lord Derby drew attention to the matter in the House of Lords. Lord Granville in reply expressed his regret in not having used ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... living in the palace as Duenna to the Queen. She and Mrs. Boughton, Lord Lyttelton's ancient Delia, are revived again in a young court that never heard of them. There, I think, you could not have had a more circumstantial account of a royal wedding from ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... mean in money," weakly defended Miss Sayres. "I mean that it's circumstantial. You must form your own opinion from ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... seen the hand grasping the revolver, and there was a scar on the back of it, a very peculiar scar. It chanced I had the evening previous slightly quarrelled with the officer who was killed; I was the only person known to be near at the time he was shot; certain other circumstantial evidence was dug up, while Slavin and one other—no, it was not you—gave some damaging, manufactured testimony against me. As a result I was held guilty of murder in the second degree, dismissed the army in disgrace, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. So, you see, it was not exactly you ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... that he received high prices for what he did; but he appeared to be no better off than when he made nothing. Some persons supposed that he gambled; others whispered that he spent it in other dissipation. In fact, one lady gave a circumstantial account of the way he squandered his money, and declared herself very glad that he had never visited her daughters. When this was repeated to Floyd, he said he fortunately did not have to account to her ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... then a very long and circumstantial conversation with Mr Monckton, who explained whatever had appeared dark in the writings left by Mr Harrel, and who came to her before he saw them, with full knowledge of what ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... him; and it was the intention of d'Estrades to accept this invitation as soon as he had received from Paris the copy of a draft-treaty, which was being prepared. This draft-treaty, which was probably drawn up by Mazarin, reached d'Estrades in the course of October, but circumstantial evidence proves that it was never seen by William. Its provisions were as follows. Both Powers were to declare war on Spain and attack Flanders and Antwerp. The Dutch were to besiege Antwerp, which city, if taken, was to become the personal ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... story of Talleyrand and the five oyster-shells, and there was his utterly absurd account of Napoleon's second visit to Ajaccio. Then there was that most circumstantial romance (which he never ventured upon until his second bottle had been uncorked) of the Emperor's escape from St. Helena—how he lived for a whole year in Philadelphia, while Count Herbert de Bertrand, who was his living image, personated him at Longwood. But of all his ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... a great effect upon the jury, until the judge swept most of its sophistries away. It was, however, a very able performance. Thurtell's line of defence was to declare that Hunt and Probert were the murderers, and that he was a victim of their perjuries. If hanged, he would be hanged on circumstantial evidence only, and he gave, with great elaboration, the details of a number of cases where men had been wrongfully hanged upon circumstantial evidence. His lawyers had apparently provided him with books ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... is still missing. He has been missing ever since last September, when he went away for a holiday. That is another link in the chain of circumstantial evidence against him, for it was in September ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... which we may add, that there was frequently a necessity to be very circumstantial and minute, in order to preserve and maintain that air of probability, which is necessary to be maintained in a story designed to represent real life; and which is rendered extremely busy and active by ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... of the size of Burr's following were filtering to Washington, together with circumstantial rumors of the disloyalty of his designs. Yet for weeks Jefferson did nothing, until late in November his alarm was aroused by a letter from Wilkinson, dated the 21st of October. On the 27th of November the President issued a proclamation calling ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... then, of De Foe must be sought in something more than the circumstantial nature of his lying, or even the ingenious artifices by which he contrives to corroborate his own narrative. These, indeed, show the pleasure which he took in simulating truth; and he may very probably have attached undue importance to this talent in the infancy of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... "But circumstantial evidence," I felt pleased at turning her phrase, "often wears the cap and bells, instead of ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... image of Christ crucified, and as he kneels the image thus addresses him: "Thomas, thou hast written well concerning me; what price wilt thou receive for thy labour?" The myth-making faculty of the people at large was also brought into play. According to a widespread and circumstantial legend, Albert, by magical means, created an android—an artificial man, living, speaking, and answering all questions with such subtlety that St. Thomas, unable to answer its reasoning, broke it ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... communicate what she had to tell. Impatient or not, she must wait a moment, while I say a word about her. Our Landlady is as good a creature as ever lived. She is a little negligent of grammar at times, and will get a wrong word now and then; she is garrulous, circumstantial, associates facts by their accidental cohesion rather than by their vital affinities, is given to choking and tears on slight occasions, but she has a warm heart, and feels to her boarders as if they were her blood-relations. She began her conversation ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Toby, sagaciously, "I've had a hunch, Jack, you never could bring yourself to believe that there was anything about that same affair. In spite of the circumstantial evidence in the case you always kept believing Fred must be innocent. ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... Achilles; "but he is a sovereign of deep policy, and was resolved not to proceed against these treacherous warders, or their general, the Protospathaire, without decisive proof. His Sacred Majesty, therefore, charged me to obtain specific circumstantial proof by ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... and two secretaries to write down all the names. They took much pains to examine all the dead, and were the whole day in the field of battle, not returning but just as the King was sitting down to supper. They made him a very circumstantial report of all they had observed, and said they had found eighty banners, the bodies of eleven princes, twelve hundred knights, and about thirty ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... and on returning over the bridge into the village carried something under his arm, carefully covered with his sarong. My box was stolen between the hours he was seen going and returning, and it was so small as to be easily carried in the way described. This seemed pretty clear circumstantial evidence. I accused the man and brought the witnesses to the Commandant. The man was examined, and confessed having gone to the river close to my house to bathe; but said he had gone no farther, having climbed up a cocoa-nut tree and brought home two nuts, which he had covered ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... the young man who was sentenced for ninety-nine years on circumstantial evidence, and whose story is in ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... the journaliste, now deputy of the Seine, has given, in the 'Moniteur,' a very circumstantial account of this establishment. From it we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... extortionate prices of fresh kuruma. It was inconsiderate of them, to say the least; for the attack naturally threw us into a certain disrepute not calculated to cheapen fares. Then, too, our obvious haste helped furnish circumstantial evidence of crime. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... Tale of Circumstantial evidence. By the author of "My Shooting Box," "The Quorndon Hounds," etc. With ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... of having suborned witnesses and forged letters for her destruction. The aged minister, greatly moved by this attack upon his character, immediately rose and asserted his innocence in a manner so solemn, and with such circumstantial corroboration, as compelled her to retract the accusation ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... held that every other human ailment was unworthy of mention in the presence of her sovereign affliction. Whenever anybody presumed to speak of their little personal sufferings before her, she said: "You should thank Heaven you haven't got the rheumatics," and would then proceed to give a circumstantial history of her acquaintance with that disease. Therefore, on this occasion, she was quite unaware that poor Bog sat opposite to her with a pale, dejected face, playing aimlessly on his plate with his ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... of course, the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence, and no doubt the police hoped to collect a great deal more now that they held a clue in their hands. Directly after the verdict, therefore, which was guardedly directed against some person unknown, the police obtained a warrant and later ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... these statues and parts of statues were copied from Myron's Discobolus depends principally upon a passage in Lucian (about 160 A. D.). [Footnote: Philopseudes, Section 18.] He gives a circumstantial description of the attitude of that work, or rather of a copy of it, and his description agrees point for point with the statues in question. This agreement is the more decisive because the attitude is a very remarkable one, no other known figure showing ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... honor, and you, gentlemen, now presiding over my fate, can be more conscious than myself, from the nature of the evidence given in this case, of the utter hopelessness of any defence which may be offered on my behalf. But, while recognising, in their fullest force, the strong circumstantial proofs of crime which you have heard, I may be permitted to deny for myself what my counsel has been pleased to admit for me. To say that I have not been guilty of this crime, is only to repeat that which was ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... Lost World[A] the tale is told (SMITH, ELDER do it cheap) in diction So circumstantial that its hold Is more than that of common fiction; If you can run the story through, By aid of portraits when you need it, And not be half convinced it's true, You simply don't deserve to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... will be seen that three—Mr. McCulloch, Mr. Welles, and Mr. Speed—might be regarded as favoring a conservative plan of reconstruction, and three—Mr. Stanton, Mr. Harlan, and Mr. Dennison—a radical plan. These positions were thus assigned from circumstantial evidence rather than from direct declarations of the gentlemen themselves. At a time so critical, responsible officials were naturally reserved and cautious in the expression of opinions. But it was instinctively perceived by close observers of public events, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... "Secret and Circumstantial Account of the Marriage of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, with the Abbe Jules Simon Mazarin, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. A new edition, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... occurrence of any event in past time may be ranged under two heads which, for convenience' sake, I will speak of as testimonial evidence and as circumstantial evidence. By testimonial evidence I mean human testimony; and by circumstantial evidence I mean evidence which is not human testimony. Let me illustrate by a familiar example what I understand by these two kinds of evidence, and what is to be said ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Tschudi, Scheuchzer. Campell's Chronicle is looked upon as the most authentic and circumstantial; but there being only a few manuscript copies of it extant in the hands of private persons in the Grisons, I have not been able to avail myself of his researches. Guller and Stumpfius might also have furnished some material information; but neither ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.

... which do not affirm or enjoin anything positively, which are circumstantial and incomplete, or in open contrast with the positive, all these ideas may be properly grouped into another single class because they all should have the same kind of slide. This class we ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... by some old Arabic records kept by the prior, in which I read a circumstantial account how, in the year of the Hedjra 783, some straggling Turkish Hadjis, who had been cut off from the caravan, were brought by the Bedouins to the convent; and being found to be well educated, and originally from upper Egypt, were retained here, and a salary settled on them ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... fair trial, sir. No innocent man was ever hung. There was no such thing as circumstantial evidence in that camp. The guilty man was always taken red-handed. We had good laws and they were rigidly enforced. There was no other way, sir. Short, sharp and decisive. It's the best way. Men understand that sort of thing ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... treated to sensationalism as thrilling as any six-shilling shocker hot from the press and assured of its half-million circulation. One English and one French newspaper outdid their competitors by publishing side by side with their account of the exploits of the Russian fleet a marvellous but circumstantial story of a meeting and alliance between the rulers of Germany and Russia. The eyes of the whole world were turned towards Kiel, and more wonderful rumors still flashed backwards and forwards along the wires throughout Europe. A great mobilization can be kept secret ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... him that I had myself ordered his arrest that morning, still less of the awful crime of which he had been suspected. Looking back, I do not see how I could have acted otherwise; the prima facie case against him was so strong; never was circumstantial evidence apparently clearer. Mr. D—— went back to Sweden next day, as he had had enough of Russia. Should Mr. D—— still be alive, and should he by any chance read these lines, may I beg of him to accept my humblest ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... at the time he is favouring us with the highly wrought account of his amour with the adorable Peggie, the Chevalier Johnstone was a married man, whose grandchild is now alive; or that the whole circumstantial story concerning the outrageous vengeance taken by Gordon of Abbachie on a Presbyterian clergyman is entirely apocryphal. At the same time it may be admitted that the Prince, like others of his family, did not esteem the services done him by his adherents so highly ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... being abruptly questioned. When to this singular combination of incidents it was added that the rumor tallied exactly with Mr. Higginbotham's character and habits of life, and that he had an orchard and a St. Michael's pear tree, near which he always passed at nightfall, the circumstantial evidence appeared so strong that Dominicus doubted whether the autograph produced by the lawyer, or even the niece's direct testimony, ought to be equivalent. Making cautious inquiries along the road, the pedler further learned that Mr. Higginbotham had ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... remedy." As originally prepared, the resolutions were found in Jefferson's handwriting after his death. Hildreth's conjecture that Madison, as well as the brothers Nicholas, was consulted in the preparation of these resolutions, rests only on circumstantial evidence. The Kentucky resolutions were passed in November; those of Virginia in December; the former were written by Jefferson, the latter by Madison; and the doctrines in each are essentially the same. It would have been a perfectly natural thing for the two friends to ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... 2:4-6) Jesus was not born on December 25, as is generally supposed; but his birth occurred about the first of October. Midwinter would have been a very inopportune time for the shepherds to be watching their sheep in the fields and sleeping in the open. In addition to this circumstantial evidence, all the facts show that the birth of Jesus was in October, and that December 25, nine months previous, was probably the date of the annunciation. (Luke 1:30,31) For a full discussion of this subject see STUDIES IN THE ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... very kind to inquire so particularly after my gout. I wish I may not be so circumstantial in my answer: but you have tapped a dangerous topic; I can talk gout by the hour. It is my great mortification, and has disappointed all the hopes that I had built on temperance and hardiness. I have resisted like a hermit, and exposed myself to all weathers and seasons like a smuggler; and in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... wits and a following—or better, a heeling. There had been bad blood between him and Braddish for some time over political differences of opinion and advancement. But into these Hagan had carried a circumstantial, if degenerate, imagination that had grown into and worried Braddish's peace of mind like a cancer. Details of the actual killing were kept from us children. But I gathered, since the only witnesses of the ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous - almost of pedantic - veracity, that the ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... They would wish they had let sleeping dogs lie before the thing was over. The right kind of lawyer could bully Rosalie into saying anything he chose on the witness-stand. There was not much limit to the evidence a man could bring if he was experienced enough to be circumstantial, and knew whom he was dealing with. The very fact that the little fool could be made to appear to have been so sly and sanctimonious would stir the gall of any jury of men. His own condoning the matter ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... for sleep that night. A half-dozen times he was called back to the lieutenant's office for further questioning. He commenced to realize that the circumstantial evidence was strongly against him, and now, as the girl had warned him, his entirely innocent past was brought up against him simply because his existence had been called to the attention of a policeman, and the same policeman an inscrutable ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Defoe canon, this tract must be assigned to him on the basis of internal evidence; but this evidence, though circumstantial, is convincing. W.P. Trent included A Vindication in his bibliography of Defoe in the CHEL, and later bibliographers of Defoe have followed him in accepting it. Since the copy here reproduced was the one examined by Professor Trent, the following passage ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe

... prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed, though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was needed to show the shepherd's guests that after what they had seen it would look very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue the unhappy third stranger, who could not as yet have gone more than ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... dared to think. Sensitive to the last fibre of his being, the artist grew faint with exquisite pain at the thought of what he must endure from a scandal spread among his friends. An accusation without foundation would have been almost more than he could bear, but one supported by such circumstantial evidence as lay behind the story Irons would tell if he set himself to make trouble,—the bare idea ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... the most circumstantial accounts of these burial places is given by Mr. Merritt, who was also the first to make them known to science.[6] Mr. Merritt was director of a gold mine in Veragua, and in the summer of 1859 spent ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... it was delicacy that kept Nelly silent. Seeing Freddie here at the theatre, she had, as is not uncommon with fallible mortals, put two and two together and made the answer four when it was not four at all. She had been deceived by circumstantial evidence. Jill, whom she had left in England wealthy and secure, she had met again in New York penniless as the result of some Stock Exchange cataclysm in which, she remembered with the vagueness with which one recalls once-heard pieces of information, Freddie Rooke had been involved. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... of this apparent and wholly circumstantial disinterestedness, Balzac loved artistic surroundings, rugs, tapestries and silver ware. He detested mediocrity, and could enjoy nothing short either of glorious poverty, nobly endured in a garret, or wealth and the splendour of a palace. Balzac shared his apartment with Auguste ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... of respite in which to compose and prepare himself. Within an hour, he knew, within a day or so at most, he must be under arrest, charged with the theft of the Montalais jewels, damned by his yesterday as much as by every turn of circumstantial evidence.... ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... Maldives, Moluccas, et Bresil. Par Fr. Pyrard. Paris, 1619-8vo.—These voyages, which occupied the author from 1600 to 1611, are uncommonly well written, accurate, faithful, and circumstantial, especially regarding the Maldives, Cochin, Travancore, and Calicut. There is appended a particular and methodical description of the animals and ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... him, aside from the prepossession in his favour due to the faith of Alma Willard, was the nerve he displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent man might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that he was receiving. Leland, we learned, had been very active. By prompt work at the time of the young doctor's arrest he had managed to secure the greater part of Dr. Dixon's personal ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... coat to have been frequently worn by his nephew, and all the rest the prisoner himself confirmed by a more circumstantial account; concluding, that Mr Thornhill had often declared to him that he was in love with both ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... had brought to the ranch the pigeons carrying cholera, was tried in Rocky Bend. The evidence, though circumstantial, was strong against him, and the prosecution was pushed hard. But it was little surprise to any one at the ranch when the trial resulted in a hung jury. The ablest lawyer in the county had defended Donley, and finally, late in August, ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... that he left England 'under a cloud'; that before he went he was 'cudgelled' by an infuriated publisher; that he swindled Lord Peterborough out of large sums of money, and that the outraged nobleman drew his sword upon the miscreant, who only escaped with his life by a midnight flight. A more circumstantial story has been given currency by Dr. Johnson. Voltaire, it appears, was a spy in the pay of Walpole, and was in the habit of betraying Bolingbroke's political secrets to the Government. The tale first appears in a third-rate life of Pope by Owen Ruffhead, who had ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... "that there is more gold in the country drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers than would pay the costs of the late war with Mexico a hundred times over." And he then went on to report in detail big nuggets and big washings, mentioning men, places, dates, in a circumstantial ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... Grant held it ad interim. I did not understand General Grant as denying, nor as explicitly admitting, these statements in the form and full extent to which you made them. The admission of them was rather indirect and circumstantial. though I did not understand it to be an evasive one. He said that, reasoning from what occurred in the case of the police in Maryland, which he regarded as a parallel one, he was of opinion, and so assured you, that it would be his right and duty, under ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... assassination had been carefully planned and executed at a late hour on a deserted street, it was popularly believed that very little direct testimony would be brought out, and that a conviction, therefore, would rest mainly upon circumstantial evidence; but as the trial progressed the case against the prisoners developed unexpected strength. Had Donnelly fallen at the first volley, his assailants would, in all probability, never have been identified, but he had ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... one, The silver fragments of a broken voice, Made me most happy, faltering [9] "I am thine". Shall I cease here? Is this enough to say That my desire, like all strongest hopes, By its own energy fulfilled itself, Merged in completion? Would you learn at full How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades Beyond all grades develop'd? and indeed I had not staid so long to tell you all, But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes, Holding the folded annals of my youth; And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by, And ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... and took off. Then, to confuse watchers, he headed straight for Whiteside. As he passed over the cove he saw the houseboat, anchored in the best position for watching the Spindrift-Whiteside boat course. His mouth was set in a straight line. Maybe there was no proof, but how much circumstantial evidence was needed to paint a picture? He was sure the houseboat was a part of the ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... whatever of their own history; and so we are left to balance the probabilities regarding the mode and form in which they were originally revealed, and to found our ultimate conclusions respecting them on evidence, not direct, but circumstantial. ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... are cited. (1) The circumstances attending the death of Herod Agrippa I. in A.D. 44. Here Acts xii. 21-23 is largely parallel to Jos. Antt. xix. 8. 2; but the latter adds an omen of coming doom, while Acts alone gives a circumstantial account of the occasion of Herod's public appearance. Hence the parallel, when analysed, tells against dependence on Josephus. So also with (2) the cause of the Egyptian pseudo-prophet in Acts xxi. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... and from that descends a large flight of steps that terminates on strong gates, exactly a situation for a corps de garde." And speaking of Edward's imprisonment here, may be mentioned the pathetic story told by Sir Richard Baker, in his usual odd, circumstantial manner: "When Edward II. was taken by order of his Queen and carried to Berkeley Castle, to the end that he should not be known, they shaved his head and beard, and that in a most beastly manner; for they took him from his horse and set him upon a hillock, and then, taking ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... himself:—"From eight to fourteen I was a playless day-dreamer, a helluo librorum; my appetite for which was indulged by a singular incident. A stranger, who was struck by my conversation, made me free of a circulating library in King's Street, Cheapside." The more circumstantial explanation of Mr Gillman is this: "The incident indeed was singular. Going down the Strand, in one of his day-dreams, fancying himself swimming across the Hellespont, thrusting his hands before him as in the act ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... each other hopelessly as to the manner of his reappearance? How if Burnet, Woodrow, and Heath had given an account which was not at all incompatible with a natural explanation of the whole matter, while Clarendon gave a circumstantial story in flat contradiction to all the others, and carefully excluded any but a supernatural explanation? Ought we to, or should we, allow the discrepancies to pass unchallenged? Not for an hour—if indeed we did not rather order the whole story ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... peculiarly circumstanced. With the exception of Una herself, none of them entertained a doubt that Connor was the incendiary. Flanagan had maintained a good character, and his direct impeachment of Connor, supported by such exact circumstantial evidence, left nothing to be urged in the young man's defence. Aware as they were of the force of Una's attachment, and apprehensive that the shock, arising from the discovery of his atrocity, might be dangerous if injudiciously disclosed to her, they resolved, in accordance with the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... of us seem to have a great deal to say, but just stood there lookin' foolish. Finally Dick came out of it an' sez, "I have been accused of cheatin' an' lyin' an' stealin'. The circumstantial evidence is all again me, so I shall have to go away, but you remember all I told you out in the other room—an' on our rides across the plain, an' on our walks in the moonlight; an' Barbie, girl, don't you ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... that the man would try to fix a murder on him, himself? Useless for him to speak, to deny. The revolver-shot and the cruel little bullet (which showed there were others who possessed that sort of fire-arm besides himself) proved too easily, upon the circumstantial evidence theory at all events, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... value, they are yet interesting for the light which they throw incidentally upon the habits and modes of thought of the colonists. They have one character in common with all other legends, that they grow fuller and more circumstantial the further they proceed from the original time. Baeda, who wrote about A.D. 700, gives them in a very meagre form: the English Chronicle, compiled at the court of AElfred, about A.D. 900, adds several important traditional particulars: while with the romantic ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... and to emphasize the one or the other, which cannot be done so well by a bare statement or commandment. Thus, to take a few examples, the creation of the world is impressed upon the reader beyond the possibility of a doubt by a circumstantial narrative of the various steps in the process, the gradual peopling of the earth by the multiplication of the human race descended from the first pair, and so on. The story of the flood and of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah has for ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... writer in any department can find work across the water, I would advise no one to go abroad with this assurance solely. My success—if so that can be called which yielded me life, not profit—was circumstantial, and cannot be repeated. I should be loth to try it ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... a very circumstantial account of this society, I confess I have a view beyond the pleasure which a mind like yours must receive from the contemplation of so much virtue. Your constant endeavours have been to inculcate the best principles into ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... the earth with the ruler of the Sindhus amongst them, are affected by evil destiny. Having done a great wrong to the diadem-decked (Arjuna), how can the ruler of the Sindhus, if he falls within Arjuna's sight, save his life? From circumstantial inference, I see, O Sanjaya, how can the ruler of the Sindhus, if he falls within Arjuna's sight, save his life? From circumstantial inference, I see, O Sanjaya, that the ruler of the Sindhus is already dead. Tell me, however, truly how the battle raged. Thou art ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... to find a place on any list of great criminals, although it is certain that they were guilty of the crimes with which they were charged. It may seem strange that what follows is more a history of the retribution which overtook the criminals than a circumstantial description of the deeds for which they were punished; but the crimes were so revolting, and so unsuitable for discussion, that it was impossible for us to enter into any details on the subject, so that what we offer in these pages is, we confess quite openly, not a full, true, and particular ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... said he. "But as to how it happened, come in to the library, sir. It was in his ain library he was killed! The Fiscal and Superintendent is there now and we've been going into the circumstantial evidence. Most ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... but "threw him down, and tare him." At length, as in that case, Satan was overcome. After a protracted, most violent, and terrible contest, Mary Warren got released from his clutches, and made a full and circumstantial confession. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... allowed to vague and distant reports, the character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may be most distinctly seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent Basil, archbishop of Caesarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in the management of the Trinitarian cause. [71] The circumstantial narrative has been composed by the friends and admirers of Basil; and as soon as we have stripped away a thick coat of rhetoric and miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected mildness of the Arian ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... potent material essences, and conforming the seer to themselves as with some cunning physical necessity. This theory,* in itself so fantastic, had however determined in a range of methodical suggestions, altogether quaint here and there from their circumstantial minuteness. And throughout, the possibility of some vision, as of a new city coming down "like a bride out of heaven," a vision still indeed, it might seem, a long way off, but to be granted perhaps one day ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... this discovery was, in Barrant's mind, weakened by the fact that the marks might have been caused by the persons who had carried the body from the next room. Nevertheless, the marks must be regarded as infirmative testimony, however slight, of the fallibility of the circumstantial deductions which had been made from the discovery of the body in a locked room, with windows which could not be reached ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... who had been in Palestine in his youth, undertook to be spokesman on the occasion, and to relate his own adventures to the lady as having happened to the lord in question. This preparation enabled him to be so minute and circumstantial in his detail, and so coherent in his replies to her questions, that the lady fell implicitly into the delusion, and was delighted to find that her lord was alive and in health, and in high favour with the king, and ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... these partial writers may, each in their department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors, than more general writers; and so by degrees may pave the way to an universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as I could wish: he advances some false facts; as when he says of the hirundo urbica that "pullos extra nidum non nutrit." This assertion I know to be wrong from repeated observation this summer; for house-martins do feed their ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... that from the first dawn of his preference for Madame Walmoden, the king wrote circumstantial letters of fifty or sixty pages to the queen, informing her of every stage of the affair; the queen, in reply, saying that she was only one woman, and an old woman, and adding, 'that he might love more and younger women.' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... dear; only circumstantial evidence—but strong enough to convict her. I have not one witness who can refute ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... still employed the conversation; and what horses, servants, and carriages he took with him, was minutely asked, and so accurately answered, either by himself or by Mr. Sandford, that Miss Milner, although she had known her doom before, till now had received no circumstantial account of it—and as circumstances increase or diminish all we feel, the hearing these things told, increased the ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... had run away with her, and Adams was concerned in the plot. He was now enamoured of his guests, drank their healths with great chearfulness, and returned many thanks to Adams, who had spent much breath, for he was a circumstantial teller of ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... went off immediately to the court of the king of that country, whose name was Prasenajit, and who lived in a city named Vitankapura, in order to have the dispute decided. There they had themselves announced by the warder, and went in, and gave the king a circumstantial account of their case. The king said, "Wait here, and I will put you all in turn to the proof;' so they agreed and remained there. And at the time that the king took his meal, he had them conducted to a seat of honour, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... far off for its distance to be ascertained! It must be remembered that no parallax had yet been found for any star in the days of Herschel, and so his estimations of stellar distances were necessarily of a very circumstantial kind. He did not, however, continue always to build upon such uncertain ground; but, after some further examination of the Milky Way, he gave up his idea that the stars were equally disposed in space, and ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... affect me much. It was pure conjecture. Women are uncertain creatures, at best; and a woman capable of murder would be equally capable of losing her head afterward, and leaving circumstantial evidence behind her. ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... one, who mention'd pieces of sea-coal thrown at the centry; and that was Andrew a Negro - A fellow of a lively imagination indeed! - One, who I believe could tell as good a story even to my lord of H. and give his lordship as circumstantial an account of "the unhappy transaction", as some, who have already had the honor of doing it, & who may think themselves to be Andrew's betters - he is remarkable for telling romantick stories in the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... imagine a more damning case," I remarked. "If ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... There is an element of absurdity in the thought that the aim and purpose of human life is for each soul to hunt for the sins and imperfections in others. The enjoinment of self-criticism and self-culture seems a simpler and less circumstantial rule of life. Asceticism, abnegation, prayer, remoteness from the passions that rend the worldly, bring peace and content. But they limit experience and give a false simplicity to the problems of life. Early Christian monasticism held that as this world ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... resort to protecting laws against aliens (for citizens, you certainly know, are not affected by that law), who acknowledge no allegiance to this country, and in many instances are sent among us, as there is the best circumstantial evidence to prove, for the express purpose of poisoning the minds of our people and sowing dissensions among them, in order to alienate their affections from the government of their choice, thereby endeavoring to dissolve the Union, and of course ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... circumstantial, and hence the variety of traditionary schemes by which the people were supposed to go up and down on these visits to the heavens. One story speaks of a mountain, the top of which reached to the skies. Another says ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... word of your story," I heard the doctor answer to this long and circumstantial yarn. ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived, and were certainly incapable of deception. He cannot therefore refuse to give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping thoughts. On the other hand, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... they would dig down to see what it was, but it never turned out to be money. That night the boys declared they would not dig any more. But Tom had another dream. He dreamed the gold was exactly under the little papaw-tree. This sounded so circumstantial that they went back and dug another day. It was hot weather too, August, and that night they were nearly dead. Even Tom gave it up, then. He said there was something about the way they dug, but he never offered to do ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... jealousies of any kind whatever be harboured in our breasts, without absolute or good circumstantial evidence; and if conceived upon proof or strong presumption, the same to be communicated to the suspected person, in temper and moderation, and not told ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various

... assertions of innocence. This, however, I did, and with such energy and earnestness—for horror and despair inspired me with both courage and eloquence—that a favourable impression was perceptible in the court. The circumstantial statement of Digby, however, with all its strong probabilities, was not to be overturned by my bare assertions; and the result was, that I was remanded to prison to stand trial at the ensuing assizes, Mr. Wallscourt being bound over ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... their rigid Catholicism, which was Jansenism, in solid and luminous volumes; the latter, more especially, merits consideration and in his Moral Essays proved an excellent writer. Mezeray, conscientious, laborious, circumstantial as well as capable writer, should be reckoned as the earliest French historian. Bourdaloue, sound logician and good moralist, from his pulpit as a preacher uttered discourses that were admirable, though too dogmatically composed, and painted word-pictures that piously satirised ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet

... from the private desks in the classrooms, from the dormitories, and from several of the studies. There was no clue to the offender, and first of all suspicion fell strongly on the new boy, little Elgood. A few trifling items of circumstantial evidence seemed to point him out, and it began to be gradually whispered, no one exactly knew how or by whom, that he must be the guilty boy. Hints were thrown out to him to this effect; little bits of paper, on which were written the words "Thou shalt not steal," ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... Susan Martin, in 1692, among other absurdities of circumstantial evidence relied on, was that her skirts were not draggled when out on a wet day, while the clothes of other women travelling with her were bespattered and clotted ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... creature Gladys was, pretending that the whole family was so disgraced, yet remaining still as intimate with them as ever! How horrid they all were—everybody except, perhaps—perhaps her father! In the past he was the only one who had ever shown himself superior to public opinion and circumstantial evidence. Would he be the same this time? If he, too, were going to be shocked and surprised, Margery felt that there was nothing left for her but to go off somewhere ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore

... Paul Revere in his narrative says "a friend" made the signals. It has been claimed that John Pulling, and not Robert Newman, hung the lanterns. The evidence favoring Newman and Pulling is in each case circumstantial. Both were Sons of Liberty and intimate with Revere. Newman was sexton in possession of the keys of the church. It is said that Pulling obtained them; that the suspicion was so strong against him he was obliged to leave the town secretly, not daring to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... report of what passed at a time when my name was unknown to him, as also was that of his assailant. Being forewarned by William Rossetti of his brother's peculiar sensitiveness to critical attack, and having, moreover, observed something of the kind myself, I tried to avoid a circumstantial statement of what passed. But Rossetti was, as has been said by one who knew him well, "of imagination all compact," and my obvious desire to shelve the subject suggested to his mind a thousand inferences infinitely more damaging than the fact. To avoid such a result I told him all, and there ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... triumphantly she thwarted Duffel in all his villainous calculations, and especially in his attack upon her person. After the wretch was gone, and she found herself alone, a train of sad reflections came crowding in upon her mind. Was Hadley indeed dead? she thought—and then the circumstantial narrative of the two accomplices of her captor arose fresh ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... what did I hear? Did I hear our loquacious Fiddler perorating upon Life? "Life," quoth she, with much argument and circumstantial matter; "Life," she continued, making her points singly and one by one, thus keeping the business in its true perspective; "Life is—" ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne

... priority of the so-called gospel of Matthew, the Pauline purpose of "Luke," the second in date of our gospels, the derivative and second-hand character of "Mark," and the unapostolic origin of the fourth gospel, are points which may for the future be regarded as wellnigh established by circumstantial evidence. So with respect to the pseudo-Pauline epistles, Baur's work was done so thoroughly that the only question still left open for much discussion is that concerning the date and authorship of the first and second "Thessalonians,"—a point of ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... The tricks of circumstantial evidence, together with pleas advanced by influential relatives of the prisoner, induced the court to delay sentence until the culprit should be ninety-nine years old, but it was ordered that, while released on his own recognizance, in the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... did not take this well-known gaze with meekness. She was a small person, thin as a lath, with no attempt at complexion, and a way of doing her hair which alone would have proved impeccable virtue in the face of incriminating circumstantial evidence. She had neat little features, and a neat little figure, though "provincial" was written over her in conspicuous letters; and the gray eyes which she fastened on Miss Dene looked almost ill with gloomy intelligence. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... days had gone by, he presented Pelle with a circumstantial account, which amounted exactly to five and twenty kroner. It was a curious chance that Pelle had just that amount of money. He was not willing to be done out of it, but the boarding-house keeper, Elleby, called in a policeman from the street, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... established those three things: Motive, your jealousy of Grant; time, your unaccounted-for disappearance during the hour when the crime was committed; and disguise, a clumsy suggestion of Owd Ben's ghost? Really, I have known men brought to the scaffold on circumstantial evidence little stronger than that. Instead of glaring at me like a cornered rat you ought to drop on your knees and thank providence, as manifested through the intelligence of the 'Yard,' that you are not now in a cell at Knoleworth, ruminating on your own stupidity, and in no ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... the materials of the tessellae, which also includes a valuable report by Dr. VOELCKER, on an analysis of ruby glass, which formed part of the composition of one of the Cirencester pavements. This portion of the volume is too elaborate and circumstantial for any justice to be done to it in ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various

... suspicion had pointed to her. Possibly the vague confessions, implicating no one, which he had made to Mrs. Miller, taken in connection with events of which he had no knowledge, had proved sufficient to weave a chain of circumstantial evidence about her; and now the commanding officer was aroused, and was coming down on him, and poor Mac yonder, for full details of their losses and their knowledge of the affair. He would give anything to secure the postponement ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... brother to his presence, and demanded that he should confess his share in the murder. Monsieur clasped in his hand the insignia of the Holy Ghost, which he wore about his neck, and took the most solemn oath that he was both directly and indirectly innocent of the death of his wife. Still the circumstantial evidence was so strong against him that he could not escape ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... she and she alone could have known of it—his finer senses refused to believe that she had cheated and tricked him. He had no argument to put forward to justify his belief; it was one of those beliefs which are rooted in something finer and truer than circumstantial evidence. His only argument in her favour was that he had never found her mercenary, but, as Abdul had answered him, a woman will ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer



Words linked to "Circumstantial" :   circumstance



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