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Circumstantial   /sˌərkəmstˈæntʃəl/  /sˌərkəmstˈænʃəl/   Listen
Circumstantial

adjective
1.
Fully detailed and specific about particulars.



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"Circumstantial" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... judged by the condition of the dead and other circumstantial evidence that the fight had taken place at the very beginning of the great battle—that is, on the morning of Tuesday, the 8th, when the French were slowly pushed back from the vicinity of Fere Champenoise. The road ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... of Juvenal, or to the Jew of the dark ages. What the horns are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what the sting is to the bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek song, is to woman, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises, smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons, offensive and defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges. All those millions do not furnish one sepoy to the armies of the Company. But as usurers, as money-changers, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, &c., of the former—that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... 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 ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... him, writing down what they said, seeing their very manner of saying, living with them as often and as long as he wills—with such a personal unity, that an ingenious lawyer once told me that he required no stronger evidence of a fact in any court of law than a circumstantial ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... confident belief which communicated itself to John's mind, and, coupled with the fact that there was certainly only circumstantial evidence against Wilhelm, slowly brought him to sharing her belief and tender sorrow. But they were alone in this belief and alone in their sorrow. The verdict of the community was unhesitatingly, unqualifiedly, ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... in a humour to describe, or give way to any poetical flights, but I must endeavour to give a faithful, sober, and circumstantial account of our last night's expedition, while the impression is yet fresh on my mind; though there is, I think, little danger of my forgetting. We procured horses, which, from the number of persons proceeding on the same errand with ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... mentions Claudius, nor VALERIUS ANTIAS (91 B.C.), who is often associated with him. This writer, who has gained through Livy's page the unenviable notoriety of being the most lying of all annalists, nevertheless obtained much celebrity. The chief cause of his deceptiveness was the fabrication of circumstantial narrative, and the invention of exact numerical accounts. His work extended from the first mythical stories to his own day, and reached to at least seventy-five books. In his first decade Livy would seem to have followed him implicitly. Then turning in his later books ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... seems so. The renegade who related to me, on my return, these events as they happened, was very circumstantial. He is a Corsican, and had killed many men in battle, and more out; but is (he gave me his word for it) on ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... thirty years after the birth of Isaac and when Sarah had attained the age of one hundred and twenty-seven, we come to the conclusion of her "mortal story." Her death, and the respect paid to her memory, are related with a circumstantial minuteness which is truly honourable to her character. This affecting event occurred at Kirjah-Arba, or Hebron, in the plain of Mamre, where Abraham came to bemoan his loss. Venerable man! thine was no common mourning! Thou didst not merely sit upon the ground, assuming the customary attitude ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... absolutely proved on young Hopkins yet, but the circumstantial evidence is so plain that, even if there is nothing else, I don't see how he 's going to escape the rope. I 've just heard a rumor, though, that there 's to be some new evidence this afternoon that will settle ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... of collecting and editing the poems was entrusted to Adam Smith. We are informed of this fact by the accurate and learned David Laing, and though Laing has not imparted his authority for the information, it receives a certain circumstantial corroboration from other quarters. We find Smith in the enjoyment of a very rapid intimacy with Hamilton during the two brief years the poet resided in Scotland between receiving the royal pardon in 1750 and flying again in 1752 from a more relentless ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... proceeded, and continued my narrative until it was time to go to bed; but as I was very circumstantial, and was often interrupted by questions, I had not told a quarter of what I ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... having passed without news of the party, the camp seethed with wild report as to its fortune. Some maintained that the Swazis, who were believed to be averse to the opening up of their country, had wiped out the intruders. More or less circumstantial details of the supposed massacre were current, but critical examination proved such to be quite without foundation. Then came wafts of rumor to the effect that the prospectors had "struck it rich," but were determined ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... constantly supported; and he would awake with no more extreme symptom than a flying heart, a freezing scalp, cold sweats, and the speechless midnight fear. His dreams, too, as befitted a mind better stocked with particulars, became more circumstantial, and had more the air and continuity of life. The look of the world beginning to take hold on his attention, scenery came to play a part in his sleeping as well as in his waking thoughts, so that he would take long, uneventful journeys ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... their journey to the northward. They were certainly all very glad to see us again, and, throwing off the Esquimaux for a time, shook us heartily by the hand, with every demonstration of sincere delight. Ewerat, in his quiet, sensible way, which was always respectable, gave us a circumstantial account of every event of his journey. On his arrival at Owlitteweek, near which island we overtook him, he had buried the greater part of his baggage under heaps of stones, the ice no longer being fit for dragging the sledge upon. Here also he was happily eased of ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... There was guilt in the heart of one boy at least, but which one there was no evidence at present to show. That the fact of the snuff-box being found in Howard's bed had at first sight looked like circumstantial evidence against him could not be denied, but as the links in the chain had been broken in several places, he considered that the whole had fallen to pieces, and he confessed that he did not believe for a moment, from ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... his conduct," defended Conscience with a straightforward glance, "were grossly untrue. He suffered the effects of the circumstantial out ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... preceded by frightful dreams, but the image which the child sees then is not the mere recollection of the dream, but a new, distinct, though painful impression; generally of some animal to which the child points, as now here, now there. These night terrors from the very circumstantial character of the impressions which attend them, often, as I have already said, occasion needless anxiety as to the importance of the cause on which ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... 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

... serious, sir," replied Jekyl; "and there is no law court in Britain that would take the lady's word—all she has to offer, and that in her own cause—against a whole body of evidence direct and circumstantial, showing that she was by her own free consent married to the gentleman who now claims her hand.—Forgive me, sir—I see you are much agitated—I do not mean to dispute your right of believing what you think is most credible—I only use the freedom of pointing out to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... been already made to seeming inconsistencies in the Doctor's sentiments. There is truth in the adage,—"tempora mutantur et nos mutamur cum illis,"—"times change, and we change with them." And indeed changes are allowable in matters of a circumstantial nature which do not affect moral principle. Moral principle, however, is in its nature immutable. In the early period of the Doctor's public life he had nobly proved "Negro Slavery Unjustifiable." But this accursed system was from the first interwoven with the very framework of that "Republican ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... "Therefore," says he, "if the involutionary concatenation of a political residuum approximates to the concordant volitions of a Republican effervescence, it is extra self-evident that judicial investigation into supernumerary circumstantial totality, is beyond the hypodermic flexal radiation of your illustrations." The argument was short, but ...
— The Honest American Voter's Little Catechism for 1880 • Blythe Harding

... there are only two to choose from. Doctor Heath, 'from nowhere,' and this clear-eyed lady. I choose her; for, with all due regard for my friend, the doctor, and all due faith in the propriety of his motives, I must know why he throws that bit of circumstantial evidence in my way, before I show him any part of my hand. Why Doctor Heath is here, is none of my business, strange as his presence and present occupation seem to me. Why he is mixing himself up in the affair of Miss Wardour's diamonds, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... I trust, excuse me for being thus minutely circumstantial, when it is considered that the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson was to me a most valuable acquisition, and laid the foundation of whatever instruction and entertainment they may receive from my collections concerning ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... accidental, occasional, incidental, or circumstantial, as in the case of his celebrating his supper, that it was at night, not in the morning; after supper, not before; with none but men, none but ministers; with unleavened, not with leavened bread, &c.; these circumstantials were accidentally occasioned by the passover, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... and their gospels are therefore called the synoptic gospels. They tell substantially the same story of a wandering preacher who at the end of his life came to Jerusalem. John describes a preacher who spent practically his whole adult life in the capital, with occasional visits to the provinces. His circumstantial account of the calling of Peter and the sons of Zebedee is quite different from the others; and he says nothing about their being fishermen. He says expressly that Jesus, though baptized by John, did not himself practise baptism, and that his disciples did. Christ's agonized appeal ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... the author, that to compose a new version of Homer, in the style and measure of Scott's Marmion, would be a feasible idea. He observed, that Scott's style, and his circumstantial descriptions, bore much resemblance to those of Homer and that the rapid flow of Scott's verse was happily accommodated to the swift succession of events, and fiery impetuosity of the Iliad; corresponding with the dactylic hexameter of the old poet. These hints induced ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... is no hope of what you say, Prue. Leslie was conscious; he knew what he was saying. Iredale had every reason for shooting him. The circumstantial evidence is damning. The most sceptical jury ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... anyway you want it!" grinned Tommy. "There's a broken window, and there's blood on the snow, and we found Thede lying on the floor when we sprang out of bed. If that doesn't make a good case of circumstantial evidence, I ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... In the circumstantial record of this proceeding, to be found in the Acts of the Apostles, we have a proof of the wisdom of the Author of Revelation. He foresaw that the rite of "the laying on of hands" would be sadly abused; that it would be represented as possessing something ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... how oft did you say his beard was not well cut? Clo. I durst go no further then the lye circumstantial: nor he durst not giue me the lye direct: and so wee measur'd swords, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... be mistaken; then, again, I may not," said Louie, reflectively, as she found herself alone, "but appearances point to the latter view. However, auntie says that 'circumstantial evidence is not positive proof,' so I will wait for further developments. If it is so—all right; if it is not so, well—then I think they should not be quite so familiar when Dexie shows him out. He is quite a handsome young gentleman ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... a senior 'ragging' with a junior. He had a great idea of the dignity of the senior school, and did all that in him lay to see that it was kept up. The greater number of the juniors with whom the senior was found ragging, the more heinous the offence. Circumstantial evidence was dead against Charteris. To all outward appearances he was one of the players in the impromptu football match. The soft and fascinating beams of the simper, to quote Mr Jabberjee once more, had not yet faded from the act. A well-chosen ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... 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 sisters at ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... gave the counsel (of the meeting in Oxford) had the intention to set the king and his people at variance.' Nethersole to Carleton, Aug. 9, 1625: a circumstantial and very instructive ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... question, Mr. Conger. If the case were delayed, and I still had nothing to present against the strong circumstantial evidence of the prosecution—if, in other words, delay should still leave us in our present position—would there be any chance for me to escape by a fair, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... 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 officer, ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... expedition in boats," commenced the accurate and circumstantial master, "made in smooth water, with little, or one may say no wind, in the month of June, and on the coast of North America. You are not such a set of know-nothings, men, as to suppose the launch has been hoisted out, and two of the oldest, not to say best ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

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

... the Gypsies had left their encampment, too. Of course, there was nothing to connect the robbery with the Gyps., save circumstantial evidence. The police didn't find either the Gypsies or the necklace. But Aunt Rachel offered five thousand dollars' reward for ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... herself for the thought. If there was an honest person in the world, it was Morgan. She had heard her father talk of circumstantial evidence, and how easy it was to draw wrong conclusions. She was puzzled. One thing was certain, she had seen ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard

... manifestations, than was usual or convenient in a husband; and she gradually began to be aware that her domination over him involved a corresponding loss of independence. Since their return to Paris she had found that she was expected to give a circumstantial report of every hour she spent away from him. She had nothing to hide, and no designs against his peace of mind except those connected with her frequent and costly sessions at the dress-makers'; but she had never before been called upon to ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... to wrench, to pull out, also to date from *atender a, to attend clases nocturnas, evening classes condiciones, terms *convenir en, to agree, to acquiesce cruzados, twills[198] culpado, at fault *despedir, to dismiss destenido, faded detallado, detailed, circumstantial estrenar, to use or wear a thing for the first time estrenarse, to commence, to make a start farditos, trusses[199] fiados, book debts el idioma, la lengua, language malversar, to embezzle nansus, nainsooks negociado, division (Gov. Office) oportunidad,, opportunity, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... of patience again interrupted him, but with all their efforts could never elicit from him a direct answer; but the circumstantial and testimonial evidence being perfectly convincing, he and his accomplice were condemned to death. When he heard the sentence he very coolly asked which would be guillotined first; he was answered that ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... account of the action. Appian is minutely circumstantial, and professes to describe from the narratives of eye- witnesses. But his story varies so far from Caesar's as to be irreconcilable with it, and Caesar's own authority ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... which I could not but greatly regret, as it prevented my being so exact in my latitude and longitude as might be expected. The description also of the country, its productions and people, would have been much more full and circumstantial, if I had not been so much enfeebled and dispirited by sickness, as almost to sink under the duty that for want of officers devolved upon me, being obliged, when I was scarcely able to crawl, to keep watch and watch, and share other duties with my lieutenant, whose ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... This is what I would not undertake to decide; but I can affirm that my informant gave it as the truth, and was perfectly certain that the particulars would be found in the archives of Milan, since this extraordinary initiation was at the time the subject of a circumstantial report addressed to the vice-king, whom fate had determined should nevermore ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... 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 be ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... chronicle, which now and then, though seldom, is circumstantial, gives a curious account of the marriage of Richard duke of Gloucester and Anne Nevil, which I have found in no other author; and which seems to tax the envy and rapaciousness of Clarence as the causes of the dissention between the brothers. ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... was at this time (July 17th) that the intense anxiety of the civilized world with regard to the fate of the besieged reached its culminating point. Circumstantial accounts of the fall of the legations and the massacre of their inmates were circulated in Shanghai and found general credence. It was not till near the end of the month that an authentic message from the American minister proved these fears ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... fell on our nose. It was an orange. We sent a "thank you" up through the boards and commenced hurriedly and furtively to stow away the orange. But the comedian had an axe to grind—most people have—wanted to drop his peel alongside our berth; and it made us uneasy because we did not want circumstantial evidence lying round us if the captain chanced to come down to inquire. The next man to us had a barney with the man above him about the same thing. Then the peel was scattered round pretty fairly, or thrown into an empty bunk, and no man dared growl lest he ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... 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

... 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 ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... him," I said, "was purely circumstantial, except in one particular. He was in the grounds at the time the murder was committed; your father had quarrelled with him, and it was possible that he had followed you and your father to the house, perhaps not knowing clearly what ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson

... 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

... his first statement, and the testimony of the last witness disproves his second. I think we may conclude that Mr. Langford fell asleep in the train on the occasion of his journey to Clayborough, and dreamt an unusually vivid and circumstantial dream,—of which, however, we have now ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... importance in the former narration of my life. I willingly comply with your desire, in giving you a more circumstantial relation; though the labor seems rather painful, as I cannot use much study or reflection. My earnest wish is to paint in true colors the goodness of God to me, and the depth of my own ingratitude—but it is impossible, as numberless little circumstances have escaped my memory. You are also unwilling ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... a desperate attempt to find proof against an assumed criminal by circumstantial evidence. No direct evidence has ever been available to implicate Luther's father in a village brawl. As to the Lutherzorn, Luther has in scores of places explained the real reason of it: Luther did not inherit, but Rome roused it. This Lutherzorn may arise in any person that is not remotely ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... certainly write detective stories just as well as she can write nonsense verse. The story is told in the first person by a modest young sleuth who is sent to a suburban place to ferret out the mystery which shrouds the murder of a prominent man. Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points to a woman as the criminal, and the only possible one is the dead man's niece with whom the detective promptly falls in love, though she is already engaged to her uncle's secretary, an alliance ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... have drawn my conclusions from good circumstantial evidence. After I was taken from you, I passed through a fearful siege of suffering, which would only harrow up your soul to hear. I often shudder at the remembrance. The last man in whose clutches I found ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... is only circumstantial," said Lucian cautiously. "We must not jump to conclusions. At present I am completely in the dark regarding ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... papers connected with the routine of public business, and by other official duties which required signatures or attestations, to find much leisure for answering individual questions. Some, however, listened with a marked air of attention to my earnest request for the circumstantial details of the case, but finally referred me to a vast folio volume, in which were entered all the charges, of whatever nature, involving any serious tendency—in fact, all that exceeded a misdemeanor—in the regular chronological succession according to which ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... Against this circumstantial evidence there was the common-sense argument that the real Mary of the professor's romance would hardly be likely, under the circumstances, to propose herself as his ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... enough if, when supported by other proper evidence, it showed the required treasonable intention.[732] The Court in a five-to-four opinion by Justice Jackson in effect took the former view holding that "the two-witness principle" interdicted "imputation of incriminating acts to the accused by circumstantial evidence or by the testimony of a single witness,"[733] even though the single witness in question was the accused himself. "Every act, movement, deed, and word of the defendant charged to constitute treason must be supported by the testimony of two ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... that 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 anything in the ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... the few absolute facts known concerning the external events of Dante's life. A multitude of statements, often with much circumstantial detail, concerning other incidents, have been made by his biographers; a few rest upon a foundation of probability, but the mass are guess-work. There is no need to report them; for small as the sum of our actual knowledge is, it ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... "A full circumstantial narrative such as boys delight in. The ship so sadly destined to wreck on Kerguelen Land is manned by a very lifelike party, passengers and crew. The life in the Antarctic ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... goats, which were prying and curious, as well as other tame animals which belonged by right in the barnyard, but preferred the drawing room. Ill feeling sprang up, quarrels, lawsuits, all the dreadful sequel of a neighbors' feud. At the trial circumstantial evidence piled up and up. It was not enough for conviction. The inmates of "Goat Castle" were acquitted. Even so, black distrust was their portion from ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore

... other ideas 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

... had established a basis for the negotiations with regard to the Lusitania and "the Freedom of the Seas" which was in our favor when, on the 21st October, they sent a very circumstantial Note to London in which they demonstrated that the English blockade was a breach of international law and definitely stated that this blockade was neither effective, legal nor defensible. Further, that the United States could not, therefore, submit to an infringement ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... say that they are substantial, Mr. Harley. They are rather more circumstantial. Frankly, I have forced myself to come here, and now that I have intruded upon your privacy, I realize my difficulties ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... told the truth," said Jimmie Dale quietly. "It is quite true that Stace Morse committed the murder. Shows up the value of circumstantial evidence though, doesn't it? This would certainly have got him off, and convicted Clayton here before any jury in the land. But the point is, Carruthers, that Stace Morse ISN'T the Gray Seal—and that the Gray ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... Haydon condoned those offenses upon which Deveny stood convicted by circumstantial evidence. Nor had Haydon ever sought to defend Deveny. On the other hand, Haydon's condemnation of the outlaw and his men had been vigorous—almost too vigorous for Haydon's safety, she had heard her ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... 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 abruptly.—I expect ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... gives a minute and curious history of his life and ideas between his nineteenth and his twenty-third birthdays. He was neither a very original nor a very brilliant man, but he had a trick of circumstantial writing; and though no authentic portrait was to survive for the information of posterity, he betrays by a score of casual phrases that he was short, sturdy, inclined to be plump, with a 'rather blobby' face, and full, rather projecting ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... impossible to trap Tarzan through any voluntary act of his own, Rokoff and Paulvitch put their heads together to hatch a plan that would trap the ape-man in all the circumstantial evidence ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... 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 for the sake of his sensitive boy, deformed by his ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... dear sir, if it proves true it will ruin the African fields. The mere report coming in a circumstantial fashion will send prices down fifty ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... 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 apply for a pass. Newman was arrested, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... circumstantial in relating this affair, because it furnished abundance of discourse, and gave rise to many wild conjectures and misrepresentations, as well here as in Holland, especially that part which concerned the Duke of Ormonde;[7] for the angry faction in the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... underwent in London and in Wales; partly because the misery was too monotonous, and, in that respect, unfitted for description; but, still more, because there is a mysterious sensibility connected with real suffering which recoils from circumstantial rehearsal or delincation, as from violation offered to something sacred, and which is, or should be, dedicated to privacy. Grief does not parade its pangs, nor the anguish of despairing hunger willingly count again its groans ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... was to be made between the British government and the French usurpation.—That they who endeavored madly to compare them were by no means making the comparison of one good system with another good system, which varied only in local and circumstantial differences; much less that they were holding out to us a superior pattern of legal liberty, which we might substitute in the place of our old, and, as they describe it, superannuated Constitution. He meant to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... This circumstantial account, which was in every point exactly as the affair happened, and many other questions concerning the family which the captains asked him, and he as readily answered, (having got every particular information concerning them when in Newfoundland,) fully convinced them that he must really ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... things, fresh and interesting to us, were ordinary and banal to them, would be a rather shallow one. The point is that, in previous fiction, circumstantial verisimilitude of this kind had hardly been tried at all. So it is with the incident of Nicodeme sending a rabbit (supposed to be from his own estate, but really from the market—a joke not peculiar to Paris, but specially ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... the geography, navigation, and commerce of the Red Sea, from Myos Hormos to Aduli, on the western side, and Moosa, on the eastern side of it, was well known to the merchants of Egypt, as the author of the Periplus gives no circumstantial account of any port, till he arrives at these places. It appears, also, that till the ships arrived at these places, they kept the mid-channel of the Red Sea, and, consequently, there was no occasion, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... further comment just then. But the others looked astonished. Armand had but asked a simple question, and Blakeney's reply seemed almost like a rebuke—so circumstantial too, and so explanatory. He was so used to being obeyed at a word, so accustomed that the merest wish, the slightest hint from him was understood by his band of devoted followers, that the long explanation of his orders which he gave to Armand ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... "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 extraordinary ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... therefore, that they originated from hot solutions, either aqueous or gaseous, or both, which were essentially "after-effects" of igneous activity and came from the same primary source as the associated igneous rocks, is an inference based on circumstantial evidence of ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... to give a description of some of the strange people he has been visiting. Instead of representing them as a community of lusty savages, who are leading a merry, idle, innocent life, he enters into a very circumstantial and learned narrative of certain unaccountable superstitions and practices, about which he knows as little as the islanders themselves. Having had little time, and scarcely any opportunity, to become acquainted ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... despise no communications that may gratify curiosity, amuse rationally, or add, though but a little, to the stock of public knowledge, I send you a circumstantial account of an animal, which, though its general properties are pretty well known, is for the most part such a stranger to man, that we are but little aware of its peculiarities. We know indeed that the hare is good to hunt and good to eat; but in all other respects poor Puss is ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... going to sleep," he assured her. "Circumstantial evidence is against me, I know. Where's Abby? ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Minnesota, a preponderance of the New England element is found; though people from all the various States of the Union are encountered to a greater extent than in any of the others lying in the Northwest; and this fact is important as one of the circumstantial evidences of the great repute this State bears, par excellence, in the matter of her climate. We cannot suppose that this minor and miscellaneous population were attracted hither from any special attachment either to the people or the institutions of the commonwealth, ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... supposed to have escaped is over sixty-five feet from the ground, and his evasion was evidently considered at the time a most audacious and remarkable feat, as more than one contemporary chronicler gives a very detailed and circumstantial account of it. ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... But a purely circumstantial explanation of an important departure in a man's life will only appear satisfactory to fatalists who worship the blind god Environment. And without indulging in any abstruse psychological discussion, but rather looking at the question from a general point of view, we can understand how an intellect ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... 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 ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... mind. It did not entirely satisfy me to narrate wrongs; I felt like denouncing them. I could not always curb my moral indignation{282} for the perpetrators of slaveholding villainy, long enough for a circumstantial statement of the facts which I felt almost everybody must know. Besides, I was growing, and needed room. "People won't believe you ever was a slave, Frederick, if you keep on this way," said Friend Foster. "Be yourself," said Collins, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... a blank, for Mark had long ago found it expedient to concoct a circumstantial account of how and when the central idea had first ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... is not yet come to town. I expect to see him, and will deliver your message. Things come crowding in to say, and no room for 'em. Some things are too little to be told, i.e. to have a preference; some are too big and circumstantial. Thanks for yours, which was most delicious. Would I had been with you, benighted, &c.! I fear my head is turned with wandering. I shall never be the same acquiescent being. Farewell. Write again quickly, for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... the story; it troubled and offended her— its connexion with matters that interested the police, and all its suggestion that she and her father were being used as a means of hiding, touched her with a sense of disgust. It did not occur to her to doubt Harry Wylde; he had been altogether too circumstantial ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... said Deronda, taking up the clasps a moment and laying them down again. That unwelcome bit of circumstantial evidence had made his mind busy with a plan which was certainly more like acting than anything he had been aware of in his own conduct before. But the bare possibility that more knowledge might nullify the evidence now overpowered the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... reflected deeply upon the tragic event—her suicide. Innocent as I was of her death, might I not be arrested as her murderer?[B] Circumstances were strong against me; how could I prove my innocence? Many men have been hung on circumstantial evidence less strong. Though I had escaped detection on a murder which I had actually committed, I now feared that I should suffer for a deed of which I was not guilty. The gallows arose before my excited fancy, in all ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... which the Rev. Canon Keller gave me of "The Struggle for Life on the Ponsonby Estate," in a tract bearing that title, and authorised by him to be published by the National League, is so circumstantial and elaborate that, after reading it carefully, I took unusual pains to obtain some reply to it from the representatives of the landlord implicated. These finally led to a visit from Mr. Ponsonby himself, who was so kind as to call ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... Best, so they turned over obediently, and composed themselves to slumber. They were really tired by this time, and dropped off into the land of Nod before the clock on the stairs had chimed another quarter. How long she slept, Ingred did not know. She dreamt quite a long and circumstantial dream of wandering on the cliffs near the sea with a gentleman-burglar, who was telling her his intention of raiding Buckingham Palace and taking away the Crown Jewels, and she heard his daring designs (as we always do in dreams) without the slightest surprise ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... 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 containing these examples from the past, and his month in prison was devoted ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... to set aside the evidence that the writer of the books of Samuel made use of earlier documents, from the example of such men as Swift and Defoe, who composed works of fiction with all the simplicity and circumstantial detail of those who write authentic history as eye-witnesses. But, unless the design be to class the books of Samuel with "Gulliver's Travels" and "Robinson Crusoe," the argument is wholly irrelevant. With Swift and Defoe simplicity and minuteness ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... root contained a certain quantity of sugar, but it was not until 1796 that the discovery was properly brought under the attention of the scientific in Europe by Achard, who was also a chemist and resident of Berlin, and who published a circumstantial account of the progress by which he extracted from 3 to 4 per cent. of ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... to blacken the reputation of any bird, but there is at least circumstantial evidence that the long-crested jay, like his eastern cousin, is a nest robber; for such birds as robins, tanagers, flycatchers, and vireos make war upon him whenever he comes within their breeding districts, and this would indicate that ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... Jurgen, to himself, "that this Realist is too circumstantial for me. None the less, he invents his facts: it is by citing books which never existed that he publicly confutes the Gowlais whom I invented privately: and that is not fair. Now there remains only one chance for Jurgen; but luckily ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... bailiffs had taken down a young fellow, about twenty years of age, who had been convicted at the assizes for stealing curious coins from a person who had brought them out to this country as old family relics. The evidence was more circumstantial than positive, and many ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... 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 on arrested ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... hands. A Warfield had written it, and a Warfield should keep the edition up. Her revision was now in the hands of a publisher in Boston, and it was sound and comprehensive, the critics said; the ablest textbook on circumstantial evidence in America. I looked in a sort of wonder at this girl, carried off her ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... degrees Ripton ventured to grow circumstantial, saying that Richard's case was urgent and required immediate medical advice; and that both he and his father were of opinion Richard should not lose ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... believe not. He 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 that this marriage ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... him to take his seat upon a chair prepared for him, and to give a circumstantial account of his voyage, which he related with a gravity suitable to the dignity of the audience he addressed, and with that modesty which ever accompanies ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich

... desire, to this end, to make one more intellectually free, we have only to get him to consider with independence the matter with which we are concerned, to keep him free of all alien suggestions and inferences, and to compel him to see the case as if no influences, personal or circumstantial, had been at work on him. This result does not require merely the setting aside of special influences, nor the setting aside of all that others have said to him on the matter under discussion, nor the elucidation of the effect of fear,[1] of anger, of all such states of mind as might here ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... found described at length in this volume—as the circumstantial and accurate accounts of the Colosseum—and the New Swan River Settlement, the last of which is illustrated with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction—Volume 13 - Index to Vol. 13 • Various

... in Berlin furnishes a useful test of his recent avowals of sympathy with democratic ideals. By way of a set-off the German Press Bureau has circulated a legend of civil war in London, bristling with circumstantial inaccuracies. The enemy's successes in the field—the occupation of Reval and the recapture of Trebizond—are the direct outcome of the Russian debacle. Our capture of Jericho marks a further stage in a sustained triumph of good generalship and hard fighting, which verifies an ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... third edition, the tale gained picturesqueness and circumstantial weight. To the New York episode the widow contributed the imaginative touch of a baffled detective, while Mrs. Bowers's shots in the stilly night passed into the province of undisputed fact. The circumstance that ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... the authority of Weed with much circumstantial detail including the full text of a letter written by McClellan. The letter was produced because McClellan had said that no negotiations took place. Though the letter plainly alludes to negotiations of ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... 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 given delicious food ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... much of bustle, interest, and whimsicality, as a popular election for a member of Parliament. The generality of the persons who are frequent visitors to the house are termed Harponians, and by due qualification become citizens of Lushington. Although we cannot give a true and circumstantial history of this ancient city, we doubt not our numerous readers will discover that its title is derived from an important article in life, commonly called Lush. The four wards are also appropriately titled, as symbolical of the effects which are usually produced by its improper ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... what were the feelings of the poor old man as he sat in the dark corner of the cave listening to this circumstantial relation of his most secret affairs. When he heard Long Orrick's last words, and felt how utterly powerless he was in his weakness to counteract him in his designs, he could not prevent the ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... tender the question is, is proved by the long circumstantial answer, in which the pent-up trouble of a father's heart pours itself out at the tiny opening which Christ has made for it. He does not content himself with the simple answer, 'Of a child,' but with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren



Words linked to "Circumstantial" :   circumstantial evidence, circumstance, specific



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