"Prolix" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enjoyed a very remarkable if temporary vogue; running through numerous editions in the course of the ensuing fifty years. After that, it dropped. It is not surprising that it dropped. The work is tedious, prolix, affected, abounding in pedantry and in intellectual foppery. But its whole meaning and significance at the time when it was written are lost to us if we pay attention only to the ridicule which ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... only one way out of this difficulty. The main incidents of the Epic are narrated in the original work in passages which are neither diffuse nor unduly prolix, and which are interspersed in the leading narrative of the Epic, at that narrative itself is interspersed in the midst of more lengthy episodes. The more carefully I examined the arrangement, the more clearly ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... unrolling endless descriptions of dresses, trappings, gardens, etc. He invented plots and situations full of fine possibilities by which later poets have profited, but his own handling of them was feeble and prolix. Yet there was a simplicity about the old French language and a certain elegance and delicacy in the diction of the trouveres which the rude, unformed ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... upon by Bossuet, the obligation of the canons upon the Pope, was of very little worth in De Maistre's judgment, and he almost speaks with disrespect of the great Catholic defender for being so prolix and pertinacious in elaborating it. Here again he finds in Thomassin the most concise statement of what he held to be the true view, just as he does in the controversy as to the relative superiority of the Pope or the Council. 'There is only an apparent contradiction,' says Thomassin, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... the religious life; it is closely united both in matter and form with the work which we have just examined. The tone of voice is so perfectly the same that one is tempted to see in it parts of the original draft of the Rule, separated from it as too prolix to find ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... a vein of the extremest circumstantiality. With deliberate malice I loaded a prolix narrative with every triviality that a fairly retentive memory could rake out of the half-forgotten past. I cudgelled my brains for irrelevant incidents. I described with the minutest accuracy things that had not the faintest significance. I drew a vivid picture of the carriage inside ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... above description is necessarily prolix, the washing itself ought to be very expeditiously performed; there should be no dawdling over it, otherwise the body will become chilled, and harm instead of good will be the result. If due dispatch be used, the whole of the body might, according to the above method, be thoroughly washed ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... our countrymen to its history have been hitherto commemorated, the following extract from a note, made by me on the spot some years ago, may not be unsuitable for publication in "NOTES AND QUERIES." As I had neither the time nor the patience which the pious, but rather prolix, Scotchman bestowed upon his composition, I found it necessary to content myself with a mere abstract ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... character among Irish working classes ... it is superior to anything written by Synge, Yeats, or Shaw.... The piece, in its realism, earnest purpose, and dramatic force, is worthy of John Galsworthy, and has the additional merit of being almost entirely free from anything like special pleading. Never prolix or oratorical, the compact and homely dialogue is full of shrewd observation and sage comments, pertinent to the contributory causes of a conel private and public tragedy.... The play is as able as it is significant, one well worthy of the boards of a National Theatre."—The Nation ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... excelled, I began to despair of his opening and solving the difficulties which perplexed me (of which indeed however ignorant, he might have held the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee). For their books are fraught with prolix fables, of the heaven, and stars, sun, and moon, and I now no longer thought him able satisfactorily to decide what I much desired, whether, on comparison of these things with the calculations I had elsewhere read, the account given in the ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... the story to each other in a prolix fashion, each supplementing the narrative where the other's memory failed; and, when they ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... childishly garrulous, stupidly prolix, swollen with comments not interesting in themselves and leading to nothing. Mr. Hardy possesses the power of being able to shape events; he can mould them to a certain form; that he cannot breathe into ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... in inventive power, in occasional situations that are intensely thrilling, and in subtle analysis of character; but they are fatally defective in art. The narrative is by turns abrupt and tiresomely prolix, proceeding not so much by dialogue as by elaborate dissection and discussion of motives and states of mind, interspersed with the author's reflections. The wild improbabilities of plot and the unnatural and even monstrous developments of character are in startling ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... port wine from the tray which Primmins handed to her, and gave it herself to old Josey. Her mind had entirely grasped the situation, despite the prolix nature of Bainton's discourse. A group of historic old trees were to be felled by the agent's orders at six o'clock the next morning unless she prevented it. That was the sum total of the argument. And here was something for her to do, and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... being by nature gossipy and mendacious, waxed more and more so with every glass of Heidseck he took down. Ashburner chancing to pass near the group, had his attention arrested by hearing Benson's name. He stopped, and listened: Hunter was going on with a prolix and somewhat confused story of some horse that Benson had sold to somebody, in which transaction Sumner was somehow mixed up, and the horse hadn't turned out well, and the purchaser wasn't satisfied, and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... progress of the different nations of Europe; and its descriptions of what may be called external history—of battles, sieges and state pageants—are spirited and interesting. On the other hand the faults of the work are numerous and glaring. The general style is prolix, involved and vicious; mistakes of fact and false deductions are to be found in almost every page; and the constant repetition of trite moral reflections and egotistical references seriously detracts from its dignity. A more grave defect resulted from the author's ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... its reception into the Hades of famous deeds done and past, and very significantly Agamemnon voices the praise of Ulysses and Penelope, the great winners in the long struggle. Still the repetitions of previous portions of the Odyssey are to our mind unnecessary and prolix, though the literary skill manifested just herein has been highly lauded by Saint ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... national history, and a very fair and judicial presentment it is, too. While the general reader will find it of interest, it has been prepared more particularly for the young, who are easily wearied by the prolix details which encumber so many of the histories prepared for them. Mrs. Parmele very truly remarks that the child, bewildered in a labyrinth of unfamiliar names and events, fails to grasp the main lines and soon dislikes history, simply because he has been studying, not with a thinking mind, but ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 16, February 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... of those kingdoms will be judged by this esteem and by this contempt. For the wise, who know how history is formed, will esteem this part drawn from life. Others who read, as they confess, only to pass the time, will value it but little—preferring some highly fabulous monstrosities, or a prolix book, which, under the name of history, contains a marvelous number of people, and their deaths; and which gives events, not as God disposed them, but as they desire them. Hence it happens that many ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... A more methodical, though under general circumstances uselessly prolix way, is to cut a square hole, some half an inch wide, in the sheet of cardboard, and a series of small circular holes in a slip of cardboard an inch wide. Pass the slip over the square opening, and match each color beside one of the circular ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... may be pardoned for being thus prolix; but surely, we who are actually on the scene of events ought not to be more ignorant of what is going on in our immediate neighbourhood than our friends who are so many thousands ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... Meilhan for being prolix in his answers, now scolded him for anticipating the questions. But the fact was that Meilhan was not to ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... beside my host. I saw Maud listening, with rapt interest, to the chronicles of all the village families, robustly and unimaginatively told by the parson's wife; meanwhile I, tortured by intolerable ennui, pumped up questions, tried a hundred subjects with my worthy host. He told me long and prolix stories, he discoursed on rural needs. At last I said that we must be going; he replied with genuine disappointment that the night was still young, and that it was a pity to break up our pleasant confabulation. I saw with a shock of wonder that he had evidently been enjoying ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Marshal into the whole history of his early dislike to O'Neill, and his shrewd suspicions of him the first moment he saw him in Hereford: related in the most prolix manner all that the reader knows already, and concluded by saying that, as he was now certain of his facts, he was come to swear examinations against this villanous Irishman, who, he hoped, would be speedily brought to justice, as ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... of extraordinary beauty—there was no denying that. Personal descriptions are always disappointing; but, not to be prolix, he had such eyes, with so much passion and fire in them, that they could only be the inheritance of many generations of love and hate and quick emotions; his eyelids drooped languidly, but when he opened his eyes and looked full ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... been gained in the science up to his day, he has done a great service in stimulating inquiry and causing a better statement of results. While undoubtedly the best known of American writers, yet, because of a prolix style and an illogical habit of mind, he has had no extended ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... wanders on, through pages of verse like the above, but we may fitly end it with a page of prose. The old singers are somewhat prolix; it ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... already prolix with respect to these Gypsies, but I will not leave them quite yet. The intended combatants at length arrived; it was necessary to clear the ring, - always a troublesome and difficult task. Thurtell went up to the two Gypsies, with whom he seemed to be acquainted, and with his surly smile, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... prolix for insertion; it was a curious compound dissertation upon love and physic, united. There was devoted attention, extreme gentle treatment, study of pathology, advantage of medical attendance always at hand, careful nursing, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... struck the critics most in the romances of the Middle Ages, and in that very different variety of romance which was cultivated during the seventeenth century—the prolix, sentimental fictions of La Calprenede, Scuderi, Gomberville, and D'Urfe—was the fantastic improbability of their adventures. Hence the common acceptation of the word romantic in such phrases as "a romantic notion," "a romantic elopement," "an act of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... coming from a new country, in which tradition was of no avail, and on which the customs of former centuries had had no opportunities to engraft themselves, had seen many things here which, in his eyes, could not justify themselves by reason. Lord Drummond was a little too prolix for a chairman, and at last concluded by expressing "his conviction that his countrymen would listen to the distinguished Senator with that courtesy which was due to a foreigner and due also to the great and brotherly nation from which he ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... in this visit of the departed guid-man, and, having touched a chord which was extremely sensitive and not easily put to rest after having been made to vibrate, old Mrs Cameron entertained her with a sweet and prolix account of the last illness, death, and burial of the said guid-man, with the tears swelling up in her bright old eyes and hopping over her wrinkled cheeks, until Flora forbade her to say another word, reminding her of the doctor's orders ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... be able, when I see you, to divert you with some excellent stories of a principal figure on our side; but they are too long and too many for a letter, especially of a letter so prolix as this. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... literary sense. His passion for 'codification,' for tabulating and arranging facts in all their complexity, and for applying his doctrine at full length to every case that he can imagine, makes him terribly prolix. On the other hand, this process no doubt strengthened his own conviction and the conviction of his disciples as to the value of his process. Follow this clue of utility throughout the whole labyrinth, see what a clear answer it offers at ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... simplicity left Virginia rather taken aback. Perhaps she expected some lack of composure in the girl, perhaps a more prolix acceptance of honourable amends; but this terse and serene amiability almost suggested indifference; and Virginia seated herself, not quite knowing ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... of the Banims in literature is to be estimated from the merits of the O'Hara Tales; their later works, though of considerable ability, are sometimes prolix and are marked by too evident an imitation of the Waverley Novels. The Tales, however, are masterpieces of faithful delineation. The strong passions, the lights and shadows of Irish peasant character, have rarely been so ably and truly depicted. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... well north of the Spanish possessions, and fell among a people who knew nothing of the white man. A native in a canoe speedily came out to the ship, as soon as she cast anchor; and, standing at a long distance, made delivery of a very prolix oration, with many gestures and signs, moving his hand, turning and twisting his head and body, and ending with a great show of reverence and submission. He returned to shore. Again, and for a third time, he came out and ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... material one is apt, even unconsciously, to be egotistical, and to linger too long and too fondly over scenes and incidents of which one might say, in Virgilian phrase, quorum pars, si non magna, at parva fui. Should the reader deem any portions unduly prolix, he will, perhaps, kindly excuse it on this score. But I have known several instances, and especially of late two in this neighbourhood, when a person advanced in years and of wide experience, has passed ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... relation, both in the Godhead and humanity, is here again declared, though contradicted in the intervening chapters. In this and the following chapters we have a prolix statement of the births, deaths, and ages in the male line. They all take wives, beget sons, but nothing is said of the origin or destiny of the wives and daughters; they are incidentally mentioned merely as necessary factors in the propagation ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... would go back for some little time to the school, in order methodically and thoroughly to make her own forever what the world was only imparting to her in fragments and pieces, rather perplexing her than satisfying her, and often too late to be of service. He did not wish to be prolix about it. Ottilie herself knew best how much method and connection there was in the style of instruction out of which, in that case, she ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man (1683), and Appearance of God to Man in the Gospel (1710).[40] His prose style is lofty and often marked with singular beauty, though he is almost always too prolix for our generation, and too prone to divide his discourse into heads and sub-heads, and sub-divisions of sub-heads. Here is a specimen passage of his dealing with a topic which Plato and the great ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... So much interested was I by what I heard then, that I have decided, after some hesitation on the score of troubling you, to offer myself as a student of your system of Moderation. It may be," I added, speaking hurriedly in my desire to put the matter clearly before him, and yet not to be prolix, "you do not care for the co-operation of persons so little advanced as I; for I tell you honestly that though tolerably proficient in what are known as accomplishments, I am ignorant of all that appertains to serious knowledge. But believe me when I say that I am ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... why he should not put that old fool right. He knew nothing of the forms of the House;—was more ignorant of them than an ordinary schoolboy;—but on that very account felt less trepidation than might another parliamentary novice. Mr Brown was tedious and prolix; and Melmotte, though he thought much of his project and had almost told himself that he would do the thing, was still doubting, when, suddenly, Mr Brown sat down. There did not seem to be any particular ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... names were unknown, their personality unrecognised. Except to the theologian or ritualist how repellent and illegible this mass of printed and manuscript matter must ever seem! How deficient in human sympathy and pertinence! These treatises, so erudite, so prolix, and so multifarious, were composed by men (Universal, Irrefragable, or Seraphic Doctors), and after a certain date by women too (Angelical Sisters), who had no knowledge of the world, of society, of human nature, or of real philosophy. Yet they were, and long remained, the class of literature ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... country, and other books belonging to the library of the household, among which are mentioned, as a proof of her vehement love of reading, the "Critical History of Spain," by the Abbe Masuden, "and other works equally dry and prolix." She was afterward sent to Badajoz, where she received the best education which the state of the country, then on fire with a civil war, would admit. Here the intensity of her application to her studies caused a severe malady, which has frequently recurred in after-life. At the age ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... Highland Seer. Harrison, in his ride, encountered some such report concerning the event of the battle, and turned his horse back to Tillietudlem in great dismay. He made it his first business to seek out the Major, and interrupted him in the midst of a prolix account of the siege and storm of Dundee, with the ejaculation, "Heaven send, Major, that we do not see a siege of Tillietudlem before we ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the notes contained in memorandums P. and R. The first volume of this work is intended as introductory, and contains the best recital of the political history of the colonies which I have read. The other four volumes embrace a wide mass of facts, but are rather diffuse and prolix, considered as biography, A good life of Washington, which shall comprise within a small compass all his prominent public and private acts, still ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... published at Copenhagen in the middle of the seventeenth century (1644). Stephanius, the first commentator on Saxo, still remains the best upon his language. Immense knowledge of Latin, both good and bad (especially of the authors Saxo imitated), infinite and prolix industry, a sharp eye for the text, and continence in emendation, are not his only virtues. His very bulkiness and leisureliness are charming; he writes like a man who had eternity to write in, and who knew enough to fill it, and who expected readers of an equal leisure. He ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... legend of the Epigoni altogether, only alluding to it once in vague and general terms; he succeeded in getting the story, down to the burial of the Argive dead, within the compass of twelve books of not inordinate length. But it is possible to be prolix without being an Antimachus, and the prolixity of Statius is quite sufficient. The Argives do not reach Thebes till half-way through the seventh book,[550] the brothers do not meet till half-way through the eleventh book. The result is that the compression ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... so easily tired out that I am forced to read a great deal to recreate myself. That's why you see me reading so much." The book in which he was at the moment seeking recreation was a ponderous work on metaphysics by a prolix Scotchman, treating in many dreary chapters of such amusing topics as the unity of the act of perception with the object perceived! As may be supposed of such a man, whose illness forbade action and whose interior trials made contemplation an agony, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... the first who dared to cross the threshold of the church, which he did, however, not for his own benefit, but to do honor to the memory of Leo I. The inscription in which he describes the event is too prolix to be given here. It tells us that the grave of Leo the Great was in the vestibule below the sacristy. There he lay "like the keeper of the temple, like a shepherd watching his flock." But other graves had crowded the place so that it was almost impossible to single ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... to dismal lodgings in town now; he only heard of the plan by letter, and the Captain's letters were very prolix, and not informing. Mr. Gillat's own letters were even worse, for if they lacked the prolixity, they lacked the little information also. On receipt of the Captain's information he merely wrote to ask when Julia was going, and what time she would be in ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... the Pur[a]nas were probably Hesiodic in a great extent, and doubtless contained much that was afterwards specially developed in more prolix form in the epic itself. But the works that are come down as Pur[a]nas are in general of later sectarian character, and the epic language, phraseology, and descriptions of battles are more likely taken straight from the epic than preserved ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... ever equalled Thucydides. He was a perfect master of the art of gradual diminution. His history is sometimes as concise as a chronological chart; yet it is always perspicuous. It is sometimes as minute as one of Lovelace's letters; yet it is never prolix. He never fails to contract and to expand it ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... endorse Sandercock's sweating post; but I always say that, if the gentlemen of England are to maintain their influence, they should live on their own acres." From this it will be seen that Sir James was a prolix rather ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the schism, of the charges of the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of Photius, (Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47—61,) and of Michael Cerularius, (Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p. 281—324, edit. Basnage, with the prolix ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... containing the posthorn and the badger's skin—Tasso is the Italian for badger—continued to be borne for many centuries upon the harness of all Lombard coach-horses. Torquato's father, Bernardo Tasso, himself a poet of no mean calibre and the composer of a scholarly but somewhat prolix work, the Amadigi, formed for many years a prominent member of that brilliant band of literary courtiers within the castle of Vittoria Colonna, the Lady of Ischia, of whom we shall speak more fully in another place. But for the overwhelming and all-eclipsing fame of his distinguished ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... unbosoming deserved. They were long blase on oaths; they numbered among themselves veterans and virtuosi of perjury. The passage about the army did not, however, escape them. They observed with annoyance that the message, despite its prolix enumeration of the lately enacted laws, passed, with affected silence, over the most important of all, the election law, and, moreover, in case no revision of the Constitution was held, left the choice of the President, in 1852, with the people. The election law was the ball-and-chain to the feet ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... because if you rightly consider them, there is not one of them from which you may not draw some useful example; and were I not afraid of being too prolix, I might show you what savoury and wholesome fruit might be extracted from them, collectively ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... There is "the note," again, and I daresay the orientalism has the exactness of colour on which, as we know from the Letters, Mr Arnold prided himself. Yet the handling of the piece seems to me prolix and uncertain, and the drift either very obscure or somewhat unimportant. But about the Shakespeare sonnet which follows there can be no controversy among the competent. "Almost adequate" is in such a case the highest praise; ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... Mary Overies, the chapel of which is now the Church of St. Saviour, Southwark, where he spent his last years, and to which he was a liberal benefactor. G. represented the serious and cultivated man of his time, in which he was reckoned the equal of Chaucer, but as a poet he is heavy and prolix. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... soon seen, however, that the Cabinet was so constructed as to make it harmonize with the southern policy of the administration. It was not long before the announcement was officially made in prolix sentences, of which Secretary Evarts was no doubt the author, that the army could not and would not be used to uphold and sustain any State Government in an effort to maintain its supremacy and enforce obedience to its mandates. ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... be easily seduced, nor would any thing delight them more than to assist in stripping Cuffee of his regimentals to put him in the cotton-field, which would be the fate of most black invaders, without any very prolix form of "apprenticeship." If, as I am satisfied would be the case, our slaves remained peaceful on our plantations, and cultivated them in time of war under the superintendence of a limited number of our citizens, it is ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... inherited likeness that had puzzled him, and he waxed reminiscent and confidential. The diversion was welcome to his listener, where doubtless many another might have found the narrative of by-gone campaigns tedious in this prolix retelling. Ultimately, indeed, the youth's sympathies were aroused by Jones' tale of misfortune in love, wherein his failure to write the girl he left behind him had caused her first to mourn him as dead, and eventually ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... exists and occurs here in his realms, and may enjoy through experience what was denied to his predecessors to hear even through report. Had I not already given your Majesty news of many other things which occur here, I would not dare to omit them now, even if I might be considered prolix. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... abuse the reader's patience by quoting more of Lady Margaret's prolix epistle. Suffice it to say that it closed by laying her commands on her grandchild to consent to the solemnization of her marriage without ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Bouchaud, in his treatise de l'Impot chez les Romains, has transcribed this catalogue from the Digest, and attempts to illustrate it by a very prolix commentary. * Note: In the Pandects, l. 39, t. 14, de Publican. Compare ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... of things are another nuisance. They generally consist of choicely turned disclosures to the confidants, delivered in a happy moment of leisure. That very public whose impatience keeps the poets and players under such strict discipline, has, however, patience enough to listen to the prolix unfolding of what ought to be sensibly developed before their eyes. It is allowed that an exposition is seldom unexceptionable; that in their speeches the persons generally begin farther back than they naturally ought, and that they tell one another what they ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... institution from 1821 to 1826. I am glad to find that it still continues in active operation. In November 1880 the number of students attending the Edinburgh School of Arts amounted to two thousand five hundred! I have been led to this prolix account of the beginning of the institution by the feeling that I owe a deep debt of gratitude to it, and because of the instructive and intellectually enjoyable evenings which I spent there, in fitting myself for entering upon the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... memorial of the present times for those who come after. Painting shows us the garb of the pilgrim or of antiquity, the variety of foreign peoples and nations, buildings, animals, and monsters, which in writing it would be prolix to hear about, and even then it would be but badly understood. And not only these things does this noble art, but it places before our eyes the image of any great man who should be seen and known because of his deeds, and likewise the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... company. Mr. Ranter began the game by asking him what was good for a hoarseness, lowness of spirits, and in digestion, for he was troubled with all these complaints to a very great degree. Wagtail immediately undertook to explain the nature of his case, and in a very prolix manner harangued upon prognostics, diagnostics, symptomatics, therapeutics, inanition, and repletion; then calculated the force of the stomach and lungs in their respective operations; ascribed the player's malady to a disorder in these organs, proceeding from hard drinkings and vociferations, and ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... liii. p. 698) gives us a prolix and bombast speech on this great occasion. I have borrowed from Suetonius and Tacitus the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... question of wigs was a difficult one to settle, since the ministers themselves could not agree. John Wilson and Cotton Mather wore them, but Rev. Mr. Noyes launched denunciations at them from the pulpit and the Apostle Eliot delivered many a blast against "prolix locks with boiling zeal," and he stigmatized them as a "luxurious feminine protexity," but yielded sadly later in life to the fact that the "lust for wigs is become insuperable." The legislature of Massachusetts also denounced periwigs in ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... work, and discussed the merits of contemporary controversy in connection with them. He explained those almost indefinable terms which had been so variously employed by the schoolmen, and summed up the literature on the points in question. His style was prolix but his conclusions carried great weight with them. As a specimen of his tedious method, he begins his discussion of original sin with the questions, "Is there such a thing as original sin? Then, what is it? What is its subject? How is it continued?" Many other inquiries are made in the same ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... that cases have occurred within your knowledge of which the easiest apparent solution could be one which involved a belief in supernatural agencies?" persisted Latimer, who was rather prolix and pedantic in ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... magnificent gardens, modelled from the stately glories of Versailles, which it is now the mode to decry, but which breathe so unequivocally of the Palace. I grant that they deck Nature with somewhat too prolix a grace; but is beauty always best seen in deshabille? And with what associations of the brightest traditions connected with Nature they link her more luxuriant loveliness! Must we breathe only the malaria of Rome to ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the 21st February, N. S., I find that you had been a great while without receiving any letters from me; but by this time, I daresay you think you have received enough, and possibly more than you have read; for I am not only a frequent, but a prolix correspondent. ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... be enemies of the country. In the islands of Japon they have another factory, from which they procure supplies and military stores, and which is of much importance to them. Of the other islands of this archipelago no mention is made, to avoid being prolix, although there are a great number ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... an indefinable subject, for he can then set down his theory of what it is; and next, at length, his conception of what it is not—and lo! his paper is covered. Therefore let us follow the prolix and unmapable trail into ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... development has therefore been afforded towards recommending those establishments where the author feels confident that the stranger will meet with fair dealing and due civility. It may, perhaps, be thought by many that he has been rather too prolix on the subject, but in order to know "How to enjoy Paris" to its full extent, the first object, is to be informed of the best means of dispensing one's modicum of lucre to the greatest advantage, which will enable the visitor to stay the longer ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... system, minute directions for every case and occurrence that may arise. This, say they, is necessary to render a revelation perfect, especially one which has for its object the regulation of human conduct. Now, how prolix, and yet how incomplete and unavailing, such an attempt must have been, is proved by one notable example: "The Indoo and Mussulman religions are institutes of civil law, regulating the minutest questions, both of property and of all questions which come ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... modern languages. The best English versions are those of T. Taylor (London, 1822); of Sir G. Head, somewhat expurgated (London, 1851); and an unsigned translation published in the Bohn Library, which has been drawn on for this work, but greatly rewritten as too stiff and prolix, and in the conversations often wholly unnatural. A very pretty edition in French, with many illustrations, is that of Savalete ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... little billet, saying, "My dear Petrarch, where have you hid yourself, and whither have you vanished? What is the meaning of all this?" The poet received this note at Vaucluse, and sent an explanation of his flight, sincere indeed as to good feelings, but prolix as usual in the expression of them. Pastrengo sent him a kind reply, and soon afterwards did him the still greater favour of visiting him at Vaucluse, and helping him to ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... its moral purpose; latter-day criticism may take sides for or against the novel-with-a-purpose, but that Richardson justified his fiction writing upon moral grounds and upon those alone is shown in the descriptive title-page of the tale, too prolix to be often recalled and a good sample in its long-windedness of the past compared with the terse brevity of the present in this matter: "Published in order to cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the mind of youth of both sexes"; the author of "Sanford and Merton" has here ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... with giving a summary of the most remarkable casualties in the briefest form; but a narrative which transcribes, with unusual minuteness, the very words (at full, and with all their technicalities,) of some of the most unimportant and prolix statutes of Henry IV.'s reign.[331] It is not that the MS. is mechanically (p. 444) cut short by loss of leaves, or other accident; the Sloane ends with an "etc." in the very middle of a page, and the King's at the ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... Roxby—howdy? Air yer rheumatics mendin' enny?" he demanded, with the condolent suavity of the would-be son-in-law, or grand-son-in-law, as the case may be. And he hung with a transfixed interest upon her reply, prolix and discursive according to the wont of those who cultivate "rheumatics," as if each separate twinge racked his own sympathetic and filial sensibilities. Not until the tale was ended did he set his gun against the wall and advance to the ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... been rather prolix, and have entered much more fully into detail than some may deem necessary in the account of this trip, for two important reasons. It is a trip that none should fail to take, and I have made it a sort of general account, giving in broad outline what the visitor may expect ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... While giving this somewhat prolix account of an altogether imaginary adventure, he had started to his feet, and accompanied his speech with a series of pantomimic gestures; dancing and flinging his arms about, as he professed to have ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... the "Very good, madame," "Certainly, madame," with which he replied to the poor mother, to whom a trip of twenty miles appeared a journey, showed plainly that he desired to get away from her useless and prolix instructions. ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... the trouble of forwarding these to my publisher, who will give me notice of them, that I may endeavor to subjoin at the same time my reply; and in this way readers seeing both at once will more easily determine where the truth lies; for I do not engage in any case to make prolix replies, but only with perfect frankness to avow my errors if I am convinced of them, or if I cannot perceive them, simply to state what I think is required for defense of the matters I have written, adding thereto no explication of any new matte that it may ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... the journals of Mr Elkington and Mr Dodsworth, to continue the account of the voyage set forth under the command of Captain Downton, only so much of both are here inserted as answers that purpose, to avoid prolix repetition of circumstances, already sufficiently related. The journal of Elkington breaks off abruptly, like that of Downton, and probably from the same cause; as we learn from Purchas, in the preceding notice, that Elkington died at Bantam. The journal of Dodsworth entirely ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... Rhyme of Sir Thopas," as it is generally called, is introduced by Chaucer as a satire on the dull, pompous, and prolix metrical romances then in vogue. It is full of phrases taken from the popular rhymesters in the vein which he holds up to ridicule; if, indeed — though of that there is no evidence — it be not actually part of an old romance which Chaucer selected and reproduced to point his ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... concise, condensed, sententious, laconic, succinct, summary, epigrammatic, pithy; limited, inadequate, insufficient, deficient, scanty; abrupt, curt, uncivil; lacking, shy, unsupplied; crisp, friable, brittle. Antonyms: diffuse, prolix, long. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... elsewhere. When I went home I found a letter for me from Herr Weber, and the bearer of it was Raaff. If I wished to deserve the name of a historian, I ought here to insert the contents of this letter; and I can with truth say that I am very reluctant to decline giving them. But I must not be too prolix; to be concise is a fine thing, which you can see by my letter. The third day I found him at home and thanked him; it is always advisable to be polite. I no longer remember what we talked about. An historian must be unusually dull who cannot forthwith supply some falsehood—I mean some romance. Well! ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... consideration of these passage will clearly show us that God has no particular style in speaking, but, according to the learning and capacity of the prophet, is cultivated, compressed, severe, untutored, prolix, or obscure. ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.' Now Clarendon is not a great writer, not even a good writer, for he is prolix and involved, yet we see that even Clarendon, when he comes to a matter in which his heart is engaged, becomes sweet and harmonious in his rhythm. If we turn to a prose-writer of the very first ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... some things respecting this business that come within my knowledge; which are too prolix for a letter, but if the Court chuses to notice my petition, I shall be happy and ready to give any intelligence in ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... They were both right, and both wrong. They each maintained opposite poles of the same truth; which truth neither of them saw, for want of a higher premiss. Duns Scotus was the head of the Realists; Ockham,[1] his own disciple, of the Nominalists. Ockham, though certainly very prolix, is a ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... profound attention to a speech unusually prolix and descriptive for a Spartan; and he sighed deeply as it closed. For that young Athenian, destined to so renowned a place in the history of his country, was, despite his popular manners, no favourer of the popular passions. ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... and the various allurements of luxury, I omit, that I may not be too prolix, and with the object of passing on to this fact, that some people, hastening on without fear of danger, drive their horses, as if they were post-horses, with a regular licence, as the saying is, through the wide streets of the city, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... feature of his character was a cool and determined courage, which gave an appearance of resolution and confidence to all his actions, and inspired his friends with admiration and excessive devotion to him, and caused him to be respected by his most violent opponents. As a speaker he was prolix, monotonous, and never eloquent, except, perhaps, for a few minutes when provoked into a passion by something which had fallen out in debate. But, notwithstanding these defects, and still more the ridicule which his extraordinary phraseology had drawn upon ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... chimney-corner, and I would fain hope that such accounts as I shall give them of our histories and proceedings, our quiet speculations or more busy adventures, will never be unwelcome. Lest, however, I should grow prolix in the outset by lingering too long upon our little association, confounding the enthusiasm with which I regard this chief happiness of my life with that minor degree of interest which those to whom I address myself may be supposed to feel for it, I have deemed it expedient to break ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... of the Middle Ages, has literary skill, a vivid though prolix style, a keen eye for the picturesque, bold and independent judgment, wonderful breadth and range, and an insatiable curiosity. He was a man of the world, a courtier and a scholar; he took immense pains to collect his facts from documents and eye-witnesses, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... me rather prolix about this man; but, as it looks as if his life might become entwined with mine, it is a subject of immediate interest to me, and I am writing all this for the purpose of reviving my own half-faded impressions, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... following in your footsteps, I am minded to shew you with what adroitness and readiness of resource one of the Friars of St. Antony avoided a pickle that two young men had in readiness for him. Nor, if, in order to do the story full justice, I be somewhat prolix of speech, should it be burdensome to you, if you will but glance at the sun, which ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... necessary. What you say is right—perfectly right. You speak as a Christian should, and I honour you for it; but go on," replied Captain Poynder, who was evidently anxious to arrive at the conclusion of the master's somewhat prolix narrative. ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... the onslaught, as he would have termed it, was delayed, until the conclusion of a very long grace, betwixt every section of which Dalgetty handled his knife and fork, as he might have done his musket or pike when going upon action, and as often resigned them unwillingly when the prolix chaplain commenced another clause of his benediction. Sir Duncan listened with decency, though he was supposed rather to have joined the Covenanters out of devotion to his chief, than real respect for the cause either of liberty or of Presbytery. His lady alone attended to ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... dispute on the advantages and defects of the Roman government, which was severely arraigned by the apostate, and defended by Priscus in a prolix and feeble declamation. The freedman of Onegesius exposed, in true and lively colors, the vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... knew, was to find new approaches to the heart. In the early periods of the commonwealth, a rough unpolished people might well be satisfied with the tedious length of unskilful speeches, at a time when to make an harangue that took up the whole day, was the orator's highest praise. The prolix exordium, wasting itself in feeble preparation; the circumstantial narration, the ostentatious division of the argument under different heads, and the thousand proofs and logical distinctions, with whatever else is contained in the dry precepts of Hermagoras [b] ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... hall and the sitting was resumed. The jurors were required to give reasons for their verdict, and each spoke in turn facing the empty chair. Some were prolix, others confined themselves to a sentence; one or ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... Euphorion, the "Causes" of Callimachus and his "Ibis," the comically obscure "Alexandra" of Lycophron contained in rich abundance rare vocables (-glossae-) suitable for being extracted and interpreted, sentences laboriously involved and difficult of analysis, prolix digressions full of mystic combinations of antiquated myths, and generally a store of cumbersome erudition of all sorts. Instruction needed exercises more and more difficult; these productions, in great part model efforts of schoolmasters, were excellently adapted to be lessons for ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of the Common Pleas in London, and died suddenly in 1609, having made himself famous for a time by a poem, entitled 'Albion's England,' called by Campbell 'an enormous ballad on the history, or rather the fables appendant to the history of England,' with some fine touches, but heavy and prolix as a whole;—as Sir John Harrington, who was the son of a poet and the favourite of Essex, who was created a Knight of the Bath by James I., and who wrote some pointed epigrams and a miserable ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Uncle Mo confirmed this view from their own experience. It was agreed further that small type—Parliamentary debates and the like—was more soporific than large, besides spinning out the length and deferring the relaxation of turning over, when in book-form. Short accidents, and not too prolix criminal proceedings were on the whole the most palatable forms of literature. It was not to be wondered at that old Mrs. Prichard should go to sleep over the newspaper at her age, seeing that none but the profoundest scholars could keep awake for five minutes while perusing it. The ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... brevity often lack perspicuity. The latter applies to Abraham Ibn Ezra, who might have said with the poet, "I avoid long-windedness, and I become obscure." Samuel ben Meir, on the other hand, grandson and pupil of Rashi, is, at least in his Talmudic commentaries, so long-winded and prolix that at first glance one can detect the additions made by him to the commentaries of his grandfather. It is related, that once, when Rashi was ill, Samuel finished the commentary Rashi had begun, and when Rashi got well he weighed ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... the "Negro Pew" was immediately laid hold of by the Abolitionists, and made to go the whole round of their papers as a "testimony against caste." This provoked into action the prolix pen of the celebrated Mr. Page, who wasted on the subject an immense quantity of ink and paper. "Page" after page did he pen; continued to do so, to my certain knowledge, for about three months after; and, for aught I know to the contrary, he may be paging away ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... Schiller with Shakspeare; yet, merely as illustration, I would say that we should proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear or Othello, but from Richard II., or the three parts of Henry VI. We scarcely expect rapidity in an historical drama; and many prolix speeches are pardoned from characters whose names and actions have formed the most amusing tales of our early life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays more individual beauties, more passages ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... you conclude?" said Rastignac, with that curtness of speech which to a prolix speaker is a ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... sermonizing, since theirs was a religion not so much of the sensibilities as of the intellect. They agonized toward the truth, if not by intense thinking, yet by what many good people are apt to mistake for it,—immense endurance of the prolix thought of others. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... burning; his first work, the 'Filocopo,' being written as an offering to her. It is a prose love story, mixed with mythological allusions,—after the fashion of the day, which thought more of the classics than of nature; and like all his earlier works, prolix and pedantic. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... true. But why assume that the men do not exist who are capable of such a measure of self-control? Grant that there are whole volumes of devotional matter, original and compiled, which one may ransack without finding a single form that is not either prolix, wishy-washy, or superstitious—it does not follow that if the Prayer Book is to be enriched, the enrichments must necessarily come from such sources. Moreover it is to be remembered that there is another vice of style to be shunned in liturgical ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... the present and the past, not conscious of where it is but seeing far and wide, knowing perhaps everything but unaware of the importance of what it knows, or as yet incapable of turning it to account or of making itself understood, at once neglectful and overscrupulous, prolix and reticent, useless and indispensable. We have seen it, lastly, although we had hitherto looked upon it as indissolubly and unchangeably human, suddenly emerge from other creatures and there reveal faculties ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Thomas Malory's "Morte Darthur," printed by Caxton in 1485, a compilation principally from old French Round Table romances. This was the final mediaeval shape of the story in English. It is somewhat wandering and prolix as to method, but written in delightful prose. The story of "Enid," however (under its various titles and arrangements in successive editions), he took from Lady Charlotte Guest's translation of the Welsh ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... desire to sheathe their swords. The correspondence which has just appeared at the tail of the Report exhibits a grand specimen of arrogance and vanity on Durham's part, not unmixed with talent, albeit his letters are intolerably prolix. Glenelg has, however, much the best of the controversy as soon as they begin to cross their weapons, and his despatch conveying the Queen's disapprobation of his Proclamation is very dignified and becomingly severe. It is impossible to conceive anything more galling to a man so puffed ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... authority at Freiburg: similar oligarchical government prevailed at St. Gall and Schaffhausen. The Junker, in the latter place, rendered themselves especially ridiculous by the innumerable offices and chambers in which they transacted their useless and prolix affairs. In all these aristocratic cantons, the peasantry were cruelly harassed, oppressed, and, in some parts, kept in servitude, by the provincial governors. The wealthy provincial governments were monopolized ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... and romantic name. But do not confine yourself to such Lacedaemonian brevity, Maitre Bilot; be prolix! and relate to me, minutely, everything that you know ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... to make such extracts from his works, as seem to me most striking and important to the general reader. They are somewhat numerous, and there may be a few repetitions; but I was more anxious to preserve his exact language—which is rather prolix—than to abridge too much, at the risk of ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... He was prolix, it may be admitted, but who could bear to have him cut? He loved to sit down and tell you just all about it. His use of letters for his narratives made this gossipy style more easy. First he writes and he tells all that passed. You have his letter. She at the same time ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unfavourably viewed by the historians. In the voluminous correspondence which I have examined, could we judge by state letters of the character of him who subscribes them, we must form a very different notion; they are so prolix, and so earnest, that one might conceive they were dictated ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... measures, and coins, it follows that a corresponding base of numeration and notation must be provided, as that best suited to commerce. For this purpose, the number two immediately presents itself; but binary numeration and notation being too prolix for arithmetical practice, it becomes necessary to select for a base a power of two that will afford a more comprehensive notation: a power of two, because no other number will agree with binary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... which their rhetoric found very effective matter for argument) into abstract reasoning on the whole question of the private possession of property. The treatises which they have left in crabbed Latin and involved methods of argument make wearisome and irritating reading. Most are exceedingly prolix. After pages of profound disquisitions, the conclusions reached seem to have advanced the problem no further. Yet the gist of the whole is certainly an attempt to deny to any Christian the right to temporal possessions. Michael of Cesena, the ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... New York, I found the affair which had threatened to be a prolix one, only demanded a few minutes' attention from me. I strolled into the Club; there chanced to be no one there whom I cared to see; the city was hot and ill-smelling, and I decided I could not do better than ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... wishes to sweep the hearth, as it were, in these opening pages, before sitting down to tell his story. He does not intend to frighten the reader away by prolix explanation, but he does mean to warn him against hasty judgments when facts are related which are not within the range of every-day experience. Did he ever see the Siamese twins, or any pair like them? Probably not, yet he feels sure that Chang and Eng really existed; and if he has taken ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... blend into a single picture a landscape actually seen and a landscape only known at second-hand may perhaps account for the lack of distinctness in her pictures. Her descriptions of scenery are elaborate, and often prolix, but it is often difficult to form a clear image of the scene. In her novels she cares for landscape only as an effective background, and paints with the broad, careless sweep of the theatrical scene-painter. In the Journeys, where she depicts scenery for its own sake, her delineation ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... that it is ably done," continued his majesty, still attentively observing him. "You will acknowledge that it is exceedingly difficult to render the concise style of Tacitus into the prolix, long-winded German?" ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... prolix on this subject, it may be said, shortly, that when the chain and sinker of the next buoy were being hauled in, a three-inch rope snapped and grazed the finger of a man, fortunately taking no more than a little of the skin off, though it probably had ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... what had passed, and as she was very prolix, Mr Vanslyperken was a mass of snow on the windward side of him before she had finished, which she did, by pulling down her worsted stockings, and showing the wounds which she had received as her portion in the last night's affray. Having thus given ocular evidence of the truth of what she had ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hour; so abroad again, and thus at their pleasure the whole day," p. 26. Thus have we pursued the History of the Education of Boys to a period quite modern enough for the most superficial antiquary to supply the connecting links down to the present times. Nor can we conclude this prolix note without observing upon two things which are remarkable enough: first, that in a country like our own—the distinguishing characteristics of whose inhabitants are gravity, reserve, and good sense—lads should conduct themselves ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... meeting these brothers and sisters were no better than the rest of the human family, but on the whole were, to put the case mildly, as bad as most, in respect of giving short weight in their shops, and not speaking the truth, - I say, before this knowledge became forced upon me, their prolix addresses, their inordinate conceit, their daring ignorance, their investment of the Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth with their own miserable meannesses and littlenesses, greatly shocked me. Still, as their term for ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... may be prolix: but one must write as one walked, stopping every moment to seize something new, and longing for as many pairs of eyes as a spider—all this while, I say, we heard the roar of the trade-surf growing louder and louder in front; and pushing ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... started for the interior of the island, and without meeting with anything beyond the ordinary routine of bad bush and mountain travelling; certainly encountering nothing that would justify me in inflicting a prolix description upon the reader—we arrived late on the following evening at the rendezvous, found the 'Daylight' safely at anchor, and thus completed one portion of our search, without having obtained the faintest clue to an elucidation of ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... gives the permissions to travellers to visit the palace, and to be addressed in the presence of the Custode by the dignified title to which his presence did so little honor. This circumstance threw upon the Custode, a naturally tedious and oppressive old man, the responsibility of being doubly prolix and garrulous. He reveled in his office of showing the palace, and did homage to the visitor's charge and nation by an infinite expansion upon all possible points of interest, lest he should go away imperfectly informed of anything. By dint of frequent encounter with ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... very greatly, as we have already implied, from that of Chaucer, with much less infusion from the French; to the modern reader, except in translation, it seems uncouth and unintelligible. But the poem, though in its final state prolix and structurally formless, exhibits great power not only of moral conviction and emotion, but also of expression—vivid, often homely, but ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... And jewelry of brave Queen Bess, But always found some o'ercharged thing, Some flaw in even the brightest ring, Admiring in her men of war, A rich but too argute guitar. Our foremost now are more prolix, And scrape with three-fell fiddlesticks, And, whether bound for griefs or smiles, Are slow to turn as crocodiles. Once, every court and country bevy Chose the gallant of loins less heavy, And would have laid upon the shelf Him who could talk but ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... make your premises clear do not make the mistake of being prolix—or you will be tedious. Define character sharply. Tell in quick, searching dialogue the facts that must be told and let your opening scenes on which the following events depend, come with a snap and a perfectly adequate but nevertheless, ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... whether, after trying hard at a definition of the verb as a distinct part of speech, as a terrier-dog mumbles a hedge-hog, he did not find it too much for him, and leave it to its fate. It is also a pity that Mr. Tooke spun out his great work with prolix and dogmatical dissertations on irrelevant matters; and after denying the old metaphysical theories of language, should attempt to found a metaphysical theory of his own on the nature and mechanism of language. The nature of words, he contended ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... William's style,' says the uncourtly biographer, "abounds to overflowing in what is called in England Parliamentary circumlocution, in which, instead of direct, simple expressions, bombastic paraphrases are always chosen, which become in the end intolerably prolix and dull, and are enough to drive a foreigner to despair." The style is indeed august; but the real penman is not the King, whose strong point was not grammatical composition, but some confidant, very likely Sir Herbert Taylor, who was employed by the King to ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... knew concerning Bob Hewett's accident and capture; his death had taken place early this morning, and Pennyloaf was all but crazy with grief. To Jane these things sounded so extraordinary that for some time she could scarcely put a question, but sat in dismay, listening to the woman's prolix description of all that had come to pass since Wednesday evening. At length she called for Mrs. Byass, for whose ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... irascible contraction of the muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the huge mouthfuls that he masticated. But I forbear to dwell on the odd beings that were congregated together in one hotel. I have been thus prolix about the old general because you desired me in one of your letters to give you ample details whenever I happened to be in company with the 'great and glorious,' and old Trotter is more deserving of the epithet than any of the personages I have ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... I hauing beene somewhat prolix and tedious in my former purpose, it may be that it hath bred some offence, to such as dayly indeuour to occupie theyr sences in the pleasaunt discourses of loue. But it wyll also prooue no whit displeasant, ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... spare you all prolix description of it; and you need only fancy a ship blown every where and every how except out of water—now with the lower yard-arms cutting deep into the sea like rakes, the lee hammock-nettings under water, the stern boat torn away into splinters, the main-top-sail picked, bolt by bolt, from ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the help of a few disjointed fragments still preserved, the position, and to divine the sense, of certain spiritful and defiant passages which, in the interest of "religion and morals," were remorselessly suppressed, to indicate others which were split up and transposed, and to distinguish many prolix discourses, feeble or powerful word-pictures and trite commonplaces which were deliberately inserted later on, for the sole purpose of toning down the most audacious piece of rationalistic philosophy which has ever yet been clothed in the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the most popular publications will be given, accompanied with short critical remarks upon them, and, whatever appears most interesting in the periodical productions of Great Britain will be transferred into this; pruned if they be prolix, and illustrated by explanatory notes, whenever they may be found obscured by local or ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... years ago, a writer of historical romances which were received with enthusiasm by all classes of society. He was an effective painter of customs, a learned, witty writer, and a master of the art of dialogue and description, but, unfortunately, often prolix. He used old artifices, adopted forced solutions, and often was not sufficiently reticent. In his last book, "The Adventures of Nicoletta Zevenster," while admirably describing Dutch society at the beginning of this century, he had ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... burnt with a raw pale flare at that time of the morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to have been dozing a whole night when the clocks struck six. As there was full an hour and a half between me and daylight, I dozed again; now, waking up uneasily, with prolix conversations about nothing, in my ears; now, making thunder of the wind in the chimney; at length, falling off into a profound sleep from which the daylight woke ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... most of them new, as criticism. But they associate a diminishing idea with the Poems which follow, as having been written for Experiment on the public taste, more than having sprung (as they must have done) from living and daily circumstances.—I am prolix, because I am gratifyed in the opportunity of writing to you, and I don't well know when to leave off. I ought before this to have reply'd to your very kind invitation into Cumberland. With you and your Sister I could ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... nothin' prolix about Boggs. Which on the contrary, his nacher is shorely arduous that a-way. If it's a meetin' of the committee, for instance, with intent then an' thar to dwell a whole lot on the doin's of some malefactor, Boggs allers gets to a mental show-down ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... cats in the night, I am not well satisfied of the exquisiteness of that sense in them. I believe their smelling or hearing does much contribute to their dexterity in catching mice, as to all those animals who are born with those prolix smelling hairs. Fish will gather themselves in shoals to any extraordinary light in the dark night, and many are best caught by that artifice. But whatever may be said of these, and other senses of fish, you know how much the sagacity of birds and beasts ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... conversation was being carried on in the usual vehement way. Then the drum and gong boomed out again and the three priestesses circled about in front of the ceremonial shed for about five minutes, after which comparative quiet ensued and another priestess took up the invocation. During her prolix harangue to the spirits the other two busied themselves, one in rearranging the offerings in the little shed, the other in lighting more incense, while the spectators continued their prattle, heedless of the services. After an interval of some ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of these lives already in print being somewhat prolix, it seemed proper to abridge them; which is done in a manner as comprehensive as possible, so that nothing material is omitted, which it is hoped will be thought to be no way injurious to the ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... others. Their works, and others written with a similar object and in the same style, carry us back to about 600 B.C. This period of literature, which is called the Sutra period, was preceded, as we saw, by another class of writings, the Brahmanas, composed in a very prolix and tedious style, and containing lengthy lucubrations on the sacrifices and on the duties of the different classes of priests. Each of the three or four Vedas, or each of the three or four classes of priests, has its own ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... prolix doctor dressed and bandaged the knee and recommended bed and a light diet for the little lady. He thought a week or a fortnight would put it right. No bones or ligatures damaged—fortunately. Only a flesh cut. He would come again in a ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... general; it is not confined to people very specially refined. I am also pretty sure, as I hinted to you just now, that there is not by a great way as much suffering involved in these matters either to men or to women as there used to be. But excuse me for being so prolix on this question! You know you asked to be treated like a ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... news to regale you with, for there is none abroad, but I live in the expectation of shortly hearing from you, and being informed of your plans and projects; fear not to be prolix, for the slightest particular cannot fail of being interesting to one who loves you far better than parent or relation, or even than the God whom bigots would teach him to adore, and ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... other reasons for his substituting a table of contents for his introduction in the sixth edition. To print both would have been too prolix, even for Richardson; and it seems that the table of contents, detailing the entire action, together with the change to big quarto volumes, are Richardson's efforts to authenticate Pamela in the face of Chandler's ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... America had been hitherto mere puffery—puffery for the most part of weak, prolix, commonplace scribblings of little would-be authors and poets. A reformation in criticism, therefore, Edgar Poe conceived to be the only remedy for the prevalent mediocrity in writing that was vitiating the taste ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... being brought to a conclusion, and the rough note of old Boreas and the angry groanings of Father Neptune giving token of approaching storms, I bade farewell to Vectis, my 179friend Horace transporting me in his yacht to Southampton Water. Reader, if I should appear somewhat prolix in my descriptions, take a tour yourself to the island, visit the delightful scenery with which it abounds, participate in the aquatic excursions of the place, and meet, as I have done, with social friends, and kind hearts, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... thought of taking away. "Return it to me," she said, insisting upon it so strongly, that I instituted a search for the book, and at last unearthed it from the bottom of a cupboard where it had been placed, as if on purpose, under a heap of other books. Julie's prolix narrative only enlightened me as to the sad cause of what I had taken for the oddity of a fidgety and lonely ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... far distant waterfalls, or the whole scene around him would imprint itself with new force upon his perceptions.—Read the sonnet, if you please;—it is Wordsworth all over,—trivial in subject, solemn in style, vivid in description, prolix in detail, true metaphysically, but immensely suggestive of "imagination," to use a mild term, when related as an actual fact of a sprightly youngster. All I want of it is to enforce the principle, that, when the door of the soul is once opened to a guest, there is no knowing ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... another of equal length; though I hasten to add that neither contingency is in the least probable. In very few men is found the power of sustained conception necessary to the successful composition of so prolix a tale; and certainly I have never betrayed the ownership of such a qualification. The tale, nevertheless, is an irrevocable fact; and my present business it is to ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne |
