"Circumscribed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Old Bailey stood Sydney-house, known by the white front, and the recess in which it is concealed; and here Jonathan Wild is said to have lived the greatest part of his time. The north side of Newgate consists of two court-yards, which are far too circumscribed for the numerous inhabitants, this prison always exhibiting a multitudinous calendar of human depravity. The men's court is only 49 feet 6 inches, by 31 feet 6, and the women's of the same length, and about half the width. The whole square is entirely surrounded by the wards, 103 ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... in an aside by the sickening quality of Mrs. Sinkler's coals and Mr. Macbrose's kindling-wood, to say nothing of the insulting draft in the draper's range. When she left the room, I suppose she was unable to explain the peals of laughter that rang through our circumscribed halls. ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... approach of naked feet across the sward. At first he suspected that it might be one stealthily searching the Forbidden Garden for him but a little later the figure came within the limited area of his vision which was circumscribed by stems and foliage and flowers. He saw then that it was the princess O-lo-a and that she was alone and walking with bowed head as though in meditation—sorrowful meditation for there were traces of tears ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the boundaries of its course, was, I have no doubt, generally covered with its waters. After the ocean left the land, and the hills became the depositaries of the clouds, how many ages must have elapsed before the beds of rivers were circumscribed as we now see them in England. The water always followed the lowest level, but, being of different quantities at different seasons, vegetation would flourish on the sides occasionally covered, and in time would generate ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... be circumscribed by local limits belongs to bodies only; whereas to be circumscribed by essential limits belongs to all creatures, both corporeal and spiritual. Hence Ambrose says (De Spir. Sanct. i, 7) that "although some things are not contained in corporeal place, still they are none the less circumscribed ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... survey of the constitutional privileges enjoyed by the different orders of the Castilian monarchy, previous to the fifteenth century, it is evident that the royal authority must have been circumscribed within very narrow limits. The numerous states, into which the great Gothic empire was broken after the conquest, were individually too insignificant to confer on their respective sovereigns the ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... characters and his readers, and therefore his regret is twofold; added to which is the doubt as to whether, judged by the severe standard of Public Opinion, he has been faithful to both. Thought is large, and may fill the world, permeating every class and every section of society; it may be circumscribed, and operate only upon some infinitesimal proportion of mankind: but whether great or small, for good or evil, it is published, and a corresponding responsibility devolves upon the writer. I record my dream faithfully, and ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... first place, nothing is found in the agreement subscribed to by Governor Fairfield and Sir John Harvey defining any limits in the disputed territory within which the operations of the civil posse of Maine were to be circumscribed. The task of preserving the timber recently cut and of preventing further depredations within the disputed territory was assigned to the State of Maine after her military force should have been withdrawn from it, and it was to be accomplished by a civil posse, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... not satisfied. That end was intolerable and I knew it. Again, I sat down to the work, night after night I wrestled with it. And I remember an odd circumstance which may or may not be of some physiological interest. I was then living in a circumscribed "upper part" of a house in Cosway Street, Marylebone Road. That I might struggle by myself, I wrote in the little kitchen; and night after night as I fought grimly, savagely, all but hopelessly for some fit close for "A Fragment of Life," I was astonished and almost alarmed ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... held responsible, and should be consequently armed with the fullest power of the Executive, subject only to law and existing orders. The more simple the principle, the greater the likelihood of determined action; and the less a commanding officer is circumscribed by bounds or by precedent, the greater is the probability that he will make the best use of his command and achieve ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... same place I observed a singularity, which I submit to the understanding of my readers. In a valley, which appeared at first sight, to be very much circumscribed by the number of surrounding mountains, across threatening vaults, formed by the falling of different rocks, heaped upon one another, I discovered an immense region, which astonished me by the variety which it presented to our view. At the first entrance of this valley, the ground is moist ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... the United States recognizes the great principle of human equality, and the rights of women can not be delegated to or represented by their husbands. Women who believe that they are responsible to God only, are not willing to be circumscribed by men. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... home; that he is soon to be delivered from the present evil world; in short, that he is completely constituted an actuality in the Church triumphant. He is at last brought into intimate alliance with Christ, not now by faith but by sight, not by prayer, but by praise; not by earthly circumscribed anticipation, but by the power of unfathomable and constraining grace, and a deep sensibility of soul which springs from the knowledge that he is forever with the Lord; now the strugglings of faith ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... he could make out the seated figure of his wife at her desk and from time co time she turned her head, as one might, who speaks to, or listens to, a companion within the same walls, though out of sight of a man who commands a circumscribed field of vision. Shortly he left that position and lurked for a time among the flowers and shrubbery that lined the stone ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... the worry and tumult, I found a new peace creeping into my soul. It was the first sight of the Rockies, I think, which brought the change. I'd grown tired of living on a billiard-table, without quite knowing it, tired of the trimly circumscribed monotony of material life, of the isolating flat contention against hunger and want. But the mountains took me out of myself. They were Peter's windmill, raised to the Nth power. They loomed above me, ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the greatest care and softness, while the figures in the light masses are often left in mere outline: the lights are also reduced in size as they enter the shade; while the darks in the light portions of his prints are circumscribed to a mere point, for the purpose of giving a balance and solidity. The shadows of the several objects likewise assume a greater delicacy as they enter into the masses of light. In these respects, the Hundred Guilder print is a ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... that an alteration has taken place for the better in the constitution of our plays, and that poison is not diffused into morals, by means of them, to an equal extent, as at that period. The mischief has been considerably circumscribed by legal inspection, and, it is to be hoped, by the improved civilization of the times. But it does not appear by any historical testimony we have, that a change has been made, which is at all proportioned to the quantity of moral light, which has been diffused ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... remarks may be placed under the assumption that the arch enemy's triumph in the present war will be circumscribed by the havoc and the bereavements created by it, and by the forfeiture inflicted upon the poor deluded Boers of their special heirlooms. One of the considerations would be the war cost and its recoupment, and another important one is the measures needful ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... received her request; and one of His miracles, of feeding the multitude, was wrought for hungry Gentiles. But while His work was in Israel, it was for mankind; and while 'this fold,' generally speaking, circumscribed His toils, it did not confine His love nor His thoughts. More than once world-wide declarations and promises broke from His lips, even before the final universal commission, 'Preach the Gospel to every creature.' 'I, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... perilous contract? But for that exit secure, ever bend to that treacherous doorway?— Ah, but the bride, meantime,—do you think she sees it as he does? But for the steady fore-sense of a freer and larger existence, Think you that man could consent to be circumscribed here into action? But for assurance within of a limitless ocean divine, o'er Whose great tranquil depths unconscious the wind-tost surface Breaks into ripples of trouble that come and change and endure not,— But that in this, of a truth, we have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... can no longer be of any use as a regulative principle, classes are not therefore left quite loose, without any certain standard or guide. The class is steadily fixed, though not precisely limited; it is given, though not circumscribed; it is determined, not by a boundary-line without, but by a central point within; not by what it strictly excludes, but by what it eminently includes; by an example, not by a precept; in short, instead of a Definition we have a Type ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... classical dictionary by heart, but his inspiration is more likely to have been due to his later reading of the Elizabethan poets, and their translations of classic story. One thing is certain, that he did not confine himself to any one authority, nor did he consider it necessary to be circumscribed by authorities at all. He used, rather than followed, the Greek fable, dealing freely with it and giving it his ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... the imitation of nature are fixed. The object is to produce a picture, that is to say, a plane surface either with or without a border, and on this surface the representation of something produced by the sole means of different colouring substances. Since it is obliged to remain thus circumscribed, it is easy to foresee the limit of perfectibility. When the picture has succeeded in satisfying our minds in all the conditions imposed on its production, it will cease to interest. Such is the fate of everything which has attained its end: we ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... has been confined to the career of a single star,—our sun,—with the tiny, easily-cooling balls which it has cast off in the course of its development. Thus far, too, our inferences have been very secure, for we have been dealing with a circumscribed group of phenomena, the beginning and end of which have been brought pretty well within the compass of our imagination. It is quite another thing to deal with the actual or probable career of the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... all shouted at the same time; the sky, lightened by a magnificent halo, threw pale rays which coloured the frost-rime like clouds, and the summits of the icebergs seemed to emerge from liquid silver. The travellers found themselves circumscribed by a circle less than a hundred feet in diameter. Thanks to the purity of the upper layers of air, they could hear each other distinctly, and could talk from the top of their icebergs. After the first shots they had all thought the best thing they ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... about, or standing the vehicles across the walk in front of the benches where they sat, in the simple belief of all people who have to do with babies that the rest of the world may be fitly discommoded in their behalf. But they did not actively molest us, and they scarcely circumscribed our choice of seats. We were by no means driven to the little kiosk in the lake for them, and I should rather say that we were fatefully led there, so apt were the associations of the place to my purpose. Nothing could have been more natural than that I should ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and Belle's outdoor activities were somewhat circumscribed, for there is a real winter in the Black Hills. But she was in robust health again and she turned her energies more and more to church work. She was depended on to get up the "sociables," to plan the entertainments, to invent new and happy games that would take them as ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... with an alacrity he had never shown before. Then they played "cubby house"—not fifty feet from the cabin, with a hushed but guilty satisfaction. But presently it palled. Their domain was too circumscribed for variety. "Robinson Crusoe up the tree" was impossible, as being visible from the house windows. Johnny was at his wits' end. Florry was fretful and fastidious. Then a great thought struck him and left him cold. "If I show you a show, you won't ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city, rather than of the empire: and, tho my reading and reflections began to point toward that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... civilization, he finds Pesth very impressive. The Hungarian shepherds and the boatmen who ply between the capital and tiny forts below fancy that it is the end of the world. They have vaguely heard of Vienna, but their patriotism is so intense and their round of life so circumscribed that they never succeed in forming a definite idea of its proportions or its location. Communication between the two chief towns of the Austria-Hungarian empire is also much less frequent than one would imagine. The Hungarians ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... moved from place to place at quite frequent intervals. This condition more than any other has worked against the erection of permanent houses. Yet the Navaho are by no means nomads, and the region within which a given family moves back and forth is extremely circumscribed. ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... preponderance in any one direction; tribes and subtribes moved from east to west and from west to east, from north to south and from south to north, and many were irregular in their course, but the movements, so far as they can now be discerned, were all within a circumscribed area. ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... In one instance, whilst at dinner, a huge branch burst open a side door, and nearly impaled a French conjurer of celebrity on his way to New Orleans. We were nearly a hundred souls on board, and each day our limits grew more and more circumscribed; for the side galleries were filled in with bales of cotton, the windows blocked up, at last the very doorways, all but one: lights were burned in the cabin day and night: the Carolina became, in fact, a floating mass of cotton, which, had the season been dry, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... and gazed at him sadly and wistfully. They reminded him at once of the type of spinster found in quiet, unpretentious cottages in out-of-the-way villages—the neither young nor old women, who live on circumscribed means and are painfully shy of the rude world outside. And before either he or Miss Penkridge could speak, the elder of the two broke ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... secular role ruled portions of the Italian peninsula for more than a thousand years until the mid 19th century, when many of the Papal States were seized by the newly united Kingdom of Italy. In 1870, the pope's holdings were further circumscribed when Rome itself was annexed. Disputes between a series of "prisoner" popes and Italy were resolved in 1929 by three Lateran Treaties, which established the independent state of Vatican City and granted Roman Catholicism ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir. Our "normal" consciousness is circumscribed for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond leak in, showing the otherwise unverifiable common connection. Not only psychic research, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... domestic happiness of Britain and the peace of the world, I wish she had not a foot of land but what is circumscribed within her own island. Extent of dominion has been her ruin, and instead of civilizing others has brutalized herself. Her late reduction of India, under Clive and his successors, was not so properly a conquest as an extermination of mankind. She is the only power who could practise ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of luxury, of an easy and large social life, she had absorbed through every pore. With that marvellous adaptability of her race she had quickly formed her ideals of "how people ought to live." It was frequently difficult to carry out these ideals on a circumscribed income, with a husband who cared nothing for appearances, and that was a source of constant ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... whose cult is often mixed with magic or mystic rites. Here, too, the symbols have a meaning other than what appears to the uninitiated eye, and the province of art, which approaches the mind through the senses, is closely circumscribed. A statue or other work of art which needs explanation of its allusions, which does not express an ideal that appeals directly to the imagination of the people, has lost touch with religion, and cannot to any appreciable extent ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... communicated by means of boats, causing the new comers to call it the country of boats—CHEM (maya).[TN-20] The hieroglyph representing the name of Egypt is composed of the character used for land, a cross circumscribed by a circle, and of another, read K, which represent a sieve, it is said, but that may likewise be the picture of a small boat. The Assyrians designated Egypt under the names of MISIR or MISUR, probably because the country is generally ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... he need not have been so cautious, for after a little more of this obscure investigation he learned that he was in a very circumscribed area, surrounded on all sides by a most heterogeneous collection of tubs, full and empty, rough cases, bales, ropes, blocks, and iron tackle, such as might be used in a fishing-boat; and the next thing his hands encountered was ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... many of them? I cannot easily forget my vexation, when, after a tedious walk to one of those misnomered "fields," I found nothing but a weather-beaten, muggy, smoky assemblage of houses of all sizes, circumscribed by appropriate filth and abundant cabbage-stumps. Innocent of London quackeries, I strolled forth with the full hope of laying me down on a velvet carpet of grass—the birds carolling around me—and, perchance, a flock of lambkins, tunefully baying ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... epithet, "Mi-Harmakhu," or "beloved by Harmachis," probably because he could look on Harmachis, a purely sun-god, as a form of Aten; and to this god he erected an obelisk at Silsilis. His monumental war upon the old religion seems also not to have been general, but narrowly circumscribed, being, in fact, confined to the erasure of Ammon's name, especially at Thebes, and the mutilation of his form in a few instances; but there does not appear to have been any such general iconoclasm ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... going, full of purpose, in the opposite direction. When he had last entered the mead he was an inhabitant of the Froom valley; in forty-eight hours he had severed himself from that spot as completely as if he had never belonged to it. All that appertained to him in the Froom valley now was circumscribed by the portmanteau ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... papers on Sir William Hamilton. They are three in number. Nearly half of the first is taken up in describing the difficulties under which the writer suffers of communicating with his publishers; the nervous maladies that torment his happiness; the limits of time and space so narrowly circumscribed. The same strain is taken up in the second paper. We have short dissertations on the deadly 'hiatus in the harness which should connect the pre-revolutionary with the post-revolutionary commonwealths of England;' on the adjective old, and the aged noun civilation; then comes a ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... there are many points unattainable to moderate incomes and circumscribed resources, but many also that it is in the power of every man of education, and consequently of influence, to carry out in his neighbourhood. Amongst them is that simple item of the cricket-field and garden-ground. It has become so much the fashion among certain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... placed outside the coil, so that the grub's hard cranium makes a rampart for the hinder extremity, which is less well defended. Here the Wasp's sting enters and here only can it enter, within a narrowly circumscribed area. One stab only of the lancet is given at this point, one only because there is no room for more; and this is enough: the ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... then that thou art out of hell? Mephisto. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. * * * * * Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place; for where we are is hell, And where hell is there must we ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... a narrow intellect, an individual woman of the character of Ninon de l'Enclos would seem hopelessly lost to all virtue, abandoned by every sense of shame, and irreclaimable to any feeling of social or private duty. But only at first blush, and to the most circumscribed of narrow minds, who, fortunately, do not control the policy of mankind, although occasional disorders here and there indicate that they are ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... Frederick Roberts was announced as the dominant authority for the time being in Eastern and Northern Afghanistan. He occupied this position just as far as and no further than he could make it good. And he could make it good only over a very circumscribed area. Even more than had been true of Shah Soojah's government forty years previously was it true of Roberts' government now that it was a government of sentry-boxes. He was firm master of the Sherpur cantonment. General Hills, his ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... I know no more than I might learn from good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two or three of them crossed in the course of my early life, like magic-lantern figures, the disk of my very circumscribed observation. All outside was and is darkness. I once tried to read one of their books upon the future state—heaven and hell; but I grew after a day or two so nervous that I laid it aside. It is enough for me to know that their founder ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... had the soul of a lion in his somewhat circumscribed body, and he was not to be recklessly ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... the table, where Emily, also, must be present. Madame Montoni was now on the point of uttering an absolute refusal, but, suddenly considering, that her liberty, during this entertainment, though circumscribed, might favour her further plans, she acquiesced, with seeming reluctance, and Montoni, soon after, left the apartment. His command struck Emily with surprise and apprehension, who shrank from the thought of being exposed to the gaze of strangers, such as her fancy represented these to be, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... plains, the Yosemite Valley itself, from this point, was but about three thousand five hundred feet below us, into which we gazed with uninterrupted view. Running nearly due east and west, it looked small and circumscribed from this great height, but was really a gorge of about eight miles in length by two miles in width. On either side rose vertical cliffs of granite, varying from four to five thousand feet in height, the lofty gorges here and there ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... annexed to this settlement of the crown a declaration of rights, where all the points which had of late years been disputed between the king and people, were finally determined; and the powers of royal prerogative were more narrowly circumscribed and more exactly defined, than in any former ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... poor girl when, she saw the surgeons reverently bearing away the sack whose uses she had learned by previous experience, and her heart told her the bitter truth that some more of her lover was gone. She felt that the field of her affections was growing more and more circumscribed every day, but once more she frowned down her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... powers of endurance grow strong with action, and his full-grown will having passed through all experiences, and having become a pure law unto itself, shall be commensurate with perfect freedom, i.e., shall not know that it is circumscribed ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... darkness would ever settle upon those lamps, as no darkness had settled upon them for hundreds of years. It seemed dreadful that the town should blaze for ever in the same spot; dreadful at least to people going away to adventure upon the sea, and beholding it as a circumscribed mound, eternally burnt, eternally scarred. From the deck of the ship the great city appeared a crouched and cowardly figure, a ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... stretched before us like one immense terrace circumscribed by palms. The sky was pure blue, verging to turquoise green where the Atlas floated above mist; and facing the celestial snows stood the Koutoubya, red ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... may seem, when one remembers the conditions that circumscribed his freedom of action on board the Sybarite, that he stood utterly alone in that company of conspirators and their creatures, alone and unarmed, with never a friend to guard his back or even to whisper him one word of counsel, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... and established under Parrhasius and Timanthes, and refined under Eupompus, Apelles, Aristides, and Euphranor. "The correctness of Parrhasius succeeded to the genius of Zeuxis. He circumscribed the ample style, and by subtle examination of outline, established that standard of divine and heroic form which raised him to the authority of a legislator, from whose decisions there was no appeal. He ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... plain, which to the west of the port continues for about four miles, thus giving an area of some ten miles in length, forming almost a half circle of four miles in its semi-diameter; the whole is circumscribed by hills of low but increasing altitudes, all utterly barren. Through the plain are two unmistakable evidences of river-action which at some remote period had washed down from the higher ground the fertile ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... novels deal the population of the colonies was largely English; it was, therefore, perhaps only natural that the stranger and adventurer from the Old World, so often well born and cultured, should prove a more attractive study than the sons of the soil. Moreover, the latter, in their monotonous and circumscribed life, lacked much of the mystery and romance so vital to the novel of adventure. But when this has been admitted in Boldrewood's favour, there still remains a broader charge to which he ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... characteristics this might be the surface of, enough was shown to assure Somerset that she had some experience of things far removed from her present circumscribed horizon, and could live, and was even at that moment living, a clandestine, stealthy inner life which had very little to do with her outward one. The repression of nearly every external sign of that distress under which Somerset knew, by a sudden intuitive ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... deprecate any appearance which may give countenance to this aspersion from suspicion that any corrupt motive can influence this court; I deprecate it from knowing that hitherto we have moved within the narrow circle of municipal justice. I am afraid, that, from the habits acquired by moving within a circumscribed sphere, we may be induced rather to endeavor at forcing Nature into that municipal circle than to enlarge the circle of national justice to the necessities of ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... branches lying close to the ground in the wet forests. I have reason to believe that it spreads with great rapidity from old surfaces to freshly cut ones. That it is a vital phenomenon, and due to the mycelium of a fungus, I do not in the least doubt, for I have observed it occasionally circumscribed by those black lines which are often seen to bound mycelia on dead wood, and to precede a more rapid decay. I have often tried, but always in vain, to coax these mycelia into developing some fungus, by placing them in damp rooms, etc. When camping in the mountains, I ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... to improve, as I was able to report to Anne when I went to see her at Florence or at Paris. She was always well lodged, well served, and surrounded by the pleasantest people, yet each time I saw her she had a look exiled and circumscribed, a look I can only describe as that of a spirit in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... formal denunciation of the outrage. An elaborate and conclusive document was drawn up in their name, and presented to the Regent. It set forth that the recent proclamation violated many articles in the "joyous entry." That ancient constitution had circumscribed the power of the clergy, and the jealousy had been felt in old times as much by the sovereign as the people. No ecclesiastical tribunal had therefore been allowed, excepting that of the Bishop of Cambray, whose jurisdiction was expressly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... understanding, and being understood, is too keen to let us believe, that there may be a terminal line, beyond which we may not pass. Friendship comes as a mystery, formless, undefined, without set bounds; and it is often a sore experience to discover that it is circumscribed, and limited like everything human. At first to speak of it as having qualifications was a profanation, and to find them out came as ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... cities of Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is Trasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon one corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for separate contemplation. There is something in the singularity and circumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by distance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... whose aspirations are circumscribed by a shallow purse will produce different results. By Irish girls, with unkempt hair and uncleanly physiognomy, he will be inducted into sitting-rooms where the Venetian blinds are kept scrupulously closed, for the double purpose of excluding flies and preventing ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... if, indeed, it be a rule at all. I think, there is little doubt that the habits of the mind, mode of living, and climate, contribute essentially to vary the physiognomy; but I cannot subscribe fully to the influence of these intermarriages, which, by the way, are nearly, if not quite, as circumscribed among the Protestants as among the Catholics. The portion of Europe that is governed by princes, is divided among forty-four different states,[21] of whom twenty-eight are Protestant, one a Greek, one a Mahomedan, and the rest are Catholics. These forty-four sovereigns claim to be descended ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... shilling to the same cause to which she had formerly given a guinea when in a state of comparative poverty. Her minister felt it his duty to expostulate with her, and reminded her of her former generosity when her means were so circumscribed. "Ah! sir," she affectingly replied; "then I had the shilling means, but the guinea heart, now I have the guinea means, but only the shilling heart. Then I received day by day my daily bread, and I had enough and to spare; now, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... in perfect quiet. There was scarcely a breath of air perceptible; and the waters of the beautiful Merrimack flowed without a ripple. The calm sky of the last month of summer looked of a deeper and more heavenly blue, seen as it was by her from a spot circumscribed by tall trees, now clothed with such a fulness of foliage as made the forest appear dark and almost impenetrable. Close around the house were planted corn and vegetables; and a field of wheat, in front of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of the creek which discharges into Brammo Bay is less than forty acres, and for the most part consists of exceedingly steep declivities. The head of the creek is seven hundred feet above sea level, and its total length less than three-quarters of a mile. Yet, notwithstanding the circumscribed extent of the catchment, the steep, in places almost precipitous, descents, and that for months the rain was insufficient to cause a surface flow, the creek which had cut a gully or canyon forty feet deep across the plateau, never ceased running, the turbulence of the wet season ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... and fringed with fir to their topmost acclivities. Perhaps the Norwegian forests alone equal these in grandeur and extent. Those which cover the Swiss highlands rarely convey such vast ideas. There, the woods climb only half way up their ascents, and then are circumscribed by snows: here, no boundaries are set to their progress, and the mountains, from their bases to their summits, display ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... could be more beautiful or more sacred than to be "given" to Oliver—to belong to him as utterly as she had belonged to her father? What could make her happier than the knowledge that she must surrender her will to his from the day of her wedding until the day of her death? She embraced her circumscribed lot with a passion which glorified its limitations. The single gift which the ages permitted her was the only one she desired. Her soul craved no adventure beyond the permissible adventure of being sought in marriage. Love was all that ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... barber. "I am deflecting upon the matter. It requires considerable loggitation when a man has penuriously saved a circumscribed sum from ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to-morrow we shun; to-day we desire what to-morrow we fear; nay, even tremble at the apprehensions of. This was exemplified in me, at this time, in the most lively manner imaginable; for I, whose only affliction was that I seemed banished from human society, that I was alone, circumscribed by the boundless ocean, cut off from mankind, and condemned to what I called silent life; that I was as one whom Heaven thought not worthy to be numbered among the living, or to appear among the rest of His creatures; that ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... spontaneous multifariousness of the epoch of Delacroix and Decamps. In the decade between 1820 and 1830, at all events, notwithstanding the strength of the academic tradition, painting was free from the thraldom of system, and the imagination of its practitioners was not challenged and circumscribed by the criticism that is based upon science. Not only in the painter's freedom in his choice of subject, but in his way of treating it, in the way in which he "takes it," is the revolution—or, as I should be inclined to say, rather, the evolution—shown. And ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... (an humble individual) and the immense body of your enraptured constituents felt upon reading your truly patriotic, statesman-like, learned, straightforward and consistent speech, may be conceived by a person of your immense parliamentary imagination, but cannot be expressed by my circumscribed vocabulary. In stating that my trifling exertions for the return of such a patriot are more than doubly recompensed by your noble conduct, may I be allowed to suggest the earnest wish of my eldest son to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... every art, every talent, of a useful, or even of an innocent nature, was rewarded by his judicious liberality; and, except the heretics, whom he persecuted with implacable hatred, the diffusive circle of his benevolence was circumscribed only by the limits of the human race. The government of a mighty empire may assuredly suffice to occupy the time, and the abilities, of a mortal: yet the diligent prince, without aspiring to the unsuitable reputation of profound learning, always reserved some moments of his leisure for ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... first became disciples of the Son of Mary, their views were certainly very indefinite and circumscribed. Acting under the influence of strong attachment to the Wonderful Personage who exhibited such wisdom and performed so many mighty works, they promptly obeyed the invitation to come and follow Him; and yet when required to tell who was this Great ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... connection between the succession of affinities and the geographical distribution of a group, worked out species by species, has never yet been shown as we shall be able to show it. In this Archipelago there are two distinct faunas rigidly circumscribed, which differ as much as those of South America and Africa, and more than those of Europe and North America: yet there is nothing on the map or on the face of the islands to mark their limits. The boundary line often passes between islands closer than others ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... Mrs. Bowen had circumscribed the adventure so as to exclude dancing from it. Imogene was not to dance. One might go to the veglione and look on from a box; if one ventured further and went on the floor, decidedly one was not ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... doctrine to be taught, any sort of theory to be held regarding the divine attributes and manifestations, the forces of nature, or the mysterious functions of mind or body. Its tenets have never been circumscribed by a creed; its free play has never been checked or ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... plain, nor any circumscribed and scant oasis I seem to realize. A forest valley, with rocky sides and brown profundity of shade, formed by tree crowding on tree, descends deep before me. Here, indeed, dwell human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branched and overarched, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... one great bulwark against Socialism is the sentiment of liberty. If we find nothing obnoxious in universal regimentation; if we feel that life would have as much savor when all of us were told off to our tasks, or at least circumscribed and supervised in our activities, by a swarm of officials carrying out the benevolent edicts of a paternal Government; if we hold as of no account the exercise of individual choice and the development of individual potentialities which are the very lifeblood of the existing order of society; ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... consequence of which was that when standing at the break of the poop it taxed one's eyesight to the utmost to see as far as the bows of the ship; the wind was freshening, with frequent rain squalls that, combined with the intense darkness, circumscribed the visible horizon to a radius of about half a cable's length on either hand; and through this all but opaque blackness the ship was thrashing along at a speed of fully ten knots, with a continuous crying and storming of wind aloft through the rigging and in the ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... make their way. They have a more limited applicability than the old ones, and are more narrowly circumscribed. They are not to supplant the older terms, but permit their use in a more ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... &c. 227; compass about; imprison &c. (restrain) 751; hedge in, wall in, rail in; fence round, fence in, hedge round; picket; corral. enfold, bury, encase, incase[obs3], pack up, enshrine, inclasp[obs3]; wrap up &c. (invest) 225; embay[obs3], embosom[obs3]. containment (inclusion) 76. Adj. circumscribed &c. v.; begirt[obs3], lapt[obs3]; buried in, immersed in; embosomed[obs3], in the bosom of, imbedded, encysted, mewed up; imprisoned &c. 751; landlocked, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... piled by them: they were just shadowed by tall trees behind, between whose trunks the scattered rays of the setting sun shed such a partial light as Salvator Rosa himself would not have disdained. These same soldiers, however, circumscribed our ride: we had intended to return by the inland road, but were not allowed to pass into it, as part, at least, lies without the posts, therefore we were obliged to return ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... mighty a charge for human power. To combine universal happiness with the highest liberty of the individual is the sole prerogative of infinite intelligence, which diffuses itself omnipresently over all. But what resource has man when placed in the position of omnipotence? Man can only aid his circumscribed powers by classification; like the naturalist, he establishes certain marks and rules by which to facilitate his own feeble survey of the whole, to which all individualities must conform. All this is accomplished ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Comparatively few investigators have found it possible to make extensive and prolonged observations of the most intelligent wild animals of the world, even in zoological gardens, and their observations on wild animals in a state of nature seem to have been even more circumscribed. I know only three who have studied any ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... incredible hardships, and whose success induced many from ancient Belgia afterwards to follow them to the western world. The inhabitants of James-town, afterwards finding their situation too narrow and circumscribed, in process of time spread themselves through the country, and ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... it be idiopathic, and unconnected with any dropsy of a circumscribed cavity, and the pulse at the same time be soft, and the urine free from serum, it may be treated solely with the view of procuring the absorption of the effused fluid, as in such cases, the watery discharge in all probability ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... decision, or can be decided by no other faculty than the imagination. A person who lands on the shore of a small island, that is desart and uncultivated, is deemed its possessor from the very first moment, and acquires the property of the whole; because the object is there bounded and circumscribed in the fancy, and at the same time is proportioned to the new possessor. The same person landing on a desart island, as large as Great Britain, extends his property no farther than his immediate possession; though a numerous colony are esteemed the proprietors of the whole from the instant ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... of a mile, and the whole of the park was broken up into soft swelling hills, from whose tops, owing to the flatness of the country round, an almost immeasurable distance could be seen, gradually losing itself in deepening mist of tenderest blue. The park, too, was not rigidly circumscribed. Public roads led through it. It melted on two or three sides into cultivated fields, and even the private garden of the Hall seemed a part of it, for there was nothing between them but a kind of grassy ditch and an almost invisible fence. The domain of Cowfold Hall ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... a term from-the-shoulder, and what I require is a word of finger-tips, over-tones, ultra-rays—a word for the few who understand that to leave a thing is more exquisite than to outwear it. It is by its very fineness circumscribed—a feminine virtue. Women understand it and keep it secret. I flatter myself that I have possessed the high moment, vanished against the noon. Ah, my dear fellow—" he added, lifting his glass ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... only sprang from an abiding enthusiasm, in behalf of the one great idea, to which he had consecrated his life. "The ambassadors of the King of France," he writes to Jacob Sturm, "have asked me for an opinion, as to how the power of the Emperor might be broken, or circumscribed, which I have written out in Latin; I had refused it twice, and only when they applied the third time, sent it to them with the knowledge of the Privy Council. It is now (Feb. 28th, 1530) the seventh day since Collin was despatched with it to the French embassy. I cannot tell whether my paper will ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... unites the doctrine of Sankara to the teaching of Gotama himself. That teaching as presented in the Pali Pitakas is marked by its negative and deliberately circumscribed character. Its rule is silence when strict accuracy of expression is impossible, whereas later philosophy does not shrink from phrases which are suggestive, if not exact. Gotama refuses to admit that the human soul is a ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... position. Not knowing lest he should at some future time regret the publication of pages which might be deemed heterodox, he caused a small edition of the work to be published, hoping, should it be judged as evil, that the error would be circumscribed in its effects, and the medium of the error buried between the dusty shelves of the second-hand collection of some rusty old bibliopole. By reason of this extreme caution, the volume has been out of print for ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... me, you seem to be very hard hit. Dreams are winged, so they say, and their flight circumscribed by sleep: this one seems to have broken bounds, and taken up its abode in wakeful eyes, transferring thither its honeyed spell, its lifelike presence. Tell me this dream of ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... an indomitable red light was burning, and the snow-flakes were made blood color as they flew through the circumscribed territory of the lamp's shining. The Swede pushed open the door of the saloon and entered. A sanded expanse was before him, and at the end of it four men sat about a table drinking. Down one side of the room extended ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... tree, will steal over the coarse background, and gain their strength and glory from the hidden stains. Perhaps we have sometimes the comfort of seeing how some old and ugly experience melted into and strengthened some soft, bright quality of heart or mind. Staring mournfully as we do upon the tiny circumscribed space of life, we cannot conceive how the design will work itself out; but the day will come when we shall see it too; and perhaps the best moments of life are those when we have a secret inkling of the process that is going so slowly and surely forward, as the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and broke, leaving the poison inside even if the animal managed to pull out the shaft. The bear is found in Yesso, and that animal has entered very largely into every phase of Aino life, somewhat circumscribed though this is. That animal was, or used to be, the objective point of Aino festivals, and seems, to some extent at any rate, to have had a part in their crude religious ideas. Bears, are, however, becoming rare in Yesso, and the Japanese Government, which is paternal even in regard to the fauna ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... as well, so this man, in his life climb, had reached a higher point and therefore gained a wider outlook. It is only when men stay in the lowlands of self interest or abide in the swamps of self indulgence that their views of life are narrowly circumscribed. Let a man master himself but once and he stands on higher ground, with wider outlook, with keener vision, ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... than that of the common English creeper, glittering with the highest varnish, delicately veined, and of a rich brown green, growing in profuse garlands from branch to branch of some stunted evergreen bushes which border the dyke, and which the people call salt-water bush. My walks are rather circumscribed, inasmuch as the dykes are the only promenades. On all sides of these lie either the marshy rice-fields, the brimming river, or the swampy patches of yet unreclaimed forest, where the huge cypress trees ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... out some whiskey and water and lit a cigar, the lounging chairs somehow did not attract him. He moved about aimlessly in the circumscribed space, his hands in his pockets, his burly shoulders rounded, his face dulled and heavy as with a depression of doubt. The sound of the piano upstairs came intermittently to his ears. Often he ascended to the drawing-room to hear Julia play—and more often still, with all the doors open, he enjoyed ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... interest me. My zeal oozed away for exploration, and when I entered my chamber I could have said, "This spot is the summary of my wants, for it contains me." I must be my own society, and as my society was not agreeable, the more circumscribed it was, the better I could endure it. What a dreary prospect! The past was vital, the present dead! Life in Surrey must be dull. How could I forget or enjoy? I put the curtains down, and told Temperance, who was wandering about, not to call me to dinner. I determined, if possible, to surpass ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... his desk motionless, studying his career as it lay circumscribed before him. He did not study it rebelliously, for as yet rebellion had not occurred to him. The idea that he might assert his individuality and depart from the family pattern had not ventured to show its face. For too many years had ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... he wrote, "that the little lady is pretty well fed up on such stuff. The calmer and more placid the daily life, the more apt is the secret inner one, in such a circumscribed existence, to be a thriller! You might look over the books in the house. There is a historic case where a young girl swore she had tossed her little brother to a den of lions (although there were no ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mind. Broechner's mere manner, as he remarked one day with a smile, "You do not read The Daily Paper on principle," made me perceive in a flash the comicality of my indignation over such articles as it contained. My horizon was still sufficiently circumscribed for me to suppose that the state of affairs in Copenhagen was, in and of itself, of importance. I myself regarded my horizon as wide. One day, when making a mental valuation of myself, I wrote, with the naivete of nineteen, "My good qualities, those which ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... observe to you that the system of general enjoyment, which you propose, is something, if I may so call it, more than rational: it is dignified; it is sublime. I feel with you that he is a poor circumscribed egotist, who can enjoy nothing but that which he calls his own. Let me taste every blessing which the hand of nature presents: let me banquet with you on her bounties: but let me not embitter the delicious repast by fraud, that enslaves me to an eternal ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and the conditions which surrounded it are very circumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest biographies; their real life is ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... life insupportable. Lady Nairn was too modest not to be distrustful of the extent of her genius, and presumed only to exercise it in composing words to favourite melodies. The genius of Tannahill was more circumscribed, and he was consequently more timid and painstaking. Hogg, ambitious of originality, was bold and reckless. He had the power of assuming many distinct varieties of style, his mind, taking the tone of the subject entered upon, as easily as the musician passes from one note to another. In education, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... coast-cliffs, present a likeness, though on a miniature scale, to the great valleys of the interior. But then immediately occurs the startling difficulty, why has the sea worn out these great, though circumscribed, depressions on a wide platform, and left mere gorges, through which the whole vast amount of triturated matter must have been carried away? The only light I can throw on this enigma, is by showing that banks appear to ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... arrangement, but with one of the disks fixed, serves as a brake for arresting motion, and this again without shock, but with gradually increasing action. Where space is very much circumscribed, the clutch and the brake may be combined, by fitting a disk with brushes on one side, and projections on the other, so that it may be brought by a lever against a second disk, for transmitting motion, and against a third, fixed, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... pretty well judged of; and the deeper the holes had been dug by the natives to obtain the root, the more pure was the sand; it was only the surface soil that held decayed vegetable matter. Twice during the trip, near the bases of cliffs, I saw a few acres of alluvial deposit, two very circumscribed beds, which were lost in the bottom of a watercourse, sliding, as it were, gradually under the sand. Near Moresby's Range, where the soil became freely mixed with ironstone and pebbles, the vegetation was more stunted, consisting principally of a prickly bush, mingled ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... of limited intelligent beings circumscribed by a boundless space, and placed upon a speck of matter which is whirled around the sun in an endless captivity, bound by this inexorable law of gravitation, like a stone in a sling. About us in this ethereal ocean floats a host of similarly ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... non-signatory and non-Member of the League, they are entirely free to take such action as they choose, in conflicts which may arise between them and States non-signatory but Members, like themselves, of the League of Nations, their freedom of action is to some extent circumscribed because both parties are bound by legal obligations arising under ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... the Deanite lives, he is not altogether an unsocial being. Neither are his domestic habits always as invisible to the finite eye as he perhaps intends them to be. Tent-life has scant privacy, and the circumscribed accommodation of the Dean leads to frequent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... few hours when he was at his best he was wonderfully active, driving to his publisher's or to make an occasional visit, besides a daily walk. If to those who saw him continually the circle of his subjects of conversation began to appear somewhat circumscribed, upon those who met him only occasionally the old fascination still exerted itself. He set his door wide open when he made up his mind to receive and ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... then say, primarily, that no case of appendicitis should be operated upon unless a competent surgeon is available. This, of course, does not apply to cases in which a circumscribed abscess has formed which anyone can open with safety provided he has sufficiently good judgment not ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... very simple, results from the fact that the ministers who have the appearance of governing really govern the country only to a very limited extent. Strictly limited and circumscribed, their power is exercised principally in speeches which are hardly noticed and in a few ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... been elevated in proportion as knowledge and virtue have advanced among mankind. No one can read the history of the world without seeing that woman is upward bound. No one can look at woman's present estate, her devotion to vanity, her meagre knowledge, her narrow culture, her circumscribed sphere of action, her monotonous and aimless life, without feeling that she has many long steps yet to take before she will attain to her true position, her full womanhood. I would not intimate that man's love for woman is not sincere, nor that he designs any harm to her. Nor would I intimate ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... to melt, the stars to fall, and the moon to be turned into blood?' Is not fire the next grand cyclic consummation of all things here below? But I come fully prepared to answer such objections. Your argument betrays a narrow mind, circumscribed in its orbit, and shallow in its depth. 'Tis the common thought of mediocrity. You have read books too much, and studied nature too little. Let me give you a lesson today in the workshop of Omnipotence. Take a stroll with me into the limitless ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... wisely applied; for he watched well his generous hand, guiding the flow into channels where it might most effectually revive and enrich. While possibly in the case of the elder Agassiz, the recognition of truth was sometimes unduly circumscribed, that could never be said of Alexander. He was eminently broad-minded, estimating with just candour whatever might be advanced in his own field, and outside of his field, entering with sympathetic interest into ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... plenty of hard work to keep my mind from moping. I had entirely to create both my position and my business. This latter was, in some regards, as broad as the continent; in others it was pitifully circumscribed and narrow. It is hard for us now, with our eager national passion for opening up the wilderness and peopling waste places, to realize that the great trading companies of Colonial days had exactly the contrary desire. It was ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... great versatility, yet his individual, strong, and vital work is found in the one field where he brings us face to face with the circumscribed, but appealing life of the "Five Towns" district of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... before Mr. Gibbs told the captain that he might go whaling if he felt like it, the old sailor had experienced a change of mind. He had become a most ardent student of whales. In his very circumscribed experience when a young man he had seen whales, but they had generally been a long way off; and as the old-fashioned method of rowing after them in boats had even then been abandoned in favor of killing them by means of the rifled cannon, Captain Hubbell had not seen very much of these creatures ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... all the consuls appointed by that Emperor. It is also a curious fact that, besides his being the last of Nero's consuls, it was in his term of office that Nero perished. When I think of this, I feel a sort of compassion for the frailty of humanity. For what is so circumscribed and so short as even the longest human life? Does it not seem to you as if Nero were alive only the other day? Yet of all those who held the consulship during his reign not one survives at ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... bunches of leaves at Otaheite. All which circumstances, if they do not amount to proofs, are strong indications that the power of the chiefs, where property is concerned, is not arbitrary, but at least so far circumscribed and ascertained, as to make it worth the while for the inferior orders to cultivate the soil, and to occupy their possessions distinct ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... dominated by one Gargantuan type of fiction. The terms book and novel became almost synonymous in houses which were not Puritan, yet where books and reading, in the era of few and unfree libraries, were strictly circumscribed. George Gissing was no exception to this rule. The English novel was at the summit of its reputation during his boyish days. As a lad of eight or nine he remembered the parts of Our Mutual Friend ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... it the whole way. Thanks to the man who first invented that comfortable method of journeying. Had it not been for that, I dare say both you and I would have circumscribed our travels within a very few miles. For my own part, I think to dress myself in a great-coat and boots, and get astride a horse's back, and be jolted through the mire, perhaps in wind and rain, is a punishment too severe for all the offences which I can charge myself ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... was uniformity in the general character of the work, there was constant variety in many of the details; and the spot on which it was carried on was so circumscribed, and so utterly cut off from all the world, that the minds of those employed became concentrated on it in a way that aroused strong interest in ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... invention, fails to show anything like the total amount of useful discovery which has been achieved on this continent since the foundation of the government. There are those who discover and invent, and who do not patent. There are discoveries which cannot be circumscribed by the filling-out of blank forms, and an official restriction on their use. This is emphatically the case with discoveries in the exact sciences, which, while they have added immeasurably to the knowledge of mankind, have also attained results the ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... would have the open sea to fight in, that is to say, instead of a narrow space which was all in the enemy's favour, a wide sea-room where their science would be of use, and where they could retreat or advance without being confined or circumscribed either when they put out or put in. In any case he was altogether opposed to their staying on where they were, and insisted on removing at once, as quickly and with as little delay as possible; and in this judgment ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... to me that what has just been said has some connection and analogy with the impression that I see on the next shield, where stands a gnarled and rugged oak, against which the wind is raging, and it is circumscribed by the legend, "ut robori robur," and here ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... of this idea, which is nothing but the relation which the parts of the termination of extension, or circumscribed space, have amongst themselves. This the touch discovers in sensible bodies, whose extremities come within our reach; and the eye takes both from bodies and colours, whose boundaries are within its view: where, observing how the extremities terminate,—either in straight lines which ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... Scott, who felt the death of Camp, his bullterrier, so much that he declined a dinner engagement in consequence, say on the death of his next favourite, a grayhound bitch—'Rest her body, since I dare not say soul!'? Where did he get that dare not? Is it well that the daring of genius should be circumscribed by an unbelief so common-place as to be ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... feelings and desires; because, perhaps, she was the mother of his unfeeling, detestable son. She may not have been the only person living to despise Lord Ostermore; but she was certainly the only one with the courage to manifest her contempt, and that in no circumscribed terms. And yet, disliking her as he did, returning with interest her contempt of him, he veiled it, and was loyal to his termagant, never suffering himself to utter a complaint of her to others, never suffering others to censure her within his hearing. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... much more frequent than at present) where an aneurism has formed after a wound of the brachial at the bend of the arm in venesection, the aneurism may be either circumscribed or diffuse. ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... had a kind heart and a winning manner. He could enjoy and exchange a good joke, and to the end of his life was a sterling and an uncompromising patriot. Yet his admiration for valor and virtue was circumscribed by no political limits, by no narrow-minded prejudices. An ultra-volunteer in '82, and an O'Connellite in '29, he was enthusiastic over the victory at Waterloo, and wept at the melancholy fate of Sir Samuel Romilly. Gerald's mother was a gentle and accomplished lady, whose ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... breathed freely enough, he could not move his head. Before him was a tangle of bracken and scrub, and beyond that the gloom of dense pines; but as he could see only directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... said, is all the better for being to a certain degree circumscribed, relegated, and regulated by the laws of traditional usage, as well as those of good taste, and this applies especially to ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... be no more. So the tribal story-teller comes to be the most important character"—the Jesuit smiled in that shrewd and gentle way of his—"that is, of course, after the Shaman, as the Russians call him, the medicine-man, who is a teller of stories, too, in his more circumscribed fashion. But it's the Story-teller who helps his people through the long winter—helps them to face the terrible new enemies, epidemic disease and famine. He has always been their best defence against that age-old dread they all have of the dark. Yes, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... many lessons. You are taught by your scribes to despise the dignity which is not supported by a multitude of bayonets, guns, and gold. I heard of it when I travelled incognito. You make merry over little potentates. Good. But do not cross their paths. Their dominion may be circumscribed, but they have it; and where we are now, my power equals that of the Kaiser and the Czar. You will do me the favour to understand that I am not boasting, not menacing; I attempt, since it is extraordinarily imposed on me, to instruct you. I have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
