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Circuitous   /sərkjˈuɪtəs/   Listen
Circuitous

adjective
1.
Marked by obliqueness or indirection in speech or conduct.  Synonym: roundabout.  "A roundabout paragraph" , "Hear in a roundabout way that her ex-husband was marrying her best friend"
2.
Deviating from a straight course.  Synonyms: devious, roundabout.  "A long and circuitous journey by train and boat" , "A roundabout route avoided rush-hour traffic"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Circuitous" Quotes from Famous Books



... several times when the gate was opened endeavoured, with the lamb at her heels, to make her way through. He each time drove her back. She at length turned round, and appeared to be going the way she came. She had, however, not abandoned her intention, for she either discovered a more circuitous road to the south side of the gate, or made her way through; for on a Sabbath morning early in June she arrived at the farm where she had been bred,—having been ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... consent," said he, "if you will come and assist me in my duties; for which purpose you and your sons must acquire the language of these islanders. We are much nearer your island than you think, for you took a very circuitous course, and Parabery, who knows it, declares it is only a day's voyage with a fair wind. And, moreover, he tells me, that he is so much delighted with you and your sons, that he cannot part with you, and wishes me to obtain your permission to accompany you, and remain with you. He will ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... tinged with a vivid colour at the mention of those she had lost. When led out to execution, she was dressed in white; she had cut off her hair with her own hands. Placed in a tumbrel, with her arms tied behind her, she was taken by a circuitous route to the Place de la Revolution, and she ascended the scaffold with a firm and dignified step, as if she had been about to take her place on a throne by ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... Dangers will be averted; bewildering mazes will show themselves to be interlaced and interweaved with mercy. "He keepeth the feet of His saints." A hair of their head will not be touched. He leads sometimes darkly, sometimes sorrowfully; most frequently by cross and circuitous ways we ourselves would not have chosen; but always wisely, always tenderly. With all its mazy windings and turnings, its roughness and ruggedness, the believer's is not only a right way, but THE right ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... its career. It was no less a person than the Duke of Exeter whom Alwyn's shaft had disabled for the field. This incident, coupled with the hearty address of the stout goldsmith, served to reanimate the flaggers, and Gloucester, by a circuitous route, reaching their line a moment after, they dressed their ranks, and a flight of arrows followed their ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the town, Taee took a new and circuitous way, in order to show me what, to use a familiar term, I will call the 'Station,' from which emigrants or travellers to other communities commence their journeys. I had, on a former occasion, expressed a wish to see their vehicles. These I found to be of two kinds, one for land journeys, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the road makes very circuitous windings on the steep sides of the mountains, ascending nearly all the way to Escragnolles, a hamlet, pop. 320, consisting of a few houses and a small roadside inn, with clean but hard beds, and plain and scanty fare, situated 3282 ft. above the sea, or 2192 ft. above and 18m. north ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... in little pools that form after rains, or in dew-drops during the night, they attach themselves to the skin of barefooted children who come in contact with such collections of water, and boring into the body ultimately, through a circuitous route, reach the intestines. Here they undergo further development, and in a short time become mature hook-worms, which in their turn lay eggs, and the life cycle begins over again. It is thus seen that a child having hook-worm disease becomes a menace, ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... of the other two. The sun sank lower and lower, sending farewell beams into the valleys, and shaking out gold pieces in Miss Bezac's little brown sitting-room like the Will-o'-wisps in the "Tale of tales". Through the open door her red cow might be seen returning home by a winding and circuitous path, such as cows love, and a little sparrow hopped in and out, from the doorstep, looking for "One, two, three, four", crumbs. Faith from her seat near the fire could see it all—if her eyes chose to pass ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... to adopt any opinion and to possess none; to fall into the public humour of the moment, and to evade the impending catastrophe; to look upon every man as a tool, and never do anything which had not a definite though circuitous purpose; these were his political accomplishments; and, while he recognised them as the best means of success, he found in their exercise excitement and delight. To be the centre of a maze of manoeuvres was his empyrean. He was never without ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... the Ohio, known as the Alleghany River, has a length of four hundred miles, and its source is in the county of Potter, in northern Pennsylvania. It takes a very circuitous course through a portion of New York state, and re-enters Pennsylvania flowing through a hilly region, and at the flourishing city of Pittsburgh mingles its waters with its southern sister, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... past countless terraces to the very base of the rocky, jagged eminence at whose top, a full mile above the last sprinkling of houses, stands the isolated, bleak Monastery. The view from these upper streets, before one enters the circuitous and hidden Monastery road that winds afar in its climb, is never to be forgotten by the spectator, no matter how often he traverses the lofty thoroughfares. As far as the eye can reach, lies the green valley, through which winds the silvery ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... his habit of acting on his conclusions being made infirm by his repugnance to every possible conclusion and its consequent act. He saw Mr. Bulstrode often, but he did not try to use any occasion for his private purpose. At one moment he thought, "I will write a letter: I prefer that to any circuitous talk;" at another he thought, "No; if I were talking to him, I could make a retreat before any ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... of public transactions. Sincere! Why, he was struggling for his existence! And when baffled, first by the Venetian party, and afterwards by the panic of Jacobinism, he was forced to forego his direct purpose, he still endeavoured partially to effect it by a circuitous process. He created a plebeian aristocracy and blended it with the patrician oligarchy. He made peers of second-rate squires and fat graziers. He caught them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and clutched them from the counting-houses of Cornhill. When Mr Pitt in an age of bank restriction ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... Dubuque, as the boats had ceased running, a circuitous route and a night of discomfort were inevitable. Leaving the main road to Chicago at Clinton Junction, I had the pleasure of waiting at a small country inn until midnight for a freight train. This was indeed ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... The circuitous trade to Africa we have reason to believe, still continues to be carried on, particularly from many ports in the Eastern States, and although several of the attempts which have been made to punish infractions of the laws of the United States on this ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... art which affects the form, colour, and attitude of animals—Nature has worked along two different roads. One is easy and direct, the other circuitous and difficult. The easy way is that of protective resemblance pure and simple, where the animal's colour, form, or attitude becomes like that of its habitat. In which case the animal becomes one with ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... back. Our first business was to make way to our surf or life boat. This lay about three miles from the village, reckoning as the crow flies, and was sheltered under a rude house which stood on the shores of a bay opening by an inlet into the sea. Our common way of gaining this house was through a circuitous passage of the sounds; but these we soon discovered, in consonance with a previous prediction of old Bill's, were entirely frozen over save in certain parts of their channels; and hence, this route being unnavigable for such boats ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... essence of all that gave life to its creed, the utmost significance and vital force of what it taught and still teaches, in what we conceive to be a stuttering and stammering way, in a cumbrous and outworn language, with a circuitous and wearisome phraseology; but meaning really what we mean, and doing for men essentially what we are doing. All that we claim is a better statement of the old and changeless truth, a disembarrassed account of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... off into the darkness. Jack halted. To call would be dangerous; to run after him excite comment, perhaps pursuit and discovery. There was nothing to be done but wait at the rendezvous. He would come back—Jack tried to make himself believe that he could depend on that. When, after a circuitous walk of half an hour, he reached the cabin of Blake, the colored agent of Mrs. Gannat, he found a note from his patroness warning him that the prison authorities had become alert. A rumor of a plot to ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... breeze down a gentle slope he would find himself gently wafted into the air and would make flights of as much as three hundred yards, steering to either side, or rising and falling at will. He was even able to make a circuitous flight and return to his starting place—a feat that was not accomplished with a motor-driven airplane until years later. Lilienthal achieved it with no mechanical aid, except the wings. He became passionately devoted to the art, made more than two thousand ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... the frontiers of Kaarta as was consistent with safety. The king, finding he was resolved to proceed, told him that one route, though not wholly free from danger, still remained, which was first to go into the Moorish kingdom of Luda-mar, and thence by a circuitous route to Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar. He then inquired of Mr. Park how he had been treated since he left the Gambia, and jocularly asked him how many slaves he expected to take home with him on his return. He was, however interrupted by the arrival of a man mounted on a fine moorish ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... returned with the useless mackintosh. He had been able to hear nothing of Sir Vernon and his companion. He had been at Wimperfield village, and through two other villages, and had taken a circuitous way back by another meadow-stream, where there might be a hope of trout; but he had seen no trace of the missing boy. The field labourers he had met had been able to give ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... path or guide of any kind, and had hit his mark squarely. He had been barkpeeling in Callikoon,—a famous country for barkpeeling,—and, having got enough of it, he desired to reach his home on Dry Brook without making the usual circuitous journey between the two places. To do this necessitated a march of ten or twelve miles across several ranges of mountains and through an unbroken forest,—a hazardous undertaking in which no one would join him. Even ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... under such circumstances more natural, more necessary, more truly conservative, than now to recognize formally and expressly the legislation of the senate to which effect had been hitherto given by a circuitous process? Something similar may be said of the renewal of the electoral census. The earlier constitution was throughout based on it; even the reform of 513 had merely restricted the privileges of the men of wealth. But since that year there had occurred an immense financial revolution, which ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... the East, demand, for reasons both of Empire and of trade, access to Asia less dangerous than by Cape Horn, less circuitous even than by Panama, less dependent than by Suez and the Red Sea. Our emigration, imperilled by the dissensions of the United States, must fall back upon colonization. And, commercially, the countries of the East must supply the raw materials and provide the markets, which probable contests ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... brethren, and its intention of establishing trading-houses for their relief and support. It was not without difficulty, nor till after nearly half the day was spent, that we were able to convey all this information to the Chopunnish, much of which might have been lost or distorted in its circuitous route through a variety of languages; for in the first place, we spoke in English to one of our men, who translated it into French to Chaboneau; he interpreted it to his wife in the Minnetaree language; she then put it into Shoshonee, and the young Shoshonee prisoner explained it to the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... swiftly on, and Harriet returned to the house by a circuitous route, surmising that "Miss May's" eyes might detect ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... and fully organized. This was in August, 1871. The candidates were fifteen, nine men, and six women. In accordance with a written invitation from the people, Messrs. Locke, Bond, and Page started on Tuesday, August 22d, and went by a circuitous, though a pleasant, picturesque and easy route, passing through two cities, where they found several who were examining the truth, and reached their place of destination on the 24th. The brethren at Bansko had arranged liberally for the brethren ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... Philosophical Society. This animal has been said to extend the whole length of the boring tube; but this assertion is erroneous, since the tubes are formed by a secretion from the body of the animal, and are often many feet in length, and circuitous in their course. This was shown to be the fact, by a large piece of wood pierced in all directions. The manner in which it affects its passage, and the interior of the tubes, were also described. The assertion that the Teredo does not attack teak timber ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various

... that referred to the strike, but could not approve the circuitous preparations and all the secret machinations with which the attack upon the monster was planned, instead of seizing it simply by the horns, as he thought they had the power to do. When the old man stepped down and some others had spoken, he could hardly restrain ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... discharged on the succeeding night, he was quickly seized, and, as it subsequently appeared from the evidence taken at the trial of his abductors, he was bound, gagged, thrust violently into a covered carriage, driven by a circuitous route, with relays of horses and men, to Fort Niagara, and left in confinement in the magazine. Here he ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... had admitted to their inmost councils a legate of Alexander III; they announced that they would only render to the Emperor his ancient and undoubted rights. Frederic would not trust himself in their vicinity. Accompanied by a handful of knights he escaped ignominiously to the north, taking a circuitous route through Savoy. The Leaguers no longer troubled to mask their true intentions. As a token of their unity they built the city of Alessandria, named after Frederic's bitterest enemy, the lawful Pope; and they solemnly repudiated the appellate ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... aspirations were realised. They came at length, however, but not exactly in the form he had anticipated, for in 1862 he sailed from Liverpool to London, and in 1870 he took the opportunity of walking back from London to Lancashire in company with his brother. We walked by a circuitous route, commencing in an easterly direction, and after being on the road for a fortnight, or twelve walking days, as we did not walk on Sundays, we covered the distance of 306 miles at an average of twenty-five miles ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... merely the gay, charming, if scheming woman who had come to Wirtemberg sixteen months before. She had developed. Her extraordinary prosperity had poisoned her being. She had grown hard. Could she not achieve the height of power by one road, very well, she was ready to climb back by any circuitous path she could find. For many days her ingenuity and her searchings failed to show her any way back to Stuttgart. It was the pretext for returning which she sought; once there she knew she could grasp power again, and this time she intended ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... had been a circuitous one, but she had kept along the edge of the wood, so that now, as she stopped, she found herself under the shadow of the trees, and immediately opposite the portico of Dalton Hall, between which ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... the canon to Grand View Point and back is equally delightful. Looking across a bend in the canon from Grand View Point to Bissell's Point the distance seems to be scarcely more than a stone's throw, yet it is fully half the distance of the circuitous route ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... enter it. He was at that point to leave, without words. It had been impressed on McGuire that utter silence was imperative. The chauffeur was then to follow in the runabout, acting as a reserve in the event of need. Both cars were to take a certain circuitous route to a point on the shore thirty miles distant, the runabout keeping just close enough to hold the first car in sight. McGuire had listened and understood. Yet now McGuire was missing, together with one very ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... is supposed not to have diverged much in character, but to have retained the form of (F), either unaltered or altered only in a slight degree. In this case its affinities to the other fourteen new species will be of a curious and circuitous nature. Being descended from a form that stood between the parent-species (A) and (I), now supposed to be extinct and unknown, it will be in some degree intermediate in character between the two groups descended from these two species. But as these two groups have gone on diverging ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... when she had flung herself into his embrace, and this last moment when he had flung her out of it, that spoke more than all. He had heard those coming footsteps. He had thought of her—her reputation. That was dear to him. She gains her own room by a circuitous round, breathless, unseen, secure in her belief of her power over him. The insatiable vanity of the woman had prevented her ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... his cousin's tones, Mark turned from the little black, to realise the fact that the three men whom they had left must have taken a circuitous course under the pigmy's guidance, cut them off by the scattered stones where they were resting, and were now ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... Buree. I proceeded with the light carts, guided by a very young native boy, not more than ten years old, who had come with the party from Kerr's station, and who, being a native of the lower Bogan, could tell us where water was likely to be found. Our route was rather circuitous, chiefly to avoid a thick scrub of CALLITRIS and other trees, which, having been recently burnt, presented spikes so thickly set together, that any way round them seemed preferable to going through. We reached plains, and came upon an old track ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... poultry raising. To those who all their lives have been accustomed to fields of wheat, oats and corn the almost interminable rows of beets, beans, sweet potatoes and melons are very interesting. Proceeding onward through this highly cultivated section by a somewhat circuitous route, there was gradually entered as day merged into night, a wild, sparsely cultivated region which contrasted strangely with the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... that a regiment of American regulars, under Colonel Tutle, were marching at double step, to the scene of action; and he fancied that the retreating militia were not at all afraid, but brilliantly executing a circuitous march to gain the rear of the British line, and cut off their retreat. It was true Fort Tomkins was about to fall into British hands. Already the officer in charge of Navy Point, agreeably to orders, and supposing the fort to be lost, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... 33 B.C. when an envoy from Kara arrived at the Mizugaki Court, praying that a Japanese general might be sent to compose a quarrel which had long raged between Kara and Shiragi, and to take the former under Japan's protection. It appears that this envoy had travelled by a very circuitous route. He originally made the port of Anato (modern Nagato), but Prince Itsutsu, who ruled there, claimed to be the sole monarch of Japan and refused to allow the envoy to proceed, so that the latter had to travel north and enter ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... preparing for the oven! Captain Duke and myself were resolved to witness this dreadful scene. We therefore kept our information as secret as possible, well knowing that if we had manifested our wishes they would have denied the whole affair. We set out, taking a circuitous route towards the village, and, being well acquainted with the road, we came upon them suddenly, and found them in the midst ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... in a roundabout way (on a long distance) to favour its influential shareholders, and thus ruins the secondary lines. In the United States travellers and goods are sometimes compelled to travel impossibly circuitous routes so that dollars may flow into ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... foot of this mountain. I stated my fears to the two seamen who were with me, and who had just come up. The whole bore too much the appearance of truth to admit of a doubt. We descended the ruins by a circuitous and winding way; and, after an hour's difficult and dangerous walk, we reached the spot, where all our fears were too fully confirmed. There lay the two dead bodies of our companions, and that of my dog, all mangled in a shocking manner; both, it would appear, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... straits and perils of my whole life; and His grace comforted and aided me greatly in this emergency. Forever blessed and hallowed be His holy name, que attingit a fine, usque ad finem fortiter, et disponit omnia suaviter, [90] who hath brought me by so many circuitous ways to a position so in accord with my life-long desires. Thus, what distressed me on that day was not fear, but the sight of the bravest and most gallant soldiers either dead or wounded; nevertheless, it consoled me much to see them enter the battle with the names of Christ and St. Francis ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... direct route by railroad to Chattanooga, through Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, had for some time been in the hands of the enemy at Knoxville. We were, therefore, forced to take the circuitous route by way of the two Carolinas and Georgia. There were two roads open to transportation, one by Wilmington and one by Charlotte, N.C., as far as Augusta, Ga., but from thence on there was but a single line, and as such our transit was ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... the expedition was deferred until Aug. 22nd, when Spangenberg, Toeltschig, Riedel, Seifert, Rose, Michael Haberland, and Mr. Johnson, the Trustees' surveyor, prepared to start on their toilsome journey, going by boat, instead of attempting to follow the circuitous, ill-marked road across the country, impassable to pedestrians, though used to some ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries

... away from the meeting place of the duelists, he hovered not far off, in order to learn at the earliest possible moment the result of the most important personal encounter that had ever taken place in the history of the Blackfoot nation. Because of the circuitous course taken by George and Victor Shelton, Mul-tal-la saw nothing of them and never learned of the humorous ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... perils and delays of this circuitous route has long been the anxious wish of all commercial nations, and to a certain extent this may be accomplished in the manner here pointed out. In the course of time, and in case prospects are sufficiently encouraging—or, in other words, should the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... propp'd the ships (for numerous such Lay rolling at the feet of those who fought) Assail'd him. Twirling like a top it pass'd The shield of Hector, near the neck his breast 495 Struck full, then plough'd circuitous the dust. As when Jove's arm omnipotent an oak Prostrates uprooted on the plain, a fume Rises sulphureous from the riven trunk, And if, perchance, some traveller nigh at hand 500 See it, he trembles at the bolt of Jove, So fell the might of Hector, to the earth Smitten ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... cat, he is generally sleek and has become an adept in the art of ingratiating himself with those who wear skirts and dispense comforts. Like a cat, too, he has an insinuating manner; he can purr quite admirably in luxurious surroundings, and, on the whole, he prefers to attain his objects by a circuitous method rather than by the bluff and uncompromising directness which is employed by dogs and ordinary honest folk of the canine sort. Moreover, he likes a home, but—here comes the difference—the homes of others seem to attract and retain ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various

... their benevolent substitute? Or suppose that a parent, unwilling to inflict a penalty on a disobedient but feeble child, should persuade a stronger child to bear it; would not the offender see a more touching mercy in a free forgiveness, springing immediately from a parent's heart, than in this circuitous remission?" ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... straits, full of sandbanks, towards the southernmost coast of Sardinia. Beneath it, on the other side and almost surrounding it, is a cleft in the cliff like an immense corridor which serves as a harbor, and along it the little Italian and Sardinian fishing boats come by a circuitous route between precipitous cliffs as far as the first houses, and every two weeks the old, wheezy steamer which ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... feet, and 29 deep. The immense buildings round the two docks, are warehouses for the reception of goods, and are of the most substantial description; and to enable shipping in their passage up and down the Thames to avoid the circuitous and inconvenient course round the Isle of Dogs, a canal has been cut across this peninsula, through which, upon paying certain moderate rates, all ships, vessels, and craft, are permitted to pass in their passage up and down the river. In seeing ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... impediments. He took a strong liking to Bertie, though he showed it little outwardly. The latter probably in his naivete and directness unveiled his full purpose to this gum-chewing, grey-eyed American. When the news of Mrs. Warren's death had reached Bertie through a circuitous course—Praed-Honoria-Rossiter—he had modified his scheme and at the same time had become still more ardent about carrying it into execution. In fact he felt that Mrs. Warren's death was opportune, as with her still living and impossible to include in a flight, Vivie would probably have ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... Heaven be praised! were then, and are still, unknown to the colonies; but there were other dangers that gave my excellent parent much concern. All the bridges were not considered safe; the roads were, and are yet, very circuitous, and it was possible to lose one's way; while it was said persons had been known to pass the night on Harlem common, an uninhabited waste that lies some seven or eight miles on our side of the city. My mother's first care, therefore, was to get Dirck and myself off early in the morning; in ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... Gurney's remark, that when music seems to be yearning for unutterable things, it is really yearning only for the next note. "In this step from the state of rest into movement and return, the coming again to rest; on what circuitous ways, with what reluctances and hesitations; whether quick and decisively or gradually and unnoticed—therein consists the ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... the summons, except a troop of Germans. They, in consideration of his late kindness in showing them particular attention during a sickness which prevailed in the camp, flew to his aid, but came too late; for, being not well acquainted with the town, they had taken a circuitous route. He was slain near the Curtian Lake [667], and there left, until a common soldier returning from the receipt of his allowance of corn, throwing down the load which he carried, cut off his head. There being upon it no hair, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... Jonathan, all the turnkeys then repaired to the upper part of the jail, and, approaching the Red Room by a circuitous route, several doors were unlocked, and they came upon the scene of Jack's exploits. Stopping before each door, they took up the plates of the locks, examined the ponderous bolts, and were struck with the utmost astonishment at ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... place? Old Castle of Mittenwalde, in the Wusterhausen environs, let that be the first resting-point, then; Rochow, Waldau, and the Wesel Fusileer-Colonel here, sure men, with a trooper or two for escort, shall conduct the Prisoner. By Treuenbrietzen, by circuitous roads: swift, silent, steady,—and with vigilance, as you shall answer!—These preliminaries settled, Friedrich Wilhelm drives off homewards, black Care riding behind him. He reaches Berlin, Sunday, 27th August; finds a world ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... leader. The names of this party were John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Moncey, and William Cool. A journey of many hundred miles was before them. Through the vast mountain barrier, which could only be traversed by circuitous wanderings some hundreds of miles in extent, their route was utterly pathless, and there were many broad and rapid streams to be crossed, which flowed through the valleys between the mountain ridges. Though provision in abundance was scattered along the way, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... which the endeavor is made to combine a Norman feudal castle with a modern dwelling, though with only indifferent success, excepting in the expenditure involved. The roads from the great suspension-bridge across the strait lead on either hand to Bangor and Beaumaris, although the route is rather circuitous. This bridge, crossing at the narrowest and most beautiful part of the strait, was long regarded as the greatest triumph of bridge-engineering. It carried the Holyhead high-road across the strait, and was built by Telford. The bridge is five hundred and seventy-nine feet long, and stands one hundred ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... porch by a circuitous route—through the back garden and the house itself—and paused to admire the view. Yes, we looked for Ching Po as if we were tourists and he ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... in her voice, she loved him as dearly as he loved her, though never a word of love had been spoken between them. The young man wrought himself up into such a state of agitation and excitement that he never reached Marsh-End nor saw Mr. Moxon at all that day. He turned, and bent his steps by a circuitous path to a woodland nook where he had left his friend Christie at work a ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... D'Alencon, who was behind, separated his division into two bodies, and swept round on one side himself, while the Count of Flanders did the same on the other to attack the Prince of Wales in more regular array. Taking a circuitous route, D'Alencon appeared upon a rising ground on the flank of the archers of the Black Prince, and thus, avoiding their arrows, charged down with his cavalry upon the 800 men-at-arms gathered round the Black Prince, ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... Gnome in early autumn and went straight to our old camps. after our usual luck we started in a circuitous route for Gnome. We came to the Buckland River and started up intending to strike the mouth of the Koyukuk but missed our mark striking forty miles above the mouth we had hard times crossing the snow-capped mountains and climbing over Glaciers breaking trails for our dogs, fixing broken ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis

... that the victory of Indra over Vritra is essentially the same as his victory over the Panis. Vritra, the storm-fiend, is himself called one of the Panis; yet the latter are uniformly represented as night-demons. They steal Indra's golden cattle and drive them by circuitous paths to a dark hiding-place near the eastern horizon. Indra sends the dawn-nymph, Sarama, to search for them, but as she comes within sight of the dark stable, the Panis try to coax her to stay with them: "Let us make thee our sister, do not go away again; we will give thee ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... led to study everything belonging to their history with more interest than any other subject. It turns out that I have been making myself ready to understand my grandfather a little." He was anxious less the time should be consumed before this circuitous course of talk could lead them back to the topic he most cared about. Age does not easily distinguish between what it needs to express and what youth needs to know-distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and keenly active as Joseph Kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the wrong ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... of the long silence was made clear to them: the letter that he had addressed from Paris to Doctor Dalichamp on the 18th, the very day that ended railway communication with Havre, had gone astray and had only reached them at last by a miracle, after a long and circuitous journey. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... then, of this country are partly bounded by a frontier of another land, and partly enclosed by the waters of the adjacent sea. The interior is washed and encompassed by the ocean; and this, through the circuitous winds of the interstices, now straitens into the narrows of a firth, now advances into ampler bays, forming a number of islands. Hence Denmark is cut in pieces by the intervening waves of ocean, and has but few portions of firm and continuous territory; these ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... left it where they were afterwards likely to meet with it. It appears the Indians were this winter encamped on the banks of the River Exploits, and observed Captain B.'s party passing up the river on the ice. They retired from their encampments in consequence; and, some weeks afterwards, went by a circuitous route to the lake, to ascertain what the party had been doing there. They found Mary March's body, and removed it from where Captain B. had left it to where it now lies, by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various

... University. Upon which his father discarded him from his house, vowing that he would leave his broad acres (which were not entailed) to his Nephew, and bidding him go to the Devil; whither he accordingly proceeded, but by a very leisurely and circuitous route. But the young Rogue had already made a more perilous journey than this, for he had fallen in Love with a young Madam of exceeding Beauty, and of large Fortune in her own right, the daughter of a ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... guide, a war chief (Maj. Garland), we started for our own country, taking a circuitous route. Our Great Father being about to pay a visit to his children in the big towns towards sunrise, and being desirous that we should have an opportunity of seeing them, had directed our guide ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk

... through underground channels, and through channels supported by arches. As adjuncts to these channels there were cisterns (or castella, as they were called). From these reservoirs the water was distributed to the public through routes more or less circuitous and left the cisterns through pipes, the diameter of which was reckoned in either twelfths or sixteenths of a Roman foot. At the exits of the pipes were placed stones or stone figures, the water taking exit from these figures ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... place of destination was Roanoke, took the circuitous route by the West India islands, and had a long passage of four months. The reckoning had been out for three days, and serious propositions had been made for returning to England, when a fortunate storm drove him to the mouth ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... triumphs of art, rise lofty woods of graceful birch, varied by dark fir, and interspersed with erections of Roman and Gothic design. It is in the contemplation of these beauties that fancy recalls the mythology of rocky woods, peopled with Dryads and Fauns. Passing by a circuitous path to the other side of this Eden, by sloping walks shaded with ilex, ancient oak, sycamore, cypress, and bay, we have a view of the extent of the valley, terminating with the ruins of Fountains Abbey, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various

... exceedingly clumsy—had in an instant driven home to Leslie's mind the conviction that somehow or other this man had become possessed of information of the existence of the treasure on this island, and had come to take it away! By what circuitous chain of events the information had fallen into the fellow's hands it was of course quite impossible to guess; but that this was the explanation of everything Dick was fully convinced. And now that he possessed the clue he could ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... in the direction of Nivelles. I shouted to him. He told me that he was making for Brussels by a circuitous way." ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... was decided merely to hang upon the skirts of the retreating army and avoid an engagement. Lee was aggressive, almost insulting, in counselling inaction, Washington, much embarrassed, but hesitating to ignore the decisions of the council, followed the enemy by a circuitous route, until he reached the neighbourhood of Princeton. The British were in and about Allentown. Washington called another council of war, and urged the propriety of forcing an engagement before the enemy could reach the Heights of Monmouth. Again Lee overruled, being sustained by the less ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... been the intimated attitude of Mrs. Stringham, the elder of the companions, who had her own view of the impatiences of the younger, to which, however, she offered an opposition but of the most circuitous. She moved, the admirable Mrs. Stringham, in a fine cloud of observation and suspicion; she was in the position, as she believed, of knowing much more about Milly Theale than Milly herself knew, and yet of having to darken her knowledge as well as make it active. The woman in the world ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... Madeira; and its then capital, the town of Matto Grosso, the seat of the captain-general, with its palace, cathedral, and fortress, was accordingly placed far to the west, near the Guapore. When less circuitous lines of communication were established farther eastward the old capital was abandoned, and the tropic wilderness surged over the lonely little town. The tomb of the old colonial explorer still stands in the ruined cathedral, where the forest has once more come to its own. But civilization ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... avoid all chance of recognition in the town; but as this might have led them into more dangerous contact with some of the outlying parties of Indians, who were known to prowl around the fort at night, this plan had been abandoned for the more circuitous and safe passage by the village. Through this our little party now pursued their way, and without encountering aught to impede their progress. The simple mannered inhabitants had long since retired to rest, and neither light nor sound denoted the existence of man or beast ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... gale; and late as it was in the season, we got up our slip-rope and gear, though we meant to stay only twenty-four hours. We pulled the agent ashore, and were ordered to wait for him, while he took a circuitous way round the hill to the Mission, which was hidden behind it. We were glad of the opportunity to examine this singular place, and hauling the boat up, and making her well fast, took different directions up and down ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... was necessary on many grounds. First of all, the privileges of impression which were granted by kings, princes, and supreme pontiffs, were usually obtained only by circuitous routes and after the expenditure of much time and money. Moreover, the counterfeit book was rarely either typographically or textually correct, and was more often than not abridged and mutilated almost beyond recognition, to ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts

... circuitous way they had come, they arrived at the same time as the men of Plassans. Silvere shook hands with some of them. They must have thought he had heard of the new route they had chosen, and had come to meet them. Miette, whose face was half-concealed ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... for here and there a human soul, might lie in these confused Paper-Masses now intrusted to him; wherefore he determines to edit the same. Out of old Books, new Writings, and much Meditation not of yesterday, he will endeavour to select a thing or two; and from the Past, in a circuitous way, illustrate the Present and the Future. The Past is a dim indubitable fact: the Future too is one, only dimmer; nay properly it is the same fact in new dress and development. For the Present holds it in both the whole Past ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... Hill 60—had gone up and that we had been successful in holding it, but the rumours were that the fighting was terrific. We were soon marching on the road past battered Vlamertinghe. Shells of heavy calibre were falling on all sides, and we made for the Convent by the Lille gate, by a circuitous route—round by the Infantry Barracks. We dumped our packs in this Convent, where there were still one or two of the nuns who had decided to face the shelling rather than leave ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams

... Cass had, before leaving Detroit, offered me the situation of Secretary to the Commissioners appointed to confer with the Indians at Chicago in the summer of 1821, with a view, primarily, to the interesting and circuitous journey which it was his intention to make, in order to reach the place of meeting. This offer, as the time drew on, he now put in the shape of a letter, which I determined at once to accept, and made my arrangements to leave the ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... narrow strait amongst the hills would have the effect of throwing them (as their only alternative in a case where so wide a sweep of pasturage was required) upon a circuit 25 of at least 500 miles extra; besides that, after all, this circuitous route would carry them to the Torgau at a point unfitted for the passage of their heavy baggage. The defile in the hills, therefore, it was resolved to gain; and yet, unless they moved upon it with the velocity of light 30 cavalry, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... realised that you too were prowling stealthily about, so I readily inferred that you also were playing a trick upon some one. Then when I put out my head and looked before me, I saw that it was these two girls, so I came behind you, by a circuitous way; and as soon as you left, I forthwith sneaked into ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... into the Cemetery, we will pass back by a circuitous route, to the dear old home. The road, the hills, the rocks, the trees, and many of the buildings are the same; but, oh, how many and varied are the changes that strike the eye, and awaken in the breast ten thousand bewildering remembrances. ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... fine an' mincin'—you'd think he was one o' my lord's grandchildren or a son o' the squire's at least,' said Mrs. Mountain, approaching her theme with circuitous caution. ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... often walked past her house with furtive, wistful eyes towards the windows. Once or twice when nobody was looking he knocked timidly, but he never got any response. He always took a circuitous route home, that his wife might not know where he had been. Deborah never spoke of Rebecca; neither Caleb nor Ephraim dared mention her name in ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... erected to the memory of a captain who was accidentally shot. It appears his company, which he was in charge of at the time, had completed their firing and were returning to camp by a circuitous route. Other corps were firing at the time, when a ricochet bullet struck the captain and ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... Hindoo Rao's house the road branches off; that to the left is straight, while that to the right is circuitous. Mr. Fraser was known always to take the straight road, and upon that Karim posted himself, as the road up to the place where it branched off was too public for his purpose. As it happened, Mr. Fraser, for the first time, took the circuitous road to ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... thirty-three, I thought you told me you was only twenty five?" Aaron now looked first at the planter, then at the trader, and seemed perfectly bewildered. He had forgotten the lesson given him by Pompey as to his age, and the planter's circuitous talk (doubtless to find out the slave's real age) had the Negro off his guard. "I must see your back, so as to know how much you have been whipped, before I think of buying," said the planter. Pompey, who had been ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... started away for the new field, six hundred miles distant. They had a regular cavalcade of carriages and horsemen, for Colonna was a very rich man and everything was his for the asking. They traveled by a circuitous route, so as to visit many schools, monasteries and towns on the way. Everywhere ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... attempt to do it would inevitably introduce a confusion, if possible, more horrid than the present. There is no way to make a connection between the original constituent and the representative, but by the circuitous means which may lead the candidate to apply in the first instance to the primary electors, in order that by their authoritative instructions (and something more perhaps) these primary electors may force the two succeeding bodies of electors to make a choice ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... were off indeed, speeding on to the busy wharf, scene of many a "lark" in Dan's boyish past. Here the great steamboat was awaiting them: for, although the route was longer and more circuitous, Father Regan had decided it best for his young travellers to ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... Thorndike's opinion, by a comparison between some of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays and those he calls the "romances" of Shakspere,—"Cymbeline," "The Tempest," and "Winter's Tale." The argument is circuitous, but must be carefully followed in order to estimate the validity and weight of ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... startle many of the Protestants of Ireland. There are good landlords—never a better than the late Lord Downshire, or the living and beloved Lord Roden. But there are too many of another state of feeling and action. There are estates in the north where the screw is never withdrawn from its circuitous and oppressive work. Tenant-right is an unfortunate and delusive affair, simply because it is almost invariably used to the landlord's advantage. Here we have an election in prospect, and in many counties no farmer will be permitted to think or ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... down to the sea coast, near the mouth of the river, and remained there a month; after that they returned, and saw the footsteps of Captain Buchan's party made on their way down the river. The Indians, then, by a circuitous route, went to the lake, and to the spot where the body of Mary March was left—they opened the coffin and took out the clothes that were left with her. The coffin was allowed to remain suspended as they found it for a month, it was then placed on the ground, where, it ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad

... but took to flight at once. He climbed by the angles of the terraces, and saw the diligence far below tugging up the circuitous road. He ran at full speed; no human being was abroad besides, but yet there were other footfalls in the snow, other sounds, as of a man breathing hard and pursued upon the lonely mountain. The fugitive turned—once, ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend



Words linked to "Circuitous" :   indirect, roundabout



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