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Circumstance   /sˈərkəmstˌæns/   Listen
Circumstance

noun
1.
A condition that accompanies or influences some event or activity.
2.
The set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation or event.  Synonyms: context, setting.
3.
Information that should be kept in mind when making a decision.  Synonyms: condition, consideration.
4.
Formal ceremony about important occasions.



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"Circumstance" Quotes from Famous Books



... the pompous priest abuse his flock! How dare the lisping cockney revile Yorkshire!" was her sole observation on the circumstance, as ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... his own scenic point of view. Even then it would be neither superfluous nor impertinent for the manager to adjure the audience to piece out the "imperfections" of the scenery with their "thoughts" or imagination. The spectator's "imaginary puissance" is, practically in every circumstance, the key-stone of the ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... my right mind),—he muttered, as he lay down on his hard, short bed. He tried to assert that he was ill when, a few days later, Lavretzky came for him in a calash; but Feodor Ivanitch went to him, in his room, and persuaded him. The circumstance which operated most powerfully of all on Lemm was, that Lavretzky had ordered a piano to be sent to his country-house from the town: a piano for his—Lemm's—use. Together they went to the Kalitins', and spent the evening, but not so agreeably as on the former occasion. ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... things they see, and rejoice in the righteous and unrighteous are detained, it is necessary to speak of it. Hades is a place in the world not regularly finished; a subterraneous region, wherein the light of this world does not shine; from which circumstance, that in this region the light does not shine, it cannot be but there must be in it perpetual darkness. This region is allotted as a place of custody for souls, ill which angels are appointed as guardians to them, who distribute ...
— An Extract out of Josephus's Discourse to The Greeks Concerning Hades • Flavius Josephus

... represented the wreck of more than one kind of distinction. The face must once have been exceptionally handsome, before an underlying commonness and coarseness had been brought out or emphasized by developments of character and circumstance. The mouth was now loose and heavy. The hazel eyes had lost their youth, and were disfigured by the premature wrinkles of either ill-health or dissipation. None the less, a certain carriage of the head and shoulders, a certain magnificence in the whole general outline of the man, especially ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... alterations, would be a most affecting opening of a Tragedy. In the second act the scene of Iphigenia is also extremely beautiful and interesting; but the other parts of the act have no dramatick merit. The circumstance so much insisted on of Clytemnestra's dressing (tho' I believe in Euripides) wd. appear ridiculous on our stage: and the scenes of Memnon and Achilles are weak & illwritten, tho' the entrance of Achilles at that juncture might afford a ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison

... replied the doctor. "With a month's nursing he will be all right. I left him writing to Monsieur Mouilleron to request him to set your son at liberty, madame," he added, turning to Agathe. "Oh! Max is a fine fellow. I told him what a state you were in, and he then remembered a circumstance which goes to prove that the assassin was not your son; the man wore list shoes, whereas it is certain that Monsieur Joseph left ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... all this we have heard even too much, thanks to the picturesqueness which has recommended the milieu of Monsieur Taine to writers more mindful of literary effect than of the philosophy of art. But there is another historical circumstance whose influence, in differentiating Greek sculpture from the sculpture of mediaeval Italy, can scarcely be overrated. It is that, whereas in ancient Greece sculpture was the important, fully developed art, and painting merely its shadow; ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... This circumstance recalls the familiar story of two comrades in the ranks, the one apparently unmoved, the other pale and trembling. The first said: "Why, you seem to be scared!" "Yes," replied the other; "if you were half as scared as I am, you would ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... of the understanding prevalent among the suffering social layers and circles, and upon the measure of freedom of motion that they enjoy. In both respects, woman stands, through custom and education, as well as the freedom allowed her by law, behind the workingman. To this, another circumstance is added. Conditions, lasting through a long series of generations, finally grow into custom; heredity and education then cause such conditions to appear on both sides as "natural." Hence it comes that, even to-day, woman in ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... wishes to look deeply into the nature of the human mind and to search out its inner sources of delight, he will find there something of strength conjoined with something of weakness, and out of this circumstance arises variety and irregularity. The mind's vexation with a continual relaxation derives from its strength, while from its weakness stems the fact that it cannot bear a continual straining. Hence it is that nothing pleases the ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole

... expressions like that: "I didn't ask for"—whatever circumstance or obligation it might be that was irksome to her. "Not traditions—precedents!" The watchword of the school was strangely to be traced in her attitude, still in her childish years, towards a hundred commonplaces ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... rapidly the ruin of our favourite and long-cherished spot was going on. But we remembered that the calamity came from the hand of God; and seeing that no human power could avail, we prepared ourselves to watch every circumstance of the spectacle." In the morning the place was seen cleared completely of shrubs, trees, and soil; and the space so lately filled with a wilderness of verdure was now one vast and ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... down, and hands clasped about her knees, unconscious, as it seemed, of all the world outside. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and who shall say what expiation she may not have made for sin in that dull trance of pain which took no note of circumstance, kept ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... my brother, always well informed of what is passing in the families of the nobility of his kingdom, was not ignorant of the transactions of our Court. He was particularly curious to learn everything that happened with us, and knew every minute circumstance that I have now related. Thinking this a favourable occasion to wreak his vengeance on me for having been the means of my brother acquiring so much reputation by the peace he had brought about, he made use of the accident that happened in our Court to withdraw me from the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... back not only to the time when it was last an impregnate ovum, but to that earlier date when it was the very beginning of life at all, which same creature it still is, whether as man or ovum, and hence imbued, so far as time and circumstance allow, with all its memories. Surely this is no strained hypothesis; for the mere fact that the germ, from the earliest moment that we are able to detect it, appears to be so perfectly familiar with its business, acts with so little hesitation and so little introspection or reference to principles, ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... despair of your life, and our trembling hearts dread to hear the tidings of your murder. For Christ's sake, who has thus far protected you,—write to us, as to His handmaids and yours, every circumstance of your present dangers. I and my sisters alone remain of all who were your friends. Let us be sharers of your joys and sorrows. Sympathy brings some relief, and a load laid on many shoulders is lighter. And write the more ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... appeared that Hamilton had a majority of forty. The consequence was that about twenty of the defeated party instantly passed over to the victors, [291] At Westminster such a defection would have been thought strange; but it seems to have caused little surprise at Edinburgh. It is a remarkable circumstance that the same country should have produced in the same age the most wonderful specimens of both extremes of human nature. No class of men mentioned in history has ever adhered to a principle with more inflexible pertinacity than was found among the Scotch Puritans. Fine and imprisonment, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... one part of the year will have revolved before the orders can be received by the respective commanders; so that tranquillity will be established in Europe, while hostilities continue in America and in the Indies. Besides, all the powers remaining armed, the slightest circumstance may occasion ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... to these remains, though at some distance upon the hills, is Sairi, hence the place is named Sook Sairi, from the circumstance of a "market" of cattle and general goods being held there periodically for the district around. But why should this spot above all others in the long-deserted plain be used for such a market? Is it not a traditional continuance of some remote custom in connexion with the importance conferred by ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... would be as well you did not meet. I should advise your taking steps at once to remove your nephews from Sandbourne, and also, while you have money pay the quarter in advance, as you do not know how matters may turn. It was a most fortunate circumstance that the house occupied by Miss Trant was purchased in her name, as Mr. Liddell cannot touch that, and if she is at all the woman you suppose her to be, she will pay you interest for your money. If you could only persuade your cousin to let you see and make friends ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... make him admit that the wheels would slip on the smooth rails, but he knew that they would bite without teeth. One of the committee said, "Suppose that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not that be a very awkward circumstance?" To which the countryman had a ready reply, "Very awkward—for the cow!" The opposition, which was largely animated by the existing canal interest, ventured some views which the experience of the next five years was to make most ridiculous. They declared that the plan to carry the ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... next morning Paul was not at all ashamed to relate the entire circumstance at the breakfast table. He felt amply repaid when he saw the look of pride upon his mother's face, as she turned her eyes, filled with unshed tears, upon him ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... contented to know the effect while we remain in ignorance of the cause. Now, to show that you do not stand alone in such feelings, I shall, with your permission, relate an event which lately occurred to myself; on which occasion I was horribly annoyed by a circumstance in itself perfectly harmless and trivial, and which gave me much more disturbance than the taciturn lady who has just left us has given to you. My adventure, in truth, was attended with such extraordinary results, both ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various

... establishment and an excellent table, a rare circumstance with his poetic brothers, who are rarely favourites of Plutus as he was. He was then sixty years old, and had a hundred and twenty thousand francs a year. It has been said maliciously that this great man enriched ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... is on one side inaccessible on account of the sea, and on the other on account of the sheer cliffs which rise there on every hand; indeed it is from this circumstance that the city has received the name it bears. And it has only one approach on the level ground, and that not very broad; for exceedingly high cliffs overhang it on either side. At that point those who formerly ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... say or do, he should not try to conceal such a circumstance, for if the like or anything more important had occurred to him (the speaker) he would not have ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... constitution rose superior in Pen's case to all the evils of circumstance and environment, and one afternoon the old clear look came back ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... France, that they will not emigrate, they necessarily settle down in a gradually aggregating mass, and are driven to the very last shifts for existence. Only two things have saved the nation from anarchy: the remarkable circumstance of few families consisting of more than two, or at most three children, any more being deemed a culpable monstrosity; and the draughting of young men for the army. In other words, the war-demon is an engine to keep the population in check; for if ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... fallen out of fashion as an exercise. There were those, too, whose houses of glass, adroitly given the air of being respectable conservatories, engendered in the dwellers therein a leniency towards other vitreous constructions. As a result of this last circumstance, there were times when quite stately equipages drew up before Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' door and visiting cards bearing the names of acquaintances much to be desired were left upon the salver presented by Jennings. Again, as a result of this circumstance, Feather employed ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... take John with them and put him on the stage at Lawrence for Sycamore Ridge. Then Ward's letter continued: "It is all so horrible—this curse of war; sometimes I think it is worse than the curse of slavery. There is no 'pomp and circumstance of glorious war.' Men died screaming in agony, or dumb with fear. They were covered with dirt, and when they were dead they merged into the landscape like inanimate things. What vital difference is there between a living man and a dead man, that one stands out in a ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... unexpected reverse, and how bitterly he regretted not having weighed anchor the moment his prisoners had been landed. Regret however, was now unavailing, and dismissing this consideration for a while, he reverted to the strange circumstance of the spiking of his gun, and the mocking cheers, which had burst from the lips of his enemies, on the attempt to discharge it. This reflection drew from him a remark to ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... The fairest, purest, oldest of created things, passing untainted through pollution, turning gloomy night into day, and imparting their varied beauties to earth and air and ocean, this of all material elements was the fittest symbol of God. A circumstance this to which we probably owe the ancient practice of worshipping the Divinity by fire, and certainly such figures as these: "God is light;" "He clothes himself with light as with a garment;" "He dwelleth in light that ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie

... returned the other in a gentle voice, and almost perfect English. "May I ask to what happy circumstance—at least, I hope it is a happy one—I owe the honour of making the acquaintance of the gentleman who has succeeded in mystifying all the ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... Jose, who's nursed half the kiddies at the Mission one time or another?" She shook her head. "Besides, you only know the things Susan's handed you out of her fool head. And when Susan talks, truth isn't a circumstance. I wouldn't say but what John Kars hasn't got shot up at all—till I ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... the possibility of a man flying by muscular effort, however, but stated that 'the flight of a strong man by great muscular exertion, though a curious and interesting circumstance, inasmuch as it will probably be the means of ascertaining finis power and supplying the basis whereon to improve it, would ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... was made, and it was found that the ship was laden with Canary wine, a circumstance which gave great pleasure to the English, who looked forward to a long bout of good drinking. While they were searching the ship, they had paid but little attention to the Spanish crew. Presently, however, they heard the sound of oars at some ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... all the numerous ills that hurt our peace, That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish Beyond comparison the worst are those By our own folly, or our guilt brought on: In ev'ry other circumstance, the mind Has this to say, "It was no deed of mine:" But, when to all the evil of misfortune This sting is added, "Blame thy foolish self!" Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse, The torturing, gnawing consciousness ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... and Protagoras, and the interest of the piece consists in the contrast of opinions. The confusion caused by the irony of Socrates, who, if he is true to his character, cannot say anything of his own knowledge, is increased by the circumstance that in the Theaetetus and some other dialogues he is occasionally playing both parts himself, and even charging his own arguments with unfairness. In the Theaetetus he is designedly held back from arriving at a conclusion. For we cannot suppose that Plato conceived a definition ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... to admit Jacques innocent, was to take the glory out of his own speech, and turn the sting of his argument against himself. Besides, if he produced the witness who had secretly given him the information, he should be self-condemned, for he could not conceal that he had been aware of the circumstance ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... we proceed any further, I must here insert a very remarkable circumstance, for the comfort and joy of God's children, who rejoice with the holy and blessed angels over the repentance of one poor great sinner, more than over ninety and nine just men, who need no repentance. The old man and his wife with whom we lodged had several ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... Macaulay's conception of human nature, the basenesses and the excellencies of mankind are no more than accidents of circumstance, the results of national feeling and national capabilities; and cunning and treachery, and lying, and such other "natural defences of the weak against the strong," are in themselves neither good nor bad, except as thinking makes them so. They are the virtues ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... mere body of the tyrant, the odds are that the soul in the latter will be awakened, and the girl would stand an infinitely greater chance of her honour being protected than in any other conceivable circumstance, barring of course, that of her own ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi

... "It is this circumstance of grouping the words under different heads which gives these vocabularies their value as illustrations of the conditions and manners of society. It is evident that the compiler gave, in each case, the names of all such things as habitually presented themselves to his view, or, in other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... he had spent an hour or so of the previous day. He had been able to put the lie from him with a normal moral impulse. He did not appreciate the turpitude of perjury. He esteemed it only a natural lie invested with pomp and circumstance; and the New Testament on which he should be sworn meant no more to his unlettered conscience than the horn-book, since he knew as little of its contents. But a lie is a skulking thing, and he had ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... aware that it was moving at all. From the other side of the lake the houseboat appeared to be standing still, until finally it disappeared altogether. He wondered a little over this at the time, then forgot all about the circumstance until later. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... There was a sharp ring. Mrs. Edes hung up her receiver. She thought slowly that it was a strange circumstance that Mr. von Rosen should have a fainting or dead young Syrian girl in his house. Then she rose from the divan, holding her head very stiffly, and began to dress. She had just enough time to dress leisurely and catch the train. She called on one of the two maids ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... One circumstance must be observed by all who travel in Mexican territory. There is not one human being or passing object to be seen that is not in itself a picture, or which would not form a good subject for the pencil. The Indian women with their plaited hair, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... Hall, Hollingshed, and Stowe say not a word of Richard being the person who put the sentence in execution; but, on the contrary, they all say he openly resisted the murder of Clarence: all too record another circumstance, which is perfectly ridiculous that Clarence was drowned in a barrel or butt of malmsey. Whoever can believe that a butt of wine was the engine of his death, may believe that Richard helped him into it, and kept him down till he was suffocated. But the ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... this, and feeling intensely unhappy, the elder Senor Martinez came in with a candle in his hand to look after me. It then appeared that it was past two o'clock in the morning, and to the circumstance that I had thus slept six or seven hours in succession I probably owed the fact that I no longer felt any physical indisposition; but morally I suffered all the more from a ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie

... thing about my first sea voyage that I remember with pleasure is the circumstance of the little birds that, during the first few days out, took refuge on the steamer. The first afternoon, just as we were losing sight of land, a delicate little wood-bird, the black and white creeping warbler,—having lost its reckoning in making perhaps its first southern ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... meet. So thoroughly were the original Bulgars submerged in the Slavs that when their sons set out from the district between Varna, Rustchuk and the Balkans, proceeding west and south, they met with no resistance from the unorganized Slavs of Moesia and Thrace, owing to the circumstance that these latter did not feel that the new arrivals were strangers. In fact, says the Professor, there are in the present Bulgarian people far fewer and far fainter traces of the original Bulgars than there are of the old Thracians, as also of the Greeks and ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... "This isn't a circumstance to what I can do in the culinary line," remarked Billy Brackett, modestly. "To know me at my best, you ought to be around when I make biscuit. My heavy biscuit are simply monuments of the baker's art. They are warranted to withstand any climate, and defy the ravaging tooth of time. ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe

... the papal chair, of the family of the Barbarini, nicknamed the Mosche, or Flies, from the circumstance of bees being their armorial bearing. The Emperor having exhausted all his money in endeavouring to defend the church against Gustavus Adolphus, the great King of Sweden, who was bent on its destruction, applied in his necessity to the Pope for a loan of money. The ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... statement made by him to Willard, at Saco, as deposed by the latter, he mentioned a circumstance, namely, the straining of his leg, which, if not true, could easily have been disproved, that demonstrated the effort to have been made, and the feat accomplished, by the natural exercise of muscular power. If preternatural force had aided him, it ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... reliance. I found many incidents grave and gay and beautiful, and have determined to love him very much. In this romancing of the gentle affections we are children evermore. We forget the age of life, the barriers so thin yet so adamantean of space and circumstance; and I have had the rarest poems self-singing in my head of brave men that work and conspire in a perfect intelligence across seas and conditions—and meet at last. I heartily pray that the Sea and its vineyards may cheer with ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... a sound of genuineness, very pleasant; and George began to forget his annoyance with her father. This annoyance of his had not been alleviated by the circumstance that neither of the seats of the old sewing-machine was designed for three people, but when his neighbour spoke thus gratefully, he no longer minded the crowding—in fact, it pleased him so much that he began to wish the old ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... psychological veracity but also that the convention itself is inherently more realistic than ordinary narrative: 'Romances in general ... are wholly improbable; because they suppose the History to be written after the series of events is closed by the catastrophe: A circumstance which implies a strength of memory beyond all example and ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... Calmady made no response. For the moment she was outraged to the point of standing apart, even from her child. For a moment, even motherhood went down before purely personal feeling—and this, by the irony of circumstance, immediately after motherhood had made supreme confession of immutability. But remembering her husband's death, remembering the source of all her child's misfortune, it appeared to her indecent, a wanton insult to all her past suffering, that such a proposition should be made ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... ingratitude of the sinner is sometimes a special sin; and sometimes it is not, but a circumstance arising from all mortal sins in common committed against God. For a sin takes its species according to the sinner's intention, wherefore the Philosopher says (Ethic. v, 2) that "he who commits adultery in order to steal is a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... period to be distant three miles from the frontier, the Liddel water, should seek "to drive a prey from the Ettrick, far through the bounds of his neighbours and foes, Grahams, Armstrongs, Scotts, and Elliots, is a ridiculously absurd circumstance. ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... than an Indian ryot knows of cabinet councils—are still very few. Those who know what the few can do, and through what processes of training and self-discipline they have passed in pursuit of interior ideals, of which when attained astral clairvoyance is but an individual circumstance, are many, but still a small minority as compared with the modern cultivated world. But as time goes on, and within a measurable future, some of us have reason to feel sure that the numbers of those who are competent to exercise astral clairvoyance will increase ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

... at first he wandered about his strait territory. Then he lent a helping hand with the wreckage. His own life was at stake as well as theirs, and whether they wished it or not he could not continue to stand by an idler. Circumstance and the sea forced him into comradeship with men of evil, and as long as it lasted he must make the best of it. So he fell to with such a will that it drew ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... overcharged or exaggerated. We are conscious in it of a constitutional infirmity. We perceive an absence of healthy power of reaction against moral shock. Such shocks are experienced in many unavoidable forms by all save the dullest natures, when they first come into contact with the sharp tooth of outer circumstance. Indeed, a man must be either miraculously happy in his experiences, or exceptionally obtuse in observing and feeling, or else be the creature of base and cynical ideals, if life does not to the end continue to ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... chaos, conflict, and failure incident to such stampedes, order and system at last triumphed and the richest copper mines of the New World were uncovered. Then came the unexpected finding of the mammoth iron-ore beds by William A. Burt, inventor of the solar compass. The circumstance of this discovery is of such national importance that a contemporary description by a member of Burt's party which was surveying a line near Marquette, Michigan, ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... in Pannonia and Dalmatia. Tiberius' sterling qualities as a soldier gained him the friendship of many of his officers, and Velleius by his energy and ability secured that of Tiberius in return. The last circumstance of his life that he records is the election to the praetorship of his brother and himself as candidates of Caesar ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... cried for anger; yet she did not shew less kindness to the object of this vexatious circumstance: she held him in her arms while she sat at table, and repeatedly said to him, (though he had not the sense to thank her) "That she would always ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... fatalist by profession or philosophy, but Miss Gore had made me pause and I had resolved to see the thing through, trying to believe as she believed that Jerry could only be toughened to the usages of life by the rigor of circumstance. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... perceive, in perusing this work, that he is often supposed to have previously acquired some slight knowledge of natural philosophy, a circumstance, indeed, which appears very desirable. The author's original intention was to commence this work by a small tract, explaining, on a plan analogous to this, the most essential rudiments of that science. This idea she has since abandoned; but the manuscript was ready, and might, perhaps, have been ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... being the same which we had seen in the port the evening of our arrival. They were well furnished with troops and artillery, and had directed themselves for our galleon and the other ship, which were alone at sea. In this circumstance God afforded us two favors: the first was, that the same evening after they had discharged the provisions and the troops I have spoken of, at midnight the galleon and the other vessel put to sea without being perceived by the enemy; the one for Spain, and the other ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... friend. Girard not only winked at this, but himself spoke freely to Cadiere of such matters as the pregnancy of Mdlle. Gravier. He wanted her to ask him to Ollioules, to calm his irritation, to persuade him that such a circumstance might be a delusion of the Devil's causing, which ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... place, dialects are variations that spring up under the stress of local circumstance in the familiar every-day unconscious use of a common mother tongue among people of the same race and inhabiting the same district. Now, these are the very circumstances in which an auxiliary international ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... called out on country service. Patriots, philosophers, and diners out, rusticating by royal proclamation, and under the surveillance of the police, would not come with a temper very suitable to our purpose. An experiment of that sort was made under more likely circumstance, and failed;—as all experiments must, which seek to remove the symptoms, instead of trying to act upon the cause. It was in vain that James I. pulled down the new houses as fast as they were built; and that Charles I. ordered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various

... Captain Yorke, with his ignorance and indifference to city ways and manners, had more than once drawn public notice upon him; the episode of Daisy as a peanut-vender, with the old sailor as her aider and abetter, being but a trifling circumstance compared to some others; and Mrs. Yorke was in constant terror lest he should in some way make himself more notorious than would ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... of the thirteenth century is so like that of France that it is often difficult to determine its real nationality. There is occasionally some feature which we know from other sources to be English, or some circumstance in the history of the MS. which fixes its origin, as, for example, in the Additional MS. 24686, known as the Tenison Psalter. Sir E.M. Thompson also describes this MS. in the Bibliographica, i. 397. But it was previously described ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... of a soul surprised by passion and brought hard up against an opposing force which dashes it back upon itself with a flare and explosion of self-revealment. Nor shall we ever be able to foretell just how small a circumstance, just how slight an exigency, will suffice to bring on the great change. The shifting of a smile to the gloom of a frown, the snap of a string on the lute of our imagination, just at the point when a rich melody is culminating; the waving of a hand, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... too many leaders who have pursued the Fabian policy of watchful waiting, who have been the creatures of circumstance, who have been the sport of chance, who have been determined by their environment, and who have been dependent upon the turn or ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris

... passed the nights in a state of feverish anxiety; sleep fled from his pillow; and for more than a year before his death we always find the absence of rest assigned as either the cause which produced, or a circumstance which ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... and reared in harmony with the law will be the future masters of the earth. They will need neither gold nor influence to win in the race of life—their innate powers of body and soul will make them victors over every circumstance. The offspring of alcoholism, drug poisoning and sexual perversity will cut but sorry figures in comparison with the manhood and womanhood of a true and ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... Moses, although important on account of their scriptures and their religion, were not remarkable for civilization. They were incapable of building their own Temple without aid from the Tyrians. Moreover, there is not any where either a fact, a suggestion, or a circumstance of any kind to show that the "lost ten tribes" ever left the countries of Southwestern Asia, where they dwelt after the destruction of their kingdom. They were "lost" to the Jewish nation because they rebelled, apostatized, and, after their ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... that a writer whose object was a melioration of condition to the common people, and their deliverance from oppression, poverty, wretchedness, to the numberless blessings of upright and equal government, should be reviled, persecuted, and burned in effigy, with every circumstance of insult and execration, by these very objects of his benevolent intentions, in every corner of the kingdom?" After the execution of Louis XVI., for whose life Paine pleaded so earnestly,—while in England he was denounced as ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... it came into existence through a very unobtrusive differentiation. Difficult as it may be to conceive a priori how the advance from melody to harmony could take place without a sudden leap, it is none the less true that it did so. The circumstance which prepared the way for it was the employment of two choirs singing alternately the same air. Afterwards it became the practice—very possibly first suggested by a mistake—for the second ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... freshness, which only we Norsemen understand. Add to these strong effects of nature the loneliness of life in a wide tract of land, sparingly populated by a still sparingly educated people, and then think of the poet's soul which must beat against these barriers of circumstance and barriers of spirit! Yet the barriers that hold him in as often help as hinder his striving. These conditions explain what our literature amply proves; that so far, the only poetical form which has reached perfection in Sweden is the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... distance of a quarter of a mile from the sea, a piece of whalebone two feet ten inches in length and two inches in breadth, having a number of circular holes very neatly and regularly perforated along one of its edges, which had undoubtedly formed part of an Esquimaux sledge. This circumstance affording a proof of the Esquimaux having visited this part of the coast at no very distant period, it was concluded that the piece of bark above alluded to had been brought hither by these people. From the appearance of the whalebone, it might have been lying there ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... Then she saw that her neighbour was unpleasantly conscious of her observation. This vexed her vaguely, perhaps because even so trifling a circumstance was like a thin link between them. She snapped it by ceasing to look at or think of him. The window was down. A delicate and warm breeze drifted in, coming from the thickets of the palms. In flashing ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... third or fourth on the island—Barrington Cowles and I went outside the cottage before retiring to rest, to enjoy a little fresh air, for our room was small, and the rough lamp caused an unpleasant odour. How well I remember every little circumstance in connection with that night! It promised to be tempestuous, for the clouds were piling up in the north-west, and the dark wrack was drifting across the face of the moon, throwing alternate belts of light and shade upon the rugged surface of the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... occur to the average man that they are anything more than fortunate persons who emerged from the crowd, and who by and by may be lost in the crowd again. What they have done, others may do when their time comes. The inequalities are inequalities of circumstance and ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... person, object, or circumstance is unique, it arouses an unusual degree of interest. The first person to accomplish something out of the ordinary, the first event of its kind, the first ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... of extremity, to the right of keeping the city gates and maintaining a garrison in the citadel. Unfortunately, Klosterheim was not sui juris, or on the roll of free cities of the empire, but of the nature of an appanage in the family of the Landgrave of X——; and this circumstance had produced a double perplexity in the politics of the city; for the late Landgrave, who had been assassinated in a very mysterious manner upon a hunting party, benefited to the fullest extent both ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... not a little strengthened, by seriously considering with herself the great abatement to all her possible happiness, which must have been made by the humiliating circumstance of forcing herself into a family which held all connection with her as disgraceful. She desired not to be the wife even of Delvile upon such terms, for the more she esteemed and admired him, the more anxious she became for his honour, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... Never, never—every word and look of yours is stamped on my memory, never to be effaced. I cannot forget a transaction in which YOU bore a part: I cannot forget the scene that passed between us, every circumstance is too precious and sacred. As to PARDON"—he took her extended hand and pressed it respectfully to his lips—"I would to Heaven, dear lady, that you had in truth injured me much, that I might have much to forgive you. Alas! I have ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... can tell what effects the words may have had upon him. I do not believe he ever mentioned the circumstance to his wife. At all events, there was no change in her manner to Miss Clare. Indeed, I could not help fancying that a little halo of quiet reverence now encircled the love in every look ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... natural gradations gave me an ascendancy over all not greatly older than myself: over all with a single exception. This exception was found in the person of a scholar who, although no relation, bore the same Christian and surname as myself,—a circumstance, in fact, little remarkable; for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of those every-day appellations which seem by prescriptive right to have been, time out of mind, the common property of the mob. In this narrative I have therefore designated myself as William Wilson,—a ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... doubled the Cape of Norway the 5th of May, directed his course along the northern coasts toward Nova Zembla. But he there found the sea as full of ice as he had found it in the preceding year, so that he lost the hope of effecting anything during the season. This circumstance, and the cold which some of his men who had been in the East Indies could not bear, caused quarrels among the crew, they being partly English, partly Dutch; upon which the captain, Henry Hudson, laid before them two propositions. ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier

... reproduction, there is one, perhaps the brightest yet seen, which deserves our notice. It is the apparent influence of the male first having fruitful intercourse with a female upon her subsequent offspring by other males. Attention was first directed to this by the following circumstance, related by Sir Everard Home: A young chestnut mare, seven-eighths Arabian, belonging to the Earl of Morton, was covered in 1815 by a Quagga, which is a species of wild ass from Africa, and marked somewhat in the style of a Zebra. The mare was covered but once by the Quagga, ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... over the delicious meal, but a curious constraint seemed to rest upon the captain and Chris. Once Walter surprised them exchanging glances full of a strange, expectant uneasiness. The circumstance aroused his curiosity, but he refrained from asking any questions, deciding that the captain would explain the trouble in his ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... a Persian work written in the 13th century, and rendered into Urdu about 80 years ago, under the title of "Bagh o Bahar" (Garden of Spring), of which an English translation was made by L. F. Smith, which was afterwards improved by Duncan Forbes. There the images are of monkeys—circumstance which seems to point to an Indian origin of the story—but the hero falls in love with the spotless girl, and the jinn-king takes possession of her, though he is ultimately compelled to give her up.—The fact of this story of the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... the Sixty-fifth Congress was marked by another circumstance of unusual interest, the seating of the first woman member, the Hon. Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who made a speech from the balcony of our headquarters on the morning of April 2 and was then escorted to the Capitol by Mrs. Catt and other members of our association in a cavalcade ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be effected. All I dare hope is, that, if in accepting this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the O.P. to the front line, he was caught in one of those bursts of hate and separated from the telephonists who accompanied him. On the conclusion of the shoot, a search was made for him, but he was nowhere to be found. They returned to the Battery and reported the circumstance to the B.C., who, much concerned, speedily organised a search-party, and set out for the scene of action. After a couple of hours weary tramping, they came upon a Company Headquarters in the front line, and there, comfortably ensconced in an easy-chair, with a large whisky-and-soda by his ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... generations of experience appear to have proved, that, with that organisation which constitutes the German, goes an unique aptitude for music. There is always the possibility of mistaking the result of training and external circumstance for inherent tendency, but when we consider the passion for music which the German has shown, and when we consider that the greatest musicians the world has seen, from Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart to Wagner, have been of that race, it appears highly probable that such a correlation between ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... Naples should enter Rome together in a body. The foolish vanity of Piero, who wanted to display the splendor of his own equipage without rivals, induced him to refuse this proposal, and led to a similar refusal on the part of Ferdinand. This trivial circumstance confirmed the suspicions of Lodovico, who, naturally subtle and intriguing, thought that he discerned a deep political design in what was really little more than the personal conceit of a broad-shouldered simpleton.[1] He already ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 28): "Since one cannot do good to all, we ought to consider those chiefly who by reason of place, time or any other circumstance, by a kind of chance are more ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... "Galt's Life of Byron,"—a work wholly unworthy of the respectable name it bears,—I may be allowed to adduce here a testimony on this subject, which has been omitted in its proper place,[4] but which will be more than sufficient to set the idle calumny at rest. The circumstance here alluded to may be most clearly, perhaps, communicated to my readers through the medium of the following extract from a letter, which Mr. Barry (the friend and banker of Lord Byron) did me the favour of addressing to me soon after his Lordship's ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... thought I recognised in the man before me the officer in charge of the party of Hessians who so nearly finished Simeon and me when General Pigot came up to our rescue. I asked the colonel if he recollected the circumstance. He ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... proa, who delivered it secretly. The men made their escape from Parlow at the time of a feast, early in the evening, and arrived at Dungally at twelve o'clock the next day. They were received with great rejoicing by the natives, who immediately brought them plenty of victuals. And this fortunate circumstance revived their hopes of reaching some European settlement, after ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... one little circumstance, however, that interfered slightly with their enjoyment of that perfect freedom from care which ought to characterize a honeymoon. The people who owned the house and occupied the lower floor had rented the upper part to Mrs. Braboy in person, ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... Decuerint. Sallust might have written decuerit in the singular. Compare Zumpt, S 226. [278] Quum interim Metellus—conspicitur, is the apodosis. 'Then, in the meantime, Metellus appears.' Respecting this use of quum with the present indicative, see Zumpt, S 580, 2; for the circumstance of interim being used here, where we might expect subito, does not alter the case, and only expresses that Jugurtha was yet engaged in encouraging his army when Metellus became visible. [279] Incerti is here ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)



Words linked to "Circumstance" :   environment, setting, conditions, circumstantial, ceremonial, case, ceremony, context, justification, observance, information, consideration, playing field, status, hinge, event, condition, ceremonial occasion



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