"Incidental" Quotes from Famous Books
... instance—it is essentially a long glance, working steadily over a tract of years, alone of its kind in Dickens's fiction. It was the one book in which he rejected the intrigue of action for the centre of his design—did not reject it altogether, indeed, but accepted it as incidental only. Always elsewhere it is his chosen intrigue, his "plot," that makes the shape of his book. Beginning with a deceptive air of intending mainly a novel of manners and humours, as Stevenson once pointed out, in Bleak House or ... — The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... authorship of the great philosophic poems which are the legacy of the Elizabethan Age to us, is an incidental question in this inquiry, and is incidentally treated here. The discovery of the authorship of these works was the necessary incident to that more thorough inquiry into their nature and design, of which the views contained in this volume are the result. At a certain stage ... — The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... between two worlds that have little in common. There is much of the improbable in the account of the Transome estate in Felix Holt, while the closing scenes in the life of Tito Melema in Romola are more tragical than natural. Yet these defects are incidental to her method and art rather than actual blemishes on her work. For the most part, her work is thoroughly unitary, cause leads naturally into effect, and there is a moral development of character ... — George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... that he has heard all this before; but it was never till now recommended by such a blaze of embellishments, or such sweetness of melody. The vigorous contraction of some thoughts, the luxuriant amplification of others, the incidental illustrations, and sometimes the dignity, sometimes the softness of the verses, enchain philosophy, suspend criticism, and oppress judgment by overpowering pleasure. This is true of many paragraphs; ... — Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... has been the property of the Roman Catholic family of Huddleston, for some centuries; and assuming its present appearance early in the reign of Queen Mary, has, with only the trifling alterations incidental to necessary repairs, retained it; for the Huddlestons, inhabiting Sawston Hall, and residing there in each generation, highly respected as country gentlemen, either from the extravagance of some of the family, or from a taste for old associations, have been prevented from altering ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
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