"Roundabout" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the house early in the afternoon. Unable to go to the Hill of the Muses, or up the river-road, she had taken a long, roundabout path around the outskirts of the village and so reached the hills back of the vineyard. The air of the valley seemed to suffocate her; she longed to climb to the silent places, where the four winds ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... ought to be done to make the study of language easy, interesting, and practical. Such a work is here attempted; but it remains with the public to say whether these plain philosophical principles shall be sustained, matured, perfected, and adopted in schools, or the old roundabout course of useless and ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... nothing except what flattered his own passion, believed that Charlotte, in these words, was alluding to her previous widowed state, and, in a roundabout way, was making a suggestion for a separation; so that he answered, with a laugh, "Why not? all we want is to come to an understanding." But he found himself sorely enough undeceived, as Charlotte continued, "And we have now a choice of opportunities ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... when Iley announced to Judith that she had word from some of Pap Spiller's kin who were living in Garyville, that acquaintances of theirs from Hepzibah, coming down to the circus at the larger town, had given them roundabout and vague news of Huldah. The girl had delayed in Hepzibah but a few days. The story as it came up on the mountain was that she had married "some feller from Big Turkey Track, and ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... he went on, examining the tint of the powder, "for it isn't the 'Rachel' shade that brunettes use. Now up to that point everything had been going nicely, but then and there I spoiled it. Moved by I know not what folly, I wrote her a yet more roundabout letter, which, however, was very pressing. In attempting to fan her flame I kindled myself—for a spectre—and at once I ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... "It seems a roundabout way, but I think you would find it far the safest, for there are no armies operating upon that line. The population, at any rate as you get south, are for us, and there are, so far as I have heard, very few of ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... a small matter. The tall man, whom the ex-engineer had unmistakably recognized at the moment of train-forsaking as Rankin Hallock, was doubtless on his way to Flemister's head-quarters at the foot of the western slope. Why he should take the roundabout route up the old spur and across the mountain, when he might have gone on the train to Little Butte station and so have saved the added distance and the hard climb, was a question which Judson answered briefly: for some reason of his own, Hallock did not wish to be seen going openly to the ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... the slums, the docks, and the streets of Eastern cities. But now, as he strode over to the saloon, he forgot that he was a writer of stories. A boyish longing possessed him to see much of the life roundabout, even to the farthest, faint ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... hers left no room for anything but an amazing thrill of pure gladness. She was happy in his arms, content to rest there, to feel his heart beating against hers, to be quit of all the uncertainties, all the useless regrets. By a roundabout way she had come to her own, and it thrilled her to her finger tips. She could not quite comprehend it, or herself. But she was glad, weeping with gladness, straining her man to her, kissing his face, murmuring incoherent words against ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... bearing the name of Chatidoolts (mentioned by Vancouver as a youth), was found to be able to interpret some of the signs made by the strangers, and after a little practice he entered into a continued conversation with them in rather a roundabout way, being himself blind. He informed me that it was the second or third time within his recollection that strangers like those then present had come to Kinnik from the northeast, but that in his youth he had frequently "talked ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... woman whom he had meant to marry, and he had been sure that she would marry him; but after he had been a year in prison the news had come to him in a roundabout fashion that she had married another suitor. Even had she remained single he could not have approached her, least of all for aid. Then, too, through all his term she had made no sign, there had been no letter, no message; and he had received at first letters and flowers and messages ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a minute it was still in the consultery, save for the soft swish of the leaves overhead and roundabout. Then Jot broke out—a minute was Jot's utmost limit ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... say that it betrays the subtlety and slyness of the Oriental people. But they admired the serpent chiefly because, in their minds, it represented wisdom, the quiet and easy way of doing things, a little roundabout perhaps, but often better than the ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others. Nature puts him out. The impressions of real objects, stripped of the disguises of words and voluminous roundabout descriptions, are blows that stagger him; their variety distracts, their rapidity exhausts him; and he turns from the bustle, the noise, and glare, and whirling motion of the world about him (which he has not ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... with her prayer, which is all the plea that is needed to attract the love and mercy of Jesus. "Why not," ask certain people who have not thought out the meaning of Catholic dogma, "why not go at once to our Lord; why go in this roundabout way?" Why not? Because of our human qualities. Because we need company and sympathy. For the same reason precisely that makes us ask one another's prayers here. "The Father Himself loveth you." Why in this roundabout way ask me to pray? You do not come to me ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... edge of the rising plain, they drew rein and listened for the sound of pursuing hoof-beats. Facing their horses roundabout, they bent forward, their hands hollowed behind their ears. Out of the darkness, where it was gemmed by the lights of the town, came the sound ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... have been hearing both sides, English and the Hollanders, over and over again, and that the States have passed a provisional resolution, which however does not suit us. Now it is not reasonable, as we are allies, that our merchants should be obliged to send their cloths roundabout, not being allowed either to sell them in the United Provinces or to pass them through your territories. I wish I could talk with them myself, for I am certain, if they would send some one here, we could make an agreement. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of leaving the sofa. She has evidently come to Holchester House to say something—and she has not said it yet. Is she going to say it? Yes. She is going to get, by a roundabout way, to the object in view. She has another inquiry of the affectionate sort to make. May she be permitted to resume the subject of Lord and Lady Holchester's travels? They have been at Rome. Can they confirm the shocking intelligence which ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... and she ruled her pros. with a rod of iron. I expect that was good for them, and I say nothing as to that, but she was a beast to the boys. We had some poor chaps in who were damnably knocked about, and one could do a lot for them in roundabout ways. Regulations are made to be broken in some cases, I think. But she was a holy terror. Sooner than call her, the boys would endure anything, but some of us knew, and ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... a kind of consideration for the truth which led her to shrink from producing it on poor occasions. So she didn't say, "Dear me, Adeline, what humbug! you know you hate Verena and would be very glad if she were drowned!" She only said, "Well, I see; but it's very roundabout." What she did see was that Mrs. Luna was eager to help her to stop off Basil Ransom from "making head," as the phrase was; and the fact that her motive was spite, and not tenderness for the Bostonians, would not make her assistance less welcome if the danger were real. She herself had a nervous ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press, An' seeked him up the chimbley-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess; But all they ever found was thist his pants an' roundabout! An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you, ef ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... His rifle he had left with Sam. Either Plimsoll had not passed the peaks, was in the woods, or he had come and gone. Something told Sandy this last had not occurred. Travel beyond the peaks must have been hard and slow and roundabout for Plimsoll while he had tangented fast ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... known as Woot the Wanderer," answered the boy, "and I have come, through many travels and by roundabout ways, from my former home in a far corner of the Gillikin Country ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Whitford were riding back to town, taking a roundabout way, as the agent always did, to throw any ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... smuggling expedition was no longer a dream, but a real realness. Oswald felt almost too excited at first to be able to enjoy himself. I hope you will understand this and not think the author is trying to express, by roundabout means, that the sea did not agree with Oswald. This is not the case. He was perfectly well the whole time. It was Dicky who was not. But he said it was the smell of the cabin, and not the sea, and I am sure he thought ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... soever it may be gilded. The knave has a shrewd eye for a kirtle, and knows a wild duck from a tame as well as e'er a man in Perth. He were the last in the Fair City to take sour plums for pears, or my roundabout cousin Joan for this piece of fantastic vanity. I fancy his bearing was as much as to say, 'I will not see what you might wish me blind to'; and he is right to do so, as he might easily purchase himself a broken pate by meddling with my matters, and so he will be silent for his own sake. But whom ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... as it happened to be the wrong bell, he obtained the presence of Joseph in a roundabout way, through the agency of a gentleman-in-waiting. Such, however, is the human faculty of adaptation to environment that he was merely amused in the morning by an error which, on the previous night, would have put ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... in the new week, Agnes left London on her way to Ireland. As the event proved, this was not destined to be the end of her journey. The way to Ireland was only the first stage on a roundabout road—the road that led to ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... man, and one who had so recently taken his degree. It was the first opportunity he had ever had for a pleasure-trip, and taking his young wife with him (proud indeed, we may be sure, at this earliest honour of his life, the precursor of so many more) he went to Massachusetts by a somewhat roundabout but very picturesque route, down the Great Lakes, through the Thousand Islands, over the St. Lawrence rapids, and on to Quebec, the only town in America which from its old- world look can lay claim to ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... men senseless when he had arrested Moriarity, and took him to old Nance, the widow. Still later, you, Cook and Moriarity took refuge at Swanson's ranche in the Indian Territory, and after attempting to rob your host, which attempt was frustrated by my men, you came, in some roundabout way, to Chicago, where you put up at the Commercial Hotel, disguised by a false mustache. Every evening you went to West Lake street, and last night you were arrested. Now, Mr. Wittrock, what have you ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... uninteresting became exactly the reverse. Young men were found praying in their rooms. In one of them the bishop was heard leading a score of young men in prayer. Old-fashioned and old-time hymns were sung, fervent responses were heard, and scores of persons from roundabout professed to have found Christ. During six weeks this wonderful influence was felt. It extended for miles throughout the country. During that time four hundred persons took upon themselves the obligations of the Christian ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... gutters, and chimney-tops included,) all white-capt, black- hooded, and periwigg'd, or crop-ear'd up by the immobile vulgus: while the floating street-swarmers, who have seen us pass by at one place, run with stretched-out necks, and strained eye-balls, a roundabout way, and elbow and shoulder themselves into places by which we have not passed, in order to obtain another sight of us; every street continuing to pour out its swarms of late-comers, to add to the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... accessible by roundabout trail with a few tire tracks to point the way for Casey. Straight across the ridges, it would not have been more than two miles to Juniper Wells. Nevertheless not one man in a year would be tempted to come this way, unless ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... coals on the hearth and surveyed him. He had a red face and bashful eyes, and while the top of his head was quite bald, he had a half-circle of fuzz extending around his face from ear to ear. He wore a roundabout and trousers, and shoes with copper toes. His hands were fat and dimpled as well as freckled. Altogether, he had the appearance of a hugely overgrown boy, ducking his head shyly while Grandma Padgett ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... citizens were imprisoned, interned in reconcentrado camps, and otherwise maltreated. The nationality of American sufferers was in some cases disputed, and the necessity of dealing with each of these doubtful cases by the slow and roundabout method of complaint to Madrid, which referred matters back to Havana, which reported to Madrid, served but to add irritation to delay. American resentment, too, was fired by the sufferings of the Cubans ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... very commonplace advice and a very roundabout road; nevertheless 'tis a certain one, if by any road you desire to come to the new art, which is my subject to-night: if you do not, and if those germs of invention, which, as I said just now, are no doubt still ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... and obliterated every human impulse seeking expression. Man's existence is proof enough that nature was not altogether unpropitious, but offered, in an unlooked-for direction, some thoroughfare to the soul. Roundabout imperfect methods were discovered by which something at least of what was craved might be secured. The individual perished, yet not without having segregated and detached a certain portion of himself capable of developing a second body and mind. The potentialities of this seminal portion, having ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... "God, there's a roundabout way to tackle the question. If I were you, I'd just shoot him and let it go at that," said ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... over new and delightful books destined some day to claim their places beside the companion-volumes we have so many times taken down for pure enjoyment during the last twenty years. Do you remember, who read this brief notice of the man so recently passed away, a passage in one of these same "Roundabout Papers," where this sentence holds the eye half-way down the page,—"I like Hood's life even better than his books, and I wish with all my heart, Monsieur et cher confrere, the same could be said for both of us when the ink-stream of our life hath ceased to run"? Only they who knew Thackeray ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... He took a roundabout route home, for he did not want to see Nan until he had thought out this matter to his own satisfaction. To help people poorer or weaker than himself, or to "keep straight" himself, and help others ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... been rather hardly dealt with by critics. Shakespeare—than whom it would not be easy to find a better judge of what belongs to wisdom and goodness—seems to have meant him for a wise and good man: yet he represents him as having rather more skill and pleasure in strategical arts and roundabout ways than is altogether in keeping with such a character. Some of his alleged reasons for the action he goes about reflect no honour on him; but it is observable that the sequel does not approve them to have been his real ones: his conduct, as the action proceeds, infers better motives than his ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... where thee turned before them, (and, I warrant me, the evil creatures will turn wheresoever thee trail does); when we, if we have good luck, may slip quietly forward, and leave them, to follow us, after first taking the full swing of all thee roundabout vagaries." ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... yes—as it seemed to my unknowing mind: she had all the wind she could carry. The wind fretted the black sea until it broke all roundabout; and the punt heeled to the gusts and endlessly flung her bows up to the big waves; and the spray swept over us like driving rain, and was bitter cold; and the mist fell thick and swift upon the coast beyond. Jacky, forward with ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... attached to the opinion of the English people respecting any misconduct that was attributed to him. What I am about to state will afford another example of Bonaparte's disposition to employ petty and roundabout means to gain his ends. He gave a ball at Malmaison when Hortense was in the seventh month of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and contented, comfortable if not energetic and advanced. This is not a pushing town: it has never known a boom. That I'm sure will some day come, but I hope not in my time. I have faith in the mountains that fold us roundabout; they are rich with the possibilities of coal and iron, and year by year are being more and more widely opened up and developed; year by year the ranks of flaming, reeking coke ovens push farther on beside the railway that penetrates our valley. But ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... than half dead of fatigue, but their eyes blazing with such immensity and intensity of purpose it has been said the Germans fled, as before spirits, when they saw these men) had not only blocked the roundabout road to Paris; they had broken the morale of Von Buelow's crack troops. Without this brilliant maneuver and superb execution the successes of all the other armies must have gone ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... theoretically agreed, falls victim in practice to the fascinations of the dream-book cipher method which he has condemned. The adjective Freudian is now justly a by-word, among psychopathologists, for a stereotyped habit of reducing each item of a dream to some cryptic allusion or roundabout reference to the primitive demands of the infantile and sexual life. Freud's fertility in such interpretations has led one of our best-known experimental psychologists to say, in mingled admiration and impatience: ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... situation who comes, after a long round of worthless or hardening experiences, upon a young, unsophisticated, innocent soul, is apt either to hold aloof, out of a sense of his own remoteness, or to draw near and become fascinated and elated by his discovery. It is only by a roundabout process that such men ever do draw near such a girl. They have no method, no understanding of how to ingratiate themselves in youthful favour, save when they find virtue in the toils. If, unfortunately, ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... make my head go all swimmy, like being on a roundabout. It doesn't matter! Only, I hope we shall be able to see our dinner, that's all - because if it's invisible it'll be unfeelable as well, and then we can't eat it! I KNOW it will, because I tried ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... very roundabout way," she said. "It would have been seven miles nearer if you had come by the cross-road. But I suppose you thought you must ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... as the maid returns, Hortense at once leaves her modest quarters. The bills are all paid. Their belongings are packed as for departure. To the Hotel Meurice, by a roundabout route, mistress and maid repair. Hortense Duval is no more. A ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... shoulders I wore a garment familiarly known as a "cord jacket"—a roundabout of corduroy cloth, such as boys in the humbler ranks of life use to wear, or did when I was a boy. It was my everyday suit, and after my poor mother's death it had come to be my Sunday wear as well. Let us say nothing ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed utterly dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout individual with shining cheeks, looked at the official who had ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... days—and I was a fool to do it. I'd told Ivy where I was going to spread the chetah and that after that I'd come straight home. Well, the day seemed young and I thought if I hurried I could go home the roundabout way by the pitfalls in such good time that Ivy wouldn't know the difference. Well, sir, I came to the first pitfall—and, lo and behold! something had been and taken the bait and got away with it without so much as putting a ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the letters I received from the attorney in charge of the case is that they came here from New York, not directly but by some roundabout way." ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... in communication with them before he came,—which is no credit to a white man. Dubisson, my lieutenant, tells me that a Huron told his Indian servant that pictures of the prisoner drawn on bark had been scattered among the Indians for a fortnight past. The story was roundabout, and I could not run it down. But ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... to us at this spot over a road running between our wagon lines, half way between Flamingad and Breevland, about a thousand yards away, but they had to go in a roundabout way, traveling fully 800 yards out of the direct route on account of the ditches. It was a physical impossibility for the horses to bring up sufficient ammunition for the guns during the night, and they had to make the perilous trip many times during the day, and with the ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... past few months the telephone service in the neighborhood of Dexter's Corners had been greatly improved and the lines could be connected with nearly all of the villages and towns roundabout. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... to that, it does not matter at all which road you follow. All highways, as the saying is, lead roundabout to Koshchei. The one thing needful is not to stand still. This much I will tell you also for your song's sake, because that was an excellent song, and nobody ever made a song in praise ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... without so much as freedom to develop the ideas that were teeming in his mind. When he left Hamburg, however, he was destined never to return thither except as a visitor, and started on the long, roundabout way to an unforeseen new home in Vienna. He had been but little over a month in Paris when he learned of the death of the little son that Elise had borne him three years before. He was deeply grieved both for himself and for the despairing mother, to whom he offered all ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... made so much of at her age; make her, perhaps, egotistical and vain. But it was not Archie's way to show these fears openly. He did not weep loudly or throw things about as many boys might have done. His methods were more roundabout, more subtle. He gave hints and suggestions of his views that should have been understood by the intelligent. He said one morning ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... Sir Richard of the Lee, with his son and retinue, journeying in a roundabout way in order to throw Monceux off the scent, and so give Robin a chance to reach his stronghold in Barnesdale. Both knights paused in amazement to see this ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... his confidence by slow and roundabout steps, thus multiplying his difficulties in discharging his "duty." If Coulter's son had not been married to Malcolm's daughter, it is probable that not even his complete subserviency would have enabled him ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... Regiment was the first to "come." By a roundabout route it reached Washington on the morning of April 25, and, weary and travel-worn, but with banners flying and music playing, marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to the big white Executive Mansion, ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... up and have a bite if you don't keep me too long. You see I mean to make a roundabout trip into that stretch of woods you told us about I'd like the worst kind to get a crack at a deer. That ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... of this sort, much must be made sure Ere thou account of the thing itself canst give, And the approaches roundabout must be; Wherefore the more do I exact of thee ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... winding, roundabout march to Trintange. Here we were instructed to settle down for a week or ten days' halt, and many worse places might have been chosen. The country was very broken, with hills and ravines. Little ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... thinking the matter over, Claudet came to the conclusion that perhaps Julien was beginning to repent of his generosity, and that possibly this coolness was a roundabout way of manifesting his change of feeling. This seemed to be the only plausible solution of his cousin's behavior. "He is probably tired," thought he, "of keeping us here at the chateau, ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... roundabout mental process as the above the American comes to the conclusion that he need not necessarily adopt the other fellow's method of playing this game. His own method needs modification, but it will do. He ventures to leave out the tables ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... flights of fancy, that the book of travels which he was destined to write, would be translated into French by the order of Napoleon the First, for the express purpose of being studied by Marshal Bernadotte, with the view of enabling that warrior to devise a roundabout and unlooked-for attack on Canada—in rear, as it were—from the region of the northern wilderness—a fact which is well worthy of record! [See Appendix for an interesting ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... merest fraction of a man's experience in an hour. The speed of the eyesight and the hearing, and the continual industry of the mind, produce; in ten minutes, what it would require a laborious volume to shadow forth by comparisons and roundabout approaches. If verbal logic were sufficient, life would be as plain sailing as a piece of Euclid. But, as a matter of fact, we make a travesty of the simplest process of thought when we put it into words; for ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was sent to Tigranes (now Clodius was the brother of the then wife of Lucullus), was at first conducted by the king's guides through the upper part of the country, by a route unnecessarily circuitous and roundabout, and one that required many days' journeying; but, as soon as the straight road was indicated to him by a freedman, a Syrian by nation, he quitted that tedious and tricky road, and, bidding his barbarian guides farewell, he crossed the Euphrates in a few days, and arrived at Antiocheia,[384] ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... honour of the country should be committed to their hands. With a small force, complete in itself, at the disposal of such men, more could be effected at the moment for the honour and interests of the country than by long and roundabout despatches, passing through so many hands that one fool in authority nullifies all, as a bad link in an otherwise good chain renders the whole useless. Omitting the other portions of the correspondence, the following letter from Major-general ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... as Quiz learned, in a roundabout way, where and when the feast was to be held, he came rushing into Tug's room, where the Dozen had gathered Saturday evening after a long day spent in skating on the first heavy ice of ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... hostile foreign circles, of conspiring with the leaders of the revolution now brewing in China. He declared that the Washington officials were even charged with sending the gold to the rebels by the roundabout way of ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... his old haunts, yet taking a roundabout road, as the moth is drawn to the candle, or as water descends to its level, he went slowly on, having little hope of comfort in his home, and not knowing very well ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... have gone to England, intending to take a roundabout course and rejoin the vessel at Leghorn or Naples several weeks hence. We came near going to Geneva, but have concluded to return to Marseilles and go up through ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she saw me, "what do you think? His Majesty and the Doctor-in-Law and the others are down at the fair by Hammersmith Bridge, and they are 'aving such a lark. I see them all 'aving a roundabout as I was coming past on my way 'ome from my sister's just now; such a crowd there was a cheering and a hollering. Cocoa-nut shies, too, a boy told me they had been 'aving, and old Aunt Sally, and donkey rides along the ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... so fearful in reporting the dangerous part of this interview, on account of the many spies not only in my own Embassy but also in the State Department, that I sent but a very few words in a roundabout way by courier direct ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... the employer would thereby be increased to the same extent, or a change in the method of raising taxes would have taken place. Instead of the capitalist advancing to-day in wages the taxes which the worker must pay, he would no longer pay them in this roundabout fashion, but directly to the State. If wages are higher in North America than in Europe, this is by no means due to its lighter taxation. It is the consequence of its territorial, commercial, and industrial situation. The demand for ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... to prove from this quotation out of the Book of Deuteronomy that all men who are under the Law are under the sentence of sin, of the wrath of God, and of everlasting death. Paul produces his proof in a roundabout way. He turns the negative statement, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them," into a positive statement, "As many as are of the works of the law are ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... long stretches of country without a sign of civilization, though of course a train went so much faster than a horse that he had no adequate means of judging. Then, besides, they were on no trail now, and had probably gone in a most roundabout way to anywhere. In reality they had twice come within five miles of little homesteads, tucked away beside a stream in a fertile spot; but they had not known it. A mile further to the right at one spot would have put them on the trail and made their way easier ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... you have been! But I don't suppose you are worse than I was at Doncaster. I will have nothing to do with such people as Comfort and Criball. That is the sure way to the D——! As for telling Moreton, that is only a polite and roundabout way of telling the governor. He would immediately ask the governor what was to be done. You will see what I have done. Of course I must tell the governor before the end of February, as I cannot get the money in any other ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... covered with heavy growth of timber. We reached the spot where we had concealed our horses without difficulty, and made the best of our way home. In order to avoid hostile war parties we were obliged to take a roundabout course, and it was not until the eighteenth day after our departure that we reached the village. The tribe had given us over for lost, but when they saw us returning with nine scalps and with but one of our party hurt, their grief gave way to admiration, and ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... but the boys went with him just the same, and they never noticed how little he was washed and dressed. The best of them had not an overcoat; and underclothing was unknown among them. When a boy had buttoned up his roundabout, and put on his mittens, and tied his comforter round his neck and over his ears, he ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... you want to do, that you are asking my permission in this roundabout way? What do you want to do, that you think will ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... co-operation with the other part of his forces, Y and Z, because Y and Z (acting as they are on an outside circumference split by the fortified zone SSS) will be separated, or only able to connect in a long and roundabout way. The two lots, V and W, and Y and Z, could only join hands by stretching round an awkward angle—that is, by stretching round the bulge which SSS makes, SSS being the ring of forts round Namur. Part of their forces (that along ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... instant, a slave named George, between twenty and twenty-four years of age, five feet five or six inches high, slender made, stoops when standing, a little bow legged; generally wears right and left boots and shoes; had on him when he left a fur cap, a checked stock, and linen roundabout; had with him other clothing, a jean coat with black horn buttons, a pair of jean pantaloons, both coat and pantaloons of handsome grey mixed; no doubt other clothing not recollected. He had with him a common silver watch; he wears his ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... "I really think," she said, "I should have been made aware of that. To have had a young relative presented without one's knowledge seems too extraordinary. No," she continued, turning to poppa, "the only thing I heard of this young lady—it came to me in a very roundabout manner—was that she had gone home to be married. Was not that your intention?" asked Mrs. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's hand and laughing himself. "You think my ambition as nonsensical as if I were to freeze myself to death on the top of Mount Washington only that people might spy at me from the country roundabout. And truly that would be a noble pedestal ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... universal procedures is not rational, as I am rational when I weed my garden, prune my trees, select my seed or my stock, or arm myself with tools or weapons. In such matters I take a short cut to that which Nature reaches by a slow, roundabout, and wasteful process. How does she weed her garden? By the survival of the fittest. How does she select her breeding-stock? By the law of battle; the strongest rules. Hers, I repeat, is a slow and wasteful process. She fertilizes the soil by plowing in the crop. She cannot take ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... roundabout way she made her confession, if it could be called such. It filled several sheets of paper, and it took over half an hour. It contained but little more than what my readers already know or suspect. She knew positively that Mr. Aaron Woodward was the forger of the ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... came through father. He was the intelligence man, and had all the news sent to him—roundabout it might be, but it always came, and was generally true; and the old man never troubled anybody twice that he couldn't believe in, great things or small. Well, word was passed about a branch bank at a place called Ballabri, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... not count much on what information might come from the head clerk. Blossom, in the mind of Dr. Lambert, was a person of not much strength of character. There had been certain episodes in his life, information as to which had come to the physician in a roundabout way, that did not reflect on him very well; though, in truth, he felt that the man was weak ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... Harry's grave eyes were always wandering, and Miss Jennie Overstreet, who was romantic and openly now wrote poems for the Observer, and who looked at Chad with no attempt to conceal her admiration of his appearance and her wonder as to who he was. And there were the neighbors roundabout—the Talbotts, Quisenberrys, Clays, Prestons, Morgans—surely no less than forty strong, and all for dinner. It was no little trial for Chad in that crowd of fine ladies, judges, soldiers, lawyers, statesmen—but he stood ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... to their posts, while Henry and his captain passed out of the house and went down the street. Instead of going directly to their destination, the two made their way by a roundabout route and kept a sharp lookout lest they should meet the grocer or his boy. But they passed almost no one and came soon to a little white house, not far from the grocer's store, that was set back in a yard behind a high hedge. Connected with the house was a small garage, built so as to ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... such advisers, it is not {17} surprising that Sir James Craig soon took umbrage at the language and policy of Le Canadien. At first he made his displeasure felt in a somewhat roundabout way. In the summer of 1808 he dismissed from the militia five officers who were reputed to have a connection with that newspaper, on the ground that they were helping a 'seditious and defamatory journal.' One of these officers ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... a roundabout way behind the village and saw the great big stone, such a heavy stone that five or six strong peasants could never begin to move it. But our poor fellow with his faithful Woe Bogotir removed it at once. They looked inside. Under the ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various
... little of domestic affairs at Ashfield. He knew scarce more of the family relations of Adele than was covered by that confidential announcement of the parson's which had so set on fire his generous zeal. The spinster, indeed, in one of her later letters had hinted, in a roundabout manner, that Adele's family misfortunes were not looking so badly as they once did,—that the poor girl (she believed) felt tenderly still toward her old playmate,—and that Mr. Maverick was, beyond all question, a gentleman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... indeed that we can do so, being both for a while longer in the day. But, alas! when I see "works of the late J. A. S.,"[63] I can see no help and no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I think, three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he had received it, waited in vain for an answer (which had probably miscarried), and in a humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night, and the voice is silent that uttered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I seized the keys, unlocked the outer gates and ran for my life. I feared I would be seen and recognized if I came directly through Kief, so I ran to the outskirts of the town and came here by a roundabout road. I have walked and run for the last two hours, through mud and rain, through swamps and ditches, until my feet would support me no longer. I thought ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... upon the Romans. Sharp encounters took place, and many fell wounded and slain on both sides, and there seemed but little likelihood of thus ending the war; when some of the men, who fed their cattle thereabouts, came to Titus with a discovery, that there was a roundabout way which the enemy neglected to guard; through which they undertook to conduct his army, and to bring it within three days at furthest, to the top of the hills. To gain the surer credit with him, they said that Charops, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting the thread of the evidence. It was not held to be proper to administer an oath to an infant. But in a roundabout way it was proved that the identical bludgeon had been picked up in the garden. There was an elaborate surveyor's plan produced of the passage, the garden, and the wall,—with the steps on which it was supposed that the blow ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... surprised him by their number and proximity. Nothing like this was to be seen at home. Well knowing that in these villages he ran much more risk of detection than in the open country, he henceforth did his best to avoid them, by taking a roundabout course whenever they came in sight from a distance. This mode of travelling not only lengthened his journey, but put unlooked-for obstacles in his path—walls, ditches, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... that the young man had just arrived and was fatigued by the trials and perils of his trip, for he must have come by some roundabout way; and very likely he felt nervous and uneasy in the midst of people who were loyal to the government and the Union. Captain Passford decided to say nothing more to his nephew at present as to the occasion and the ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... thought more than I have ever done in all my life. When I read in the paper this morning that you said the Blue Disease conferred immortality on people I was not surprised. I had come to the same conclusion in a roundabout way. But I want to ask you one question. Did you know ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... disobedience receives its just recompense of reward.' Life is full of consequences of evil-doing. Even here and now we reap as we have sown. Every sin is a mistake, even if we confine our view to the consequences sought for in this life by it, and the consequences actually encountered. 'A rogue is a roundabout fool.' True, we believe that there is a future reaping so complete that it makes the partial harvests gathered here seem of small account. But the framer of this proverb, who had little knowledge of that future, had seen enough in the meditative survey of this present to make ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... executive. There may have been truth in that. Your man of timid, slim, and shallow mediocrities, comparable to a canal, is not to be despised. He will not be the Mississippi, truly; he will sweep away no bridges, overflow no regions roundabout; no navies will battle on his bosom; the world in its giant commerces will not make of him a thoroughfare. But he will mean safety and profit for a horde of little special selfish interests, and that ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... once smoked a pipe of Irish tobacco, and said "Never Again"; that the slipper-limpet, formerly the terror of the oyster-beds had now by the ingenuity of his Department been transformed into a valuable source of poultry-food, and that the roundabout process by which the Germans in bygone days imported eel-fry from the Severn for their own rivers, and then exported the full-grown fish for the delectation of East-end dinner-tables, had been done away with. In the matter of eels this country is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... and he saw Catharine leave her friends at the Rectory, for they were evidently going to stay the night there. Mrs. Cardew went into the house first, but Catharine turned down Fosbrooke Street, a street which did not lead, save by a very roundabout way, to the Terrace. Presently Mr. Cardew came out and walked slowly down Rectory Lane. In those days it was hardly a thoroughfare. It ended at the river bank, and during daylight a boat was generally there, belonging to an ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... come, which will not be long, I will give you a groat.' Says the man; 'I will drive them there for nothing, for as my way lies past that same public-house I can easily afford to do so.' So Tom leaves the oxen with the man, and by rough and roundabout road makes for the public-house—beyond Brecon, where he finds the man waiting with the oxen, who hands them over to him and goes on his way. Now, in the man brought up before him and the other big wigs on the bench for stealing the bullock, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... competent to read the periodicals and newspapers of the day. This was a very praiseworthy resolution to make, but to ordinary persons how utterly impossible of attainment it must have seemed when all things were against them. By a roundabout way he so far advanced as to be able to understand what certain figures on a salt-barrel meant; but he had not even a primer or spelling-book until, on being earnestly requested to do so, his mother was successful in her strenuous endeavours ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... the road to the frontier, he strolled about the town, went by roundabout ways, returned on his steps, assuring himself that he was ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... bring to naught the cunning of his great enemy, the principal war-chief of the Apaches. But the truth was, the camps of the scout and the redskins were not so widely separated as Mickey and Fred believed. He had selected the best site possible, and took a roundabout course in going to or from it, as he had more means given him of concealing his trail. There were places where the soil was so rocky and stony that the foot left not the slightest imprint of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... and men were therefore rushed from the eastern and western fronts to the south of the Carpathians to form the three armies we have labeled A, B, and C. The points of attack for which they were intended have already been stated; but the roundabout manner in which they traveled to their respective sections is both interesting and worthy of notice. At this stage a new spirit seemed to dominate Austro-Hungarian military affairs; we suddenly encounter greater precision, sounder ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... consequently the writer began devoting more time to his linguistic studies. Difficult as the language seems to be upon one's first introduction to it, it was not long before I was able to understand much of what was said to me, and to express myself in a vague roundabout way. In the latter operation I was much assisted by a peculiar faculty of divination which the Russian peasant possesses to a remarkably high degree. If a foreigner succeeds in expressing about one-fourth of an idea, the Russian peasant can generally fill up the remaining three-fourths from ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... superior in its line claims my homage, and this man was the ideal bartender, above all vulgar passions, untouched by commonplace sympathies, himself a lover of the liquid happiness he dispenses, and filled with a fine scorn of all those lesser felicities conferred by love or fame or wealth or any of the roundabout agencies for which his fiery elixir is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the bolt which kept them from entering the passage from the corridor of the Chateau Larouge and thus forcing them to take a long, roundabout journey to "The Twisted Arm," had not counted on their shortening that journey by entering the passage from Fouchard's tavern, doing, in fact, the very thing which he had declared to Margot he himself had done. And lo! here they were, howling and crowding about him, dirks in their hands and ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man's house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes. I should be proud to have for the motto of my cabin those lines of Spenser which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... nearer to religious convictions. Thus the means which allow men, up to a certain point, to go without religion, are perhaps after all the only means we still possess for bringing mankind back by a long and roundabout path to a ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... new step gaining instantly in popularity, fresh couples adventuring with every number. The word "step" is somewhat misleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutions introduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by a roundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness in gallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative from the South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself with a carefree negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... if they did not rather stand still, for several days before Pierston redeemed his vague promise to seek Avice out. And in the meantime he was surprised by the arrival of another letter from her by a roundabout route. She had heard, she said, that he had been on the island, and imagined him therefore to be staying somewhere near. Why did he not call as he had told her he would do? She was always thinking of him, ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy |
