Citations:about

English citations of about

			1678	1719	1843 1851	1949
ME «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

• 1678 — John Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress.

  Nay, then, thought I, if that you breed so fast, I'll put you by yourselves, lest you at last Should prove ad infinitum, and eat out The book that I already am about.

  CHR. I am directed by a man, whose name is Evangelist, to speed me to a little gate that is before us, where we shall receive instructions about the way.

  And he said unto me, This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place.

• 1719 — Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe.

  It was not till almost a year after this that I broke loose, though, in the meantime, I continued obstinately deaf to all proposals of settling to business, and frequently expostulated with my father and mother about their being so positively determined against what they knew my inclinations prompted me to.

  Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations about the middle station of life, how easy, how comfortably he had lived all his days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea or troubles on shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true repenting prodigal, go home to my father.

  But if I can express at this distance the thoughts I had about me at that time, I was in tenfold more horror of mind upon account of my former convictions, and the having returned from them to the resolutions I had wickedly taken at first, than I was at death itself; and these, added to the terror of the storm, put me into such a condition that I can by no words describe it.

• 1843 — Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol.

  He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

  If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.

  "There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas.

• 1851 — Herman Melville. Moby Dick.

  "The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of Nantucket." — "NARRATIVE OF THE GLOBE," BY LAY AND HUSSEY SURVIVORS.

  Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

  Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

• 1949 June 26, Ann Hightower, “If Paris Is Can-Can, New York Is Tom-Tom”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN, page 167:

  Many visitors to France will go back to the States after a three months' fling of night spots and sight-seeing without remarking that can-can girls and champagne play about the same part in French life today as the tom-tom and totem pole in American life.